Beyond the Activist

 

The one climate career that everyone would probably agree is essential is that of the climate activist. Certainly, Greta Thunberg comes to mind, along with writer Bill McKibben and actor Jane Fonda. Some people have found paid positions as activists, climate community organizers, and lobbyists with nonprofit organizations. The Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, led by Mary Ann Hitt, has successfully facilitated the closure of 318 coal-fired power plants across the United States, many during the first Trump administration. Activists can make significant contributions, and not all of their work takes place in the streets.

While this route may be a calling for some, others might admire the activist’s role but not see a place for themselves in it. This is an invitation to look beyond activism and explore the careers that build what must come next. We are in the process of "building an airplane while flying it" as we move into the future. Isn’t that an interesting use of the word “career”? While activism remains vital, we also need people to "pop in rivets on the wings," navigate the course, and fuel the system in ways that keep us on track. Even better if we can turn this airplane into a rocket that propels us faster toward a sustainable future.

What is needed? Money! We need fund raisers and financiers to be climate people and to think of the best way to finance climate positive infrastructure and energy alternatives for a healthy planet and all the passengers human, animal and plant. The risk is not that the quarterly return will be too small, the risk is that we will run out of quarters. When it came time to finance oil exploration and extraction in the arctic, the big banks found their social license running out and therefore the cost of doing business and the risk of funding more big arctic oil projects were both too high. We need someone to show big oil how to find the way to use their resources to make the transition from burning the past to lighting the future with renewable energy and make it too financially risky to keep doing business as usual. We need a way to show them their social license is out of date and they need to avoid the risk of over-investing in more extraction and literally die of sunk-costs.

Let’s do a little side bar here. You might have read about big impact as a goal that appealed to you. You also may have decided you aren’t the activist type. So here’s where that idea of donating to a big impact project fits. If you like Hitt’s success in shutting down 318 coal plants, and who doesn’t? Then you could find people like her and donate to their projects and make sure they are more successful. That’s a big impact while you do what you do best! 

What else do we need? Once the activists have the public’s and politician’s attention on climate issues there will be a need for research on the best legislative, funding and administrative tools to place government funds and to create regulations for the greatest and fastest effect. Legislative and campaign  assistants and researchers with deep understanding of the climate crisis are necessary. In the past we have had environmental impact reports. An industry grew up around that process. Do we need climate impact reports to look at legislation and to rate all legislation through that lens? Where in our airplane we are building will we have people looking at all the intended climate outcomes? At the same time we need those looking at the social justice possibilities to guard against negative consequences.

Certainly we have people hard at work designing and building solutions for climate problems, both hardware solutions to climate problems. We have electric cars, improving batteries, better wind turbines and cheaper, better solar cells. Driverless cars may yield a collateral benefit of using less energy as they improve traffic flow and possibly unsnarl gridlock during “rush hour” which lasts all day. We have communities planning for sea level rise and people designing and building solutions to sunny day flooding and storm buffers. If you look for your place to get started pay attention to these people already making a good efforts. This is the review part of your career search. You have to make the effort to figure out what’s already happening and then pitch in where you see your skills are needed.

What else do we need to build? While we are building this metaphorical airplane we are hurtling into the future in (and there is no alternative transportation by the way), we might look at all the things we take for granted. 

We might think cars are necessary and so we are improving cars when maybe we need a totally different solution to the human movement problem. Being able to re-structure the problem might be the most valuable way to solve it. 

I cannot see all the climate needs or the many inventive ways to solve those problems to make the future brighter. Therefore, I suggest you wring these ideas from your own experience. 

Start a list of climate problems that you think “someone” should do something about. Those are often at the heart of your biggest concerns and motivation. Maybe you are the someone who should do something!

Put the list in order using this grid where you compare your top picks with each other concern. If you have trouble with this email me (nord.nord@gmail.com) and we can work this out. It’s not always intuitive to everyone how this results in a priority list.


Once you have your priority list do the following:
Search for people who are working on that problem now. Ask them how they approach this issue and what resources they have and what they still need.

Start a new list of possible solutions for each of problems.
Any time you have a list you may find it useful to put that list on a grid as above and sort out through this forced choice method. That should reveal what is most urgent or important to you. Some of you will hate the process. If so don’t use it!