Find beauty in a broken world

The truth was that I didn’t dislike New Jersey. I hated America before environmental regulations. The most important environmental laws in history, clean air and clean waters, were passed in 1970 and 1972, respectively. In 1973 we saw the Endangered Species Act, a country’s 11-hour approval that has more to do than destroy our country’s flora and fauna, primarily for profit. But monumental laws like these took time to implement and the government was still thinking about how I would do it as a child. Things changed dramatically when the law was finally taken. Certainly, we remember because the Environmental Protection Agency recognized the extraordinary it was trying to try and asked photographers to document the world before regulations. They knew they were trying to do great things. Do you have such foresight, urgency and confidence in our success, especially in the form of climate change, facing today’s even more challenging challenges? Considering this new administration, do we care too?

The truth was that I didn’t dislike New Jersey. I hated America before environmental regulations.

The EPA was created in 1970 to implement some of these new laws. It exemplified both the power of government to improve people’s lives and their world, and the perception that this is the only way to solve huge, systematic problems such as air and water pollution. (The concept of governance in the workplace, that law should be enforced by an institution made up of experts and scientists, is now directly challenged and even reverted to the Supreme Court.)

But then something changed with my approach to environmentalism. The neoliberal movement towards free market thinking, which underestimated the need for regulation and governance, began in the 40s and garnered steam under boosters like Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan. Faced with strict regulations, businesses praised it as “never again.” Instead of using government to solve environmental issues, business, political and academic leaders have opted for a more accessible free market approach through voluntary action and by companies. Business dodges responsibility through ads that blamed consumers for plastic pollution (remember “crying Indian ads”) and ads that BP popularize individual “carbon footprints” ideas I saw the opportunity and used it to run. , not fossil fuel economy, but climate change.

This idea wasn’t just for business states. To some extent, it is written in our bones. Thoreau’s writing is ultimately taking personal actions to repair the world, and despite our collectivist history, Americans always fantasize themselves as robust individualists. I’ve done it.

And likewise, climate change has come. By 1977, Exxonmobil scientists knew exactly what the ramp-stretched combustion of fossil fuels was doing to the environment. And then, in 1988, on a very hot summer day, NASA climatologist James Hansen warned Congress about the disastrous consequences we faced.

In this world, I began my career in a sustainable business movement at the Rocky Mountain Institute. The message was inspiring and even moving. The big business was big enough, confidential enough, and well motivated by the benefits from the Bruzion sector of energy savings and clean energy, to meaningfully address large-scale climate issues. Conveniently, this approach meant that troubling government regulations or laws were not needed or at least not needed to resolve the issue. The final gasp of the massive regulations was the 1987 Montreal protocol, which stopped the depletion of the ozone layer by chlorofluorocarbon refrigerants, thereby protecting the planet from ultraviolet rays. It was a big win, but it was a success. This is because DuPont, the company that caused problems in the first place, developed a profitable solution. From there, the problem was primarily in the hands of individuals or business. The latter was the cause in the first place.

As a result, there are small bowls of the environment – recycling, garbage picking, local land conservation, voluntary carbon reduction, targeting, but targeting, and other debate that doesn’t fall into problems like climate change. It wasn’t an incomprehensible action. No one could have just realized it was paranoid, like peeing in a bushfire. It was clear that major environmental nonprofits such as the Environmental Defense Fund, Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund had some aspiring companies, or Green Moms and Dads, could not solve the global problem. has partnered with large companies like Walmart. . Especially when there were very few others.

I’ve done a good job for over 10 years. I’ve been talking enthusiastically about changing the bulb to generate a 50% to 100% return on investment, and knowing it’s just a drop in the bucket. Built on strict certification standards, the “green” building wasn’t that good, and even so, stood like a unicorn in the junk building universe.

And one day, while riding my lunchtime bike, I realized I was contemplating climate issues and careers when I pedaled an unpaved road hemmed into the West Elk mountains of Colorado. I did. The words came to my mind, and I couldn’t shake it: “Accomplice.” I have looked at all actions that were considered best practices for businesses, and even in the broader environmental movement: carbon emissions, emission reduction targets, third-party certifications, offsets. Then I did a thought experiment: I would prevent those influential, powerful, lobbyists, and refunded organizations from blocking the chances of monetizing remaining fossil fuel reserves. I imagined what the industry wanted in business. The two lists were identical. Each action looked meaningful and serious, but failed to move systems of regulatory or tax policy that could actually make a difference. I worked in this field for 28 years, and sustainable business and mainstream environmentalism have always been colluding with the status quo, and no one seemed to care. Meanwhile, atmospheric CO2 and global temperature continued to rise, and even accelerated. At what point did it become clear that modern environmentalism was not working?

No one could have just realized it was paranoid, like peeing in a bushfire.

I spent the second half of my career experimenting with this issue, leveraging the power of business to promote the major changes I needed, such as supporting wise regulations. I’ll tweak it and call it good. The business has plenty of influence. The fossil fuel economy we live in is the result of that lobbying. However, it is not easy to counter the current situation. It’s controversial, difficult, and frowned. People get mad at you and other businesses are nervous when you try to change the entire utility, like I did in Aspen, where I worked for 26 years. I’ll stand. If you argue that trading groups that ignore or ignore climate behavior like we did, shouldn’t receive funds, then you “are not a team player.” is. As we did in the last election, if you are engaged in presidential politics, the board of directors is very tweaked and very rapidly. However, these actions are precisely challenging because they can drive real change. It’s very easy to keep your head down. In sustainable business conferences, keynote speakers come from large companies that practice traditional models of accomplice. Avoid your own problems and avoid policies and movements. “It’s so entrenched and powerful that it doesn’t have to deal with growing criticism. Instead, you are asked: “Why aren’t they doing what they’re doing?”

But there is a lot of criticism. Why is Salesforce, a green leader in many ways, continuing to pay the US Chamber of Commerce dues? Microsoft is talking about carbon negative despite using proprietary AI technology to help fossil fuel companies find and utilize more oil and gas.