I finally figured out the stats of my blog site and turns out I have more than one reader.  Huzzah!  The most interest was my recent EcoPartyDownload...so here's to listening and continuing that conversation. These type of posts take me a lot more time, but is it worth it?  Give the people what they want?  You tell me! 

I had to update the "Meet Megan" section of this blog recently and realized I've been doing environmental work for almost 15 years.  Shoot. Time flies.  But then again, in such a fast-moving and constantly evolving profession as sustainability has turned out to be, that feels like light years ago.  Particularly when thinking about the future I see for how corporate sustainability is shifting.  And in this regard, the environmental movement and its theory of change going back decades has not yet embraced what I believe to be the greatest opportunity for corporate America to "step up".  But before I can get to advocating for what I think is the answer, we have to get on the same page, and that involves dipping into how we all got here (I'll make it quick! Like ripping off a band-aid).  But I really do have to give you the skinny on why the environmentalists got to their belief system on what causes corporations to reduce their impact on the planet.  They have a really good reason for being that way.

In the days of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and the blue marble photo of Earth that sparked the environmental movement, there wasn't a political lens to it.  I mean, consider: who doesn't benefit or get impacted by waterways, drinking water and air clean of pollution? Passage of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act were strongly supported on a bipartisan basis by Congress (I know...feels like a fairy tale to say that these days!).  And then....came the reaction.  The backlash.  President Reagan's underlying principle of "economy vs environment" meant appointing a blatantly anti-environmentalist to lead the EPA and ripping out the solar water heating system installed by President Carter.  Which all led to the formalization and codification of environmental issues being deeply partisan with the GOP being "anti" for all things environmental, and that divide has stayed the rule pretty much to this day.  With the notable and extremely temporary exception of when climate had it's moment in 2007 where conservatives supported taking action until they collapsed into this still toxic and resistant strain of denialism. Deep roots that denialism has. Sigh.  Anyways, that concrete-like hardening on the political front was a result of multinational corporations deciding that environmental regulation was onerous, expensive and corporates came in heavy to all levels of government against any further action.

So how did this play out outside of the Beltway?  How were companies interacting on environmental issues in their business during the 80s and 90s before corporate sustainability became "a thing"?
(Read on below the jump)

I'm always so much more of a visual learner.  And thankfully in corporate America we're in a world of PowerPoint decks which lends itself well to my existing preference (shoutout to my people with different abilities though...sorry friends I'm sure it's hard to adapt!)

Anyways, I have finally been trying to get my Twitter on for these posts so that I could have more than you, my dear singular reader.  So I've written a couple on the post that was most difficult and scary for me...The Act of Listening, Especially When It's Hard...in which I steeped myself in the ways I could in the black experience to extend my support of Black Lives Matter to the Kaepernick peaceful protests through understanding...especially in light of him being the most disliked player in the league and death threats.  Holy cannoli that's aggressive of us America!  It's called exercising his Constitutional right to freedom of expression...take a deep breath and chiiillllllllll.  Anyways, my decision to purposefully increase exposure and understanding worked pretty well in terms of increasing my empathy.  And so far the interwebs hasn't pilloried me for trying to engage in a race conversation as a white person (thank you for that, my dear singular reader!)

Saw this graphic from Think Progress and just love everything about what it says.  Americans standing up together with Kaepernick in solidarity of his peaceful protest.  I think it gives new and deeper meaning to the phrase "When the Game Stands Tall".

I was very scattershot about podcast listening, but have recently discovered them while traveling (no eyestrain during turbulence!) which means with my work travel I'm becoming a regular.  Have a long car ride to Palm Springs? Finally caught up on the entirety of Serial season 1.  So over this past weekend, I went through a number of the TED Radio Hour podcasts, and this one about Crisis & Response had a great mention of something I had never heard before.  One of the segments is about a man who lost all of his money in the Madoff ponzi scheme.  He spoke about how he finally connected with others who lost everything who had decided to think about it differently....they had embraced with gratitude that the experience had made them more connected to others than ever before.  He ultimately learns as well to overcome the blaming and shaming of the experience, determining that just because he lost all of his money to Madoff, he didn't want to surrender who he was as a person as well.  

When pivoting towards advice for others to "prepare", he says two things which I agree with whole-heartedly:

1. Know that you will have a crisis in your life.  That the concept of living a charmed life free of crises is not possible for anyone, so that when something does take place that unbalances you, you only experience the shock of what your are actually losing or dealing with...not the amplified shock of "I can't believe something like this could ever happen to me".  Ummm...YES. 
   
2. He quotes a principle called basic trust, which I had not heard of before and am already 200% in support of:

(Read more after the jump)

What a difference 3 weeks makes!  Since I first blogged about the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Native American protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, the situation looked bleak.  I mean really horrifying with protesters bitten by security dogs drawing blood and attacked by pepper spray awful.  But since then the movement has netted real results.  And I hope this march towards justice achieves its aim.

Most recent, 1,200 archaeologists wrote a letter to President Obama condemning the damage to our cultural heritage of one of the most significant sites in North Dakota that the Pipeline LLC company did by bulldozing Tribal burial grounds.  This is the incident that led to the above atrocities...and the fact that the Dakota Pipeline company did it without permission from the Army Corps of Engineers and ONE DAY AFTER the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed the location of these sacred sites makes them as I've opined before: corporate psychopaths.  So huzzah  for the experts agreeing.

Most importantly, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has received an even greater step/win with an official halt on pipeline construction order from a Federal Appeals court, which is significant because the Obama Administration letter was only a request in support of a stoppage.  Not to mention the protest at the White House over this issue (raised profile is a good thing for justice!) or the consultations with the administration.

Having read a lot of Brene Brown lately, I am beginning to understand the power of shame to prevent conversations that desperately need to happen.  As a white person, I believe it's important to recognize the impediment fear of shame brings to this conversation and acknowledge this history so we can start to do right.  This video handles the subject with humor (which I always appreciate).  Worth a watch...what did you think?  

I used to think the world was so organized.  Blame it on the media I grew up with - a book, a movie, a television show.  Everything seemed so neatly organized into distinct units with a beginning, middle and end.  So I've become increasingly interested in gatherings that defy my own limitation.  Climate Week NYC is one of those weeks.  It has become a week on the calendar where strategic, global thinkers on climate from government, private sector, universities...anywhere...swarm the city and all kinds of micro and macro announcements are made.  More importantly, all kinds of connections are made between those with funding to those with the big ideas that are going to solve this thing.

And almost in perfect PR unity, the Empire State Building, eco-famous for it's own massive environmental retrofit, now has LED lights (eco-perfect!) which can mark the occasion.

Excited to see what comes out of this Climate Week 2016!  Take a look at the 3 minute overview video on the organizing group.  FWIW...pretty proud I'm one of the 100,000 EVs driving on the road in the U.S.  "Everything we do locally will have an impact globally"...pretty slick quote and I dig it.

This post took me a few days to write and get the courage to share...because for me this post is really hard.  I'm grateful that my job allows me to learn from the best in the field of engaging in race related conversations.  That being said, I'm white and I still suck at it.  Evidence in a recent  Facebook "conversation" that went poorly.  But I've learned to think of this as work, because that's what the "Courageous Conversations" class called it.  I've learned to think of engaging in the conversation as important to live my values, that silence is consent, that being neutral in the face of injustice is not the answer nor the way forward.  So here we are.  If you could read with a belief in my good intentions dear singular reader, I think we'll find our way onward together. 

Sunday September 11 passed and it was 15 years.  In the years since I've been humbled by people's experiences and loss. I like every other American have memories of that day, but some people's memories are more visceral and painful than others like mine. Finding out a classmate from business school was focused on renewable energy because he lost a brother that day and wanted to help get American dependence off foreign oil, that humbles me to this day.  About a month ago I watched The Falling Man, which is a horrifying refresh of the realities of that day, and of the sanitation we went through as a country to try to heal from this terrorism and tragedy.

But this year I wanted to do something other than post about it personally.  Rather than watch Zero Dark Thirty which has become my go-to way to deal with feeling terrorized.  Maybe I was inspired by the TED radio podcast the Act of Listening.  Maybe recently watching The Falling Man felt like enough remembrance of that day.  Maybe it was the fact that Straight Outta Compton on dvd was sitting on my table from Netflix that got me thinking.  Reminded me about #Oscarssowhite. And reading on why the ad industry's diversity initiatives are failing.  Got me thinking about Colin Kaepernick's nonviolent act of protest of kneeling during the anthem, and both the negative reaction he had received and the acts of support from fellow NFL players and one of my hometown female soccer athletes.  And my thought process was this: I wouldn't protest the anthem nor burn the flag, and I will fight for my fellow Americans Constitutional right to do so...but more importantly...why do they feel the need to do so? What is their experience that has driven them to do so on September 11, this sacred American day? 

I decided instead of looking online at the 9/11 remembrances and instead of posting on my Facebook, that this year I would spend that day listening.  That I would try to understand what I do not "get" based upon my own experience in the most accessible way I could: movies.  I would listen by watching Selma and Straight Outta Compton back-to-back as an active steeping in the African American experience and community.  And here's the thing that shook out for me by watching these two movies back-to-back that reach back to the 1960s and the 1990s:  how very little has changed.   Time has passed, but even this recent history has a way of repeating itself.

It's still hard for me to personally imagine kneeling during the anthem on September 11...but that's because I haven't faced the decades long injustices and struggle of African Americans in this country.  And if that were my experience, I would be hard pressed to find ways to get people to listen.  I would be out of avenues that weren't like kneeling during the anthem.  The backlash that has come to the leaders whose voices have been heard and led to change for these communities is severe.  In the 1960s, they were murdered.  In the 1990s, they were discounted and silenced in the mainstream media as thugs. 

What happened when NWA were interviewed by the mainstream media in the 1990s has almost no difference to the way we've engaged in the mainstream media about Black Lives Matter.  The average American and the media has only given space to address the "how" there's been engagement in the conversation.  The outrage at the method as a way to ignore the message.  I keep thinking what I would do if my voice wasn't heard and I felt my life was on the line?  Any rational human would say it louder or find new ways to get themselves heard, myself included. 

So through the act of listening in the way available to me, I empathized and I learned.  And decided firmly that it's not hard to see how we've gotten here at all.  I for one want to count my voice in with their movement for justice.  Silence is not the answer nor the way forward and I believe more people like me - aka white - need to be anti-racism not just not racist. 

I may just be one voice in the void, but I think it matters, because that's what enviro(ish) is all about:
Because you can despair that each action you take is only one tiny drop in the ocean....or you can be inspired that the ocean is made up entirely of tiny drops.

At my best friend's wedding in May, I caught up with a friend from college I hadn't seen in a few years.  She offhand mentioned Brene Brown and I asked who that was.  Her response included "you are basically what Brene Brown is all about."  So when I made it back home I watched her first TED talk on the Power of Vulnerability, immediately followed by her second TED talk on Listening to Shame.  Within 5 minutes of finishing I texted my friend and said how obsessed I had become with this message...how honored I was to be thought of as "whole-hearted"...and she sent me Brene's Daring Greatly book and I read it start to finish.  It's safe to say it has been a life-changing reframe for me.  I read the "Man in the Arena" aka "Daring Greatly" quote often to stay grounded and inspired.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'd encourage you to take some time to listen to her TED talks in order.  For the purposes of this blog....finding inspirations that will keep us going...I enjoyed discovering Brene's talk to 99u, which is about supporting the "99% perspiration" principle in the creative community.  In it, she focuses on the sweat we expend because of fear of criticism and she extends the arena metaphor to walk us all through how to deal with critics and how to make sure we reserve the best seats for our champions and ourselves.

I love this talk (and I re-listen to it often!) because I think the messaging of feedback and criticism is missing what this brings to it.  In business school you have to be open to feedback and it's seen as extremely negative if you are not.  But we know there is some criticism that is not helpful, on the far end, there's bullying and trolls and the like.  So how do we differentiate constructive feedback from criticism and more importantly, how do we forge ahead when faced with a landslide of criticism?  The power is immense in what she's saying here...knowing what the critics will say and saying back: "I see you, I hear you, but I'm going to show up and do this anyway".   Bless.

Steep yourself in some Brene Brown...you won't regret!

So I'm clearly pro-Obama.  On this blog I've called him my Prezzy in Rezzy and POTUS with the MOSTUS.  This I know, dear lone reader.  But this time around, when Obama finally said the words that I've been waiting to hear for 2788 days of his Presidency (not to mention eight. extremely. looooooooong. years. of that Dubb-ya fella)...when Obama finally said to the press comments on climate change in real terms the way I've long hoped and expected my President to say...it's as awesome as it is bittersweet.  I can only explain it by saying this: if you've been waiting at a restaurant to be served dinner and after hours and hours the waiter finally drops off dessert minutes before the restaurant closes...how much do you enjoy the dessert?  Isn't the decadence lessened by the long wait and by the coming close? 

I can only relish Obama's climate change talk in the context of his arrival to the end of his POTUS-ness.  Not to mention the sword of Damocles of it potentially all coming undone when an under-minded and small-handed Donald Drumpf potentially wins. God help us all. So even though Obama has done amazing work and joined the Paris Agreement which I've waited my whole enviro(ish) life to see....I just need to take just a beat, just a few short minutes, to point out how absurdly long it took President Obama to get here and finally give this interview to the NY Times on climate.  Seems only fair to have one little blog posted into the interwebs abyss after waiting 66,912 hours.  4,147,320 minutes.  You get the idea.

Because yes.  Obviously.  Absolutely.  He said the things I've longed and ached to hear from POTUS about this issue.  That climate change is terrifying and hearing about it in briefings both depresses people in his Administration and spurs them into action.  That what makes it difficult is the fact it's not an "instantaneous catastrophic event" but "a slow-moving issue that, on a day-to-day basis, people don’t experience and don’t see."  That it's the greatest long-term threat facing the world, one that could lead to massive refugee crises (multiple!) and political instability unseen in our lifetimes.  Welcome to me circa 2002 when I first started looking at these charts and trends.  I mean for reals.  Seriously. I still remember experiencing heart-racing panic in my environmental studies classes.  Actual to-my-bone-marrow, all-out PANIC that this was happening and people were still going about their daily lives in trucks and SUVs, leaving their lights on and letting the A/C or heat out.  Didn't they KNOW?  I remember thinking how panicked they would be too if only they had the same information I did...that any person with even a bit of common sense would be equally freaked out.  If only I could snap them out of it we could get down to doing some real change.  But alas,  I would fail for many years due to a well-funded counter-opinion war by oil companies.  Really "great corporate citizens" who hired literally the same guy that worked for tobacco companies trying to sway opinions that smoking didn't cause cancer to also combat opinions that climate change isn't real and we're not the cause.  No, I'm not kidding.

So it's rewarding to hear my inner dialogue, the one based upon facts and reason and logic...and you know...SCIENCE...coming out of the lips of the person sitting in the most important job in the country and arguably around the globe.  That's a great and wonderful and amazing thing, and my environmentalish philosophy is to celebrate the good...so I'm celebrating it.  I promise.  But 2788 days into his Presidency, I also have to ask just this once, why did it take this obscenely long?

I finally caught up with Al Gore's most recent TED talk from earlier this year giving the latest updates on climate change and the case for optimism.  That's right, optimism!  The results are compelling when it comes to the clean energy revolution, eye-popping proof positive that we are not only going to win this in future tense, but are already on an accelerated path towards winning it right now. 

I'll go through the facts and figures in a future post (or posts...there's a LOT of them!) but as usual wanted to make this personal.  So gotta give a requisite SPOILER ALERT.  Al Gore ends his TED talk with a remembrance to when he was young and heard President Kennedy announce that we would land a man on the moon within ten years.  He recalls hearing adults of the day say that it's reckless, expensive and will fail.  But lo, eight years and two months later when Neil Armstrong stepped out onto the moon, the cheer that went up from NASA's mission control was done by a group of systems engineers average age 26.  Meaning they were 18 when they heard Kennedy's announcement and the subtext is that Kennedy's inspiration drove them to commit their careers to space...a mission that proliferated technologies and brought us the "blue marble" view of our planet that helped birth the environmental movement.

My friends, that is me.  I am that "space nerd" except the cause that rallied me was climate change.  At the age of 19 when I began learning about this issue and all environmental issues I felt a deep and lasting pull of the significance of the damage we have caused not only to the planet but to the ecosystems on which we depend for our lives.  What better purpose in life could I find than dedicating myself to overcoming a seemingly insurmountable issue that will save humanity?  By the time An Inconvenient Truth came out I was already on the journey and it just added fuel to my en fuego (thank you to my enviro professor & honors thesis advisor who gifted me this book!)  I've worked in environmental positions since undergrad, always seeking new opportunities to have an even greater impact.  I even spent the dark climate backlash years posting on social media in a failed attempt to change hearts & minds (not sure that worked...a bit of self-reflective criticism on this blog too.  Am I speaking into the void?  What do you think dear reader, my dear singular reader?)

People confuse optimism with naivete.  That optimism can only happen if you don't have enough reality.  I can't tell you the number of times people have looked at me and stated directly that I just don't know better, I'm too young, or rhetorically did a pat on the head for "that's cute" that I have this passion for our planet.  I strongly, whole-heartedly and forever disagree.  And the systems engineers in mission control would too. 

I have walked through the hellfire of what I like to call "eco depression".  I went deep into the dark depths of how badly we've choked ourselves and other living creatures on this planet.  But here's the thing: I've come out the other side.  My optimism comes precisely because I have a strong dose of reality.  I know exactly how steep the path is towards that destruction, but I see the ladders to redemption too, and I choose to go there and bring as many people as I can with me. I choose to amplify and enable those opportunities.  I've made it my life journey and career to find those ladders and invite others to see them and join me on the climb.  "Alone we can go fast, but together we can go far."

It doesn't mean I don't hear "no".  In fact it's quite the opposite.  I hear Oh. So. MANY. No's.  I laugh a little too hard and personally at lines in movies of "No? Is the only word you know, NO?"  But I see those no's as someone who just hasn't gotten the right or enough information to see what I see. 

So get dosed in reality and join team optimistic on climate change.  Take a look at America's climate-explainer-in-chief on the latest for climate change and why we all have cause and hope to be optimistic...I know I am!

So I work for "the man" and I've been around corporate America these last 7+ years.  I like to think of myself as a middle-of-the-road kind of gal.  But the more I dig into the facts and what's happening since my #NoDAPL blogpost on the outrageous event that happened when Native Americans this past holiday weekend stood with Standing Rock Sioux against the Dakota Pipeline and were bitten by dogs and attacked with pepperspray...the more outrageous such an already obscene event has become.  The more I'm certain that this corporate entity is the epitome of a bad actor and evil in both its actions and its premeditated intentions.  If "corporations are people" according to the Supreme Court, then Enbridge and Dakota Access LLC are diagnosed psychopaths.  Here's why....

I've been trying to find my own theory of change when it comes to social impact.  I've clearly pegged myself to finding positions of influence on topics of sustainability, environment and now diversity within an organization or "the system".  I still believe that working within an organization is the greatest opportunity to change it, and more importantly, to change it sustainably.  But I struggle with the posture I should take.  As I've grown professionally, I've discovered both the criticality of what it means to be a change agent and the negative feedback you get by being one.  That negative feedback can be as severe sometimes as it is personal.  But I've learned to take it in stride.  I'm a firm believer that because the status quo is heavy that I'm not actually changing things if there is no pushback from somewhere.  True change makes at least one person uncomfortable. 

So I found myself getting philosophically woken up at the LGBT business owners conference when I heard this quote that fits the posture I want to take perfectly:

Originally stated by a man - Bayard Rustin - who is a hero and leader of the civil rights movement, who conceived and organized the great March on Washington, who vociferously and consistently advocated for nonviolent protest after traveling to witness Ghandi's example, and who history has neglected because instead of being closeted, he lived openly as a gay man in that era.  The man who said it is of the highest order of inspiring activists, whose activism was discounted because of who he loved.

Why do I think it's the perfect posture for changemaking?  More after the jump...

There's a little discussed fact in the U.S. when it comes to Tribal peoples mobilization against pipelines in Canada.  They have been at it a lot longer, and they have been successful.  In fact, to understand why Keystone XL pipeline even was requested to bring crude oil allllllll the way down from Alberta (that's Canada) through the U.S. to the Gulf, you have to trace the failure of those same oil companies to successfully get passage on a much shorter westerly journey through British Columbia.  (See my EcoPartyDownload on Keystone XL for more).

I woke up this morning to news that the primarily Native American activists protesting the newly desired corporate pipeline in Dakota walked onto private land to block the construction that had started while the appeal is awaiting to be heard in court...and those people were attacked by dogs from the company's private security firm.  Yes, PEACEFUL PROTESTERS WERE JUST ATTACKED BY DOGS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.  I mean...W.T.F.  Is this amateur hour?  Is it 1963? Has the opposition not learned ANYTHING from history?  Is it "opposite day" when it comes to how best to handle peaceful social justice protests?  Who are these awful security people and why should we now trust the people who hired them?  Some kind of modern-era Bull Connors from Birmingham styling themselves as "big deals" because they have a walkie and a dog frothing at the mouth?  Dogs biting children...sigh...why does history always have to repeat itself?  When will people learn?  Why do the words of Nelson Mandela feel so necessary right now for those corporate oilmen to hear?

Activism seems very "environmentalist" instead of "environmentalish" of me...I get it.  Feels intense.  But.... (stick with me after the jump)

Only SNL Weekend Update legend Seth Meyers can:

• take the fact that this is the hottest summer & year on record and make it funny
  
• point out we've experienced extreme weather events that should only happen every 500 years eight times in the last 12 months and make us giggle
  
• make fun of Donald Drumpf's lack of using "all the best words" to even describe the problem...and provide only a hand gesure "like this"
  

Here's to paying attention housewives in lingerie in front of the tv.  Personally, I've always thought the planet has some damn sexy legs....work it girl...work it Mother Earth!

People.  PEOPLE!  I woke up to the news that President Barack Obama and Premier Xi Jinping jointly, formally joined the international climate agreement reached in Paris last year.  It is so FREAKING AWESOME and inspiring that I finally got THE steroid shot of inspiration to get off my duff to blog again...which isn't to say that SO MUCH isn't happening that's already awesome: getting to laugh about extreme weather this summer, getting full-on optimistic by the insanely high adoption of clean energy and getting Republicans to be so supportive of wind it would get removed "over my dead body".  Wow.

But that wow ain't nothing compared to this: having the two largest greenhouse gas emitters JOINTLY agree that their countries have met the necessary requirements and set reductions targets...this my friends is the turning point for our planet and a turnaround that has been 20 years in the making.  

As someone who's been in this space since 2003, there's two certainties if you find normal people with whom to chat about this topic (not the flipping weirdos who argue with me about climate change...but I digress)...they will say "there's no way Congress will pass this" and "well why would we do anything if China won't."  Which were decent points well made until about 5 years ago...particularly because China has become a world leader in the green energy revolution and received absolutely no credit from everyday Americans for this huge successful pivot.  Which means I have spent a ENTIRE DECADE of my life having to argue something that today's joint agreement makes totally irrelevant in the most amazing way.  Let me break this down for you...

Living inside the Beltway for over 3 years I learned a valuable lesson.  Sometimes you really do have to find a way to laugh so that you don't cry.  Thankfully while working on and getting depressed by the George W. Administration's environmentally "protective" activities, I had the Daily Show and Colbert Report to keep me laughing.  And that was before Congress made doing nothing the most electable trait.

So I've long been an admirer of folks who can be pithy and funny about climate change.  It's a talent I will never possess.  Especially when it comes to fitting it all into 140 characters or less, like Stephen Colbert did in my favorite tweet ever... 

​That right there, boom.  Makes you see the absurdity of what people say about this issue.  Bless satire for this power.  

And here's a shiny new best example, the comedic viral video geniuses behind Funny or Die partnered with celebrities to make this spoof on 1985's "We Are The World"...now titled "The Earth's Not Getting Warmer" and brought to you by the Koch Brothers.  Having seen "Green Team" from many years ago, which is funny but unnecessarily off-color, I had my reservations.  But this thing is 110% enviro(ish) approved.

Keep us laughing comedians.  We simply have to laugh so as not to cry. That's been my motto for this past decade, but I might have to rethink it.   With an international climate accord for the first time ever...maybe The Force Awakens is on trend beyond the box office (Harrison Ford! Love that guy.  Bless)...it's time for A New Hope that things are looking up for once.  There is hope for humanity (and our planet) after all.