Calling the Question on Climate and Environmental Leadership

Fifty three years ago Earth Day put an asterisk on a millennia of stewardship, restoration, innovation, as well as the rapid increase of extractive development for human consumption. It also launched decades of public and private investment in gaps in governance to shift the imbalance of ecosystems and slow accelerated cycles of planetary dysfunction, caused by humans. Some of that inching away from growth as destruction showed up in the development of massive organizations with missions to save places, species and ways of life, and most of what followed cast a narrow, class specific and dangerously racist lens on work that actually is for everyone. (There are myriad resources, articles, think pieces and papers that make this point.)

Climate Critical joins those who call out the sanitized, edited and exclusionary narrative about movements for planetary change; and align with anyone who is clear on the harm of telling and retelling the lie that the work of environment and climate is or ever was the work of one group, one race or one geography or one politic.

That said, we are here for the call in, we are all in for outreach and to bolster the instinct towards community building, creation and the development of power shifting that starts with how we resource the infrastructure for movements. We are here for the people that work an innumerable number of hours on mobilizations, campaigns, storytelling, sharing real news and those that stand for hours in lines to give three minutes of testimony on the harm of losing one more thing to fire, flood, or fossil fuels. Why? Because we know that underlying those climate actions is a wholly burned out network of bright minds, creatives, social engineers and seed savers whose capacity directly correlates to our collective ability to win more than we are losing every day to the dirty drivers of climate change. And we are rooting for it!

In this hopeful community space we are open to visioning and revisioning about the everyday aspects of leadership, fellowship and followship that support the transition of technology. We are a part of the shifting narrative and the momentum that makes movements matter. We offer our own experience in creating co generative opportunities over our careers to boost collaboration with the wider community. Together we imagine that the old ways of working are retired to enable a more colorful, caring and connected tomorrow.

In a recent podcast with the good folk at Agents of Change, I touched on the need for a redesign of our workplaces across our issues. In the conversation I shared some of the ways my own experience lines up with so many others to make the case for transparent, joyful and different workplace dynamics. So if you are feeling the impacts of a changing climate and a climate and environmental workforce in desperate need of redesign then check it out and share your thoughts on the need to reimagine the culture of leadership, especially in climate and environmental work. 

In solidarity and care,

Tamara
Founder and Friend