For nearly thirty years, my career has been in the environment, in education, or a nexus of both. All have been the public service route. Some days I can see some accomplishments, while other days I get a sense of futility, but its more so with the structures of how we try to prevent and address problems. As I write on these issues, I’ll tap into these experiences and concerns and I’ll try to present them with a couple of original thoughts thrown in.

First off, if we are going to discuss our environment, it’s important to remember we didn’t get dropped here from Mars. We are a part of everything that is here. Everything grown, hatched, made, built; all comes from Earth. I know this reads as something obvious but sometimes I wonder at some of the things people say.

We live and breathe the same as millions of other species every moment of every day. We are connected. There is no over there or another place. It’s all here. Everything we consume, everything we throw away, the beginning and end is here, and we know a lot about how it all works, including the results of our actions or the lack thereof.

Typically, it is the journey after we die that we don’t fully comprehend. That’s where faith and hope come in. Until then, we are flesh, bone, breath, or cell like everything else. I lay these thoughts out because there are things I don’t understand about the living part.

For example, I don’t understand littering. I saw a college student in a nice car once empty her ashtray on the street, with the butts and the old batteries and pocket change bouncing around until gone for someone else to worry about.

Poaching is another one. Shooting or catching whatever you want, whenever you want with no regard for laws that serve to protect species and populations. I don’t get that. We know that unchecked individual actions have led to species extinctions. Of course, I also don’t get the mindset that thinks we are going to law and order our way to sustainable conservation. Enforcing and following laws will be part of the answer, but it’s science and education that will get us there.

Burning when we have other choices is another one I don’t get. This is where the collective “we” is critical since there are a lot of us, and most of our standards of living are built upon burning fossil fuels such as coal and gas. Left up to our own personal costs, it will be hard to make the transition. If we do it as a collective through public policy and investment, we have plenty of better choices at hand. We will need the will to make the right choices the easy ones.

We live with an “out of sight, out of mind” mental landscape, and it could be that in the evolution of our brains, the ability to think of potential outcomes by planning ahead was the most recent of our evolutionary growth spurts. Today, thought we have the ability to choose alternatives, we still create huge landfills, still dump stuff into the ocean, still squirt our poo into the ground, and still value greener lawns over water resources.

I don’t get it.

Because we are not born with a stewardship mindset, one has to be taught, and if it doesn’t start with individual habits and practices and regular education, I don’t know how we will address the bigger, collective problems like climate change.

Around thirty years ago, climate change first became a news item, and it was not necessarily the political potato it is today. We’ve addressed big issues before like the ozone layer and acid rain. Nations and scientists worked together and got measurable results. The science of climate change was originally not so contested. The debate always centered on how much of the change was driven by the actions of man. Again, it was not a question that climate change was occurring, but what part is our fault for burning so much fuel?

We almost got to a point of resolve until there was a unified approach by a few wealthy individuals and big energy corporations to throw some sand of doubt into the climate change science itself.

It worked.

Where we were once in the lead on climate change and alternative energies, other countries like China are now assuming a bigger role. We probably lost twenty years of progress to purposeful paid-for distraction for the sake of protecting profits in existing corporations. Imagine during WWII, if all these companies had told FDR to shove it, we’re going to keep doing our own thing instead of building the tanks and planes and ships that FDR asked for to win the war.

I don’t get it.

I wonder if we had moved quicker toward a sustainable energy future, whether we would have avoided some of the moments in history of the last thirty years? The greed and fall of Enron, the 2008 economic crisis, the wildfires from rickety old power lines, trying to create money out of air and paper with subprime mortgages, calculations no one understood called derivatives, the bailout of Wall Street….

Another thing I don’t get? The hundreds of conservation and environmental protection groups that exist. The will to make a difference is there, but we often love to do our own thing, start our own group, and get special in one area, when in reality there are oftentimes groups already pushing and working in the same direction. Where we are scattered and unfocused, the other side is frequently more strategic, coordinated, and direct.

My concern with the resilience of conservation has always been that people will see to their needs first. That’s the innate survival instinct, much older than the seeing-around-the-corner five-years-from-now capacity. In a land where people worry about bills, healthcare, and keeping a job, being a good steward falls further down the scale, which is why I’ve always believed a social safety net goes hand in hand with a conservation ethic.

The conservation movement could do much more for itself with a unified focus, a solidarity of purpose, even on things like universal healthcare. Show care for the individual, the individual shows care for the Earth. We might re-think whether we are truly making progress in an overly specialized, overly fragmented, purposely distracted, ethos of living. How much money are we spending in response now that could have been spent in prevention then?

If we can change some of our thinking, if we can approach what we do with more candor and authenticity, then I’ll believe we are making progress for the living and for the land.

Until then, I don’t get it.

Though this story has presented some problems and differences of opinion on a historical feature of our country, there is great value in recognizing the effort and the science. We have been incredibly destructive during our growth, and questioning is going to be as much a part of our progress as progress itself. This does show the pitfalls of depending upon science to help us out of a problem, and the penchant for human error, but here’s a critical point:

Despite mistakes, much of this work is done by people with good intentions who love to do the work. It’s not done with an eye on profit but to truly make a difference and restore what once was. I think it incredibly important for you the reader to understand the motivating factors behind anything you read dealing with environmental protection and conservation.

Don’t forget that.

This is outstanding cutting-edge science, not only to protect coral but to enhance its ability to withstand changing climate and temperature. I see no other viable alternatives before we’ve lost everything. Special note: For something like coral, one of the serious problems with conservation is a lack of general populace education on why they should care. We will not “law-enforce” our way out of this. It will be expensive and time-consuming. Education would help.

This next story is what I would call whacky methods for cooling the planet.

Dumping chemicals into the ocean to help it eat up carbon dioxide. Spraying proprietary mixes into the air to block the sun. This sort of out-of-the-box thinking is always necessary for big problems, though it’s Star Trek-level stuff to me. I’m certainly glad we have people with the brains to come up with alternative methods and that we leave a bit of room for trial and error. However, this isn’t just putting carp in a pond to eat the algae. This is planetary-level so proceed with caution.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’m in my third decade of climate change being part of the conversation. I can remember clearly being a student and a young professional and not fully grasping what the big deal was. One of the first conferences I went to for work was on creating performance measures for states to follow when it came to environmental regulation. There was one guy, only one guy, who was adamant about including climate change. He was easier to dismiss as one voice and because he looked like he walked straight out of the woods to this meeting in Washington.

So much for not judging a book by its cover.

Here’s what we can learn from this news story. China and the US will have a push-pull relationship for the foreseeable future. Any efforts at diplomacy will be incredibly important to world peace and stability. One place to start is to give credit where credit is due. China is doing a massive buildup in solar and wind. Second, this article shows the importance of long-term relationships. This is not just Democrat John Kerry, this is John Kerry, a veteran and lifelong public servant. He’s 80 years old and still working on big issues. The media spends much more time on the personalities and problems around us and very little on the behind-the-scenes work to counter problems before they become unmanageable. There’s something to be said for age and wisdom and working to get shit done.

Special note: As reported in the Guardian by Dharna Noor, there is also litigation making its way through the courts brought by youth related to climate change over the use of fossil fuels. In August 2023, these young rebels secured a landmark victory when a Montana judge ruled in their favor over the state’s pro-fossil fuel policies. A similar suit brought by Hawaii youth will go to trial in June, and the young challengers in the federal lawsuit Juliana v US are awaiting a date for their trial too.

Think this is crazy? Think again.

As I mentioned, the science on climate change is clear. The main source is burning. The burning we can control is related to human use. In a nutshell, if public policies don’t follow science, does that create a liability and a risk? What if a company’s own internal documents recognize the risk and do nothing about it (hello, tobacco)? I hate to think we cannot proactively do the right thing for future generations, but sometimes the courts are indeed the last hope for progress.

If you’re an American living on the coast or in tornado alley, you should know that insurance companies wholeheartedly believe and study climate change. For those of you still in doubt, follow the markets that are getting completely wiped out by more prevalent and devastating weather. Climate models predicted this decades ago. Warmer warms, colder colds, more and bigger storms. The lack of pre-planning and cost-sharing solutions is leaving many more people underinsured and under duress from higher payments and many more unscrupulous insurers.

Some of this was avoidable.

This is an interesting story that reminded me of the elementary school days when we learned about telling the age of a tree. Whether we look in the ocean or on land and even inside trees, science and great thinking will find the patterns consistent across species. The science backing climate change simply continues to build. Regardless of denying the cause, adapting will in some way make us better prepared, whether water conservation, better crop management, green building, and so on. These are good sustainable actions that will make life much easier for our kids and economy.

Change is hard.

The old analogy of how long it takes to turn a big ship? Countries are like that. Agencies are like that. We are like that. If there’s something we’ve been doing for years and we think it works (or we can’t see how it doesn’t work), good luck finding a new path. That is why you need people like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. No matter what you may think of them, they are innovators. They see things the way they are and how they could be. Dr. Daily here in this piece makes the case that economics needs total cost accounting. The things we pay for now, whether saving coral, Everglades Restoration, insurance for your neighbor’s beach home, the high cost of emergency room visits, these would be captured in a total cost accounting model.

And what if countries started calculating their gross ecosystem product, or GEP. Modeled after the gross domestic product, the GEP index allows nations to determine the monetary value of their ecological systems. Consider the things we take for granted, such as forests, springs, lakes, and rivers.

This is outstanding thinking.

A fascinating final read on how these phenomenal owls have evolved and adapted to hear what they cannot see in order to catch their dinner. It is extraordinary. The more we realize just how unique some species are and the skills they derive for survival, the more we will appreciate nature and ourselves. Kudos to the people who spend their curiosity on figuring out such things.

And Now….

Practice your gratefulness. A year ago, I looked up one of my high school classmates I spent a lot of time with. Fishing, swimming, quiz club, sports, all kinds of stuff. I had trouble finding him. When I did, I learned he had survived the tornado that devastated Joplin, Missouri and killed over 100 residents. Unfortunately, I also learned that he had passed.

Believe me, there are days when gratefulness can be very hard. Missed opportunities like talking to my friend again, people doing shitty things, and plain old bad luck.

But we can try.

From a person-to-person level, Jesus suggested being a peacemaker and turning the other cheek to your enemy. Nothing about our culture tells us to do that. Most of what you see in action films today is some kind of revenge (and my favorite type of movie it seems).

But I see the wisdom in it. There’s not a lot we have complete control over, and there’s just too much to do in life to get bogged down in another person’s dark shadow. That is why I think love your enemy is spoken about in the bible.

Because it’s hard.

There’s a consistent theme like this in all religions to learn from your enemies. Just like having a bad boss, they teach you valuable lessons in how not to act.

Life is too big and too grand, but also too short, to spend so much time in personal ego and misery. And our planet, the place we actually live, depends on us to rise above our speck of me time and see bigger things, in order to preserve the greater good.

Be a good human.