WE need OUR help!

“We already have all the technologies we need to solve this crisis...”

— @HunterLovins

Save the Plan-It?

This planet (Earth) doesn’t need us to save her. To be clear, she sustains us. We are the biological tenants who pay rent to her, not vice versa. And, no, if there’s going to be repairs, we don’t get to plan-it. It’s her call.

The latter realization is why #investors have begun pivoting their conversations to “Huh, if the planet’s biosphere implodes, won’t our species inevitably become extinct ???”

So that’s "bad news" right?

Not entirely. Because we still get a chance to #adapt to her will and #reinvent stuff, which is fun — and profitable!

Economic Circularity

“Nature is #sustainable because it is #regenerative.”

— John Fullerton, Capital Institute

Lately, all the disconcerting peer-reviewed scientific reports have made it nearly impossible to find any/many positively-pontificating #ecopeople.

Good news: This article highlights one of the two die-hard optimists who co-founded a resource efficiency institution* over three decades ago.

This Dog Hunts.

Hunter Lovins’ honest and direct style is matched by few. Yet, why haven’t more of us been exposed to her positivity? Because #Halgorithms.**

Consider the following narrative, appropriated from Hunter's most recent @natural-capitalism-solutions #fundraising email:

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Subject: A Message from Hunter…

Last night, a young friend emailed me in some distress. He’d attended an impact investment event [cf. #ESRI #ESRM #ESG] at which I’d spoken. An audience member had asked the panel how each of them dealt with climate skeptics:

“Do you still promote the climate protection philosophy behind your portfolios?”

Predictably, the other panelists [hemmed, hawed, and] equivocated.

Which pissed me off.

“This,” I’d growled, “is why ‘impact investing’ is getting a bad name. It’s trying to be everything to anyone who might let you manage their money.” I described how @Change-Finance, the #ETF firm I advise, takes a very different approach:

We Tell The Truth.

“The world is in a global climate crisis. If you don’t happen to share this belief, we don’t happen to want you as our owners.”

I continued addressing the panel and audience, “This will put you in a very bad mood — but go read the latest climate science from the @IPCC, or the Deep Adaptation whitepaper that a science journal recently refused to publish, claiming that its readers would need therapy after reading it.”

“Then, decide for yourself: Do you want your money managed by people who think #globalwarming [aka "global weirding"] is a hoax?

Or do you want your money managed by opportunists who seek #alpha by investing in #earlyadopter firms that are busy creating the future and avoiding assets that risk becoming stranded.

The next day, as I sat alone in a Manhattan restaurant after teaching all day, my young friend emailed me:

Hi, Hunter — I often find myself equivocating about the urgency of the climate crisis, and I appreciate your ability to tell it exactly how it is. Despite your warning, I went ahead and read Deep Adaptation. I’ve been trying to write about “How to Live Well on a Dying Planet” — I suppose this is the challenge of my generation. Frankly, my growing understanding of the bleakness of our situation has given me writer’s block. Any quick thoughts?

I took a dinner break and replied:

I would not phrase it as you have. The planet is in peril, but it is not dying. Life will go on. It’s us humans who find ourselves in a spot of trouble.

It is sad: We’re taking down a lot of beautiful species with us. But, even in the worst case, life will rebuild itself. 90% of species have gone extinct before, and ultimately we are the result of that prior #extinction.

What drives me, though, is that I am a mite sentimental about this human experiment. Plus, I know that we have all the technologies we need to solve this crisis, IF we get going asap. And, from the perspective of an investor, we can do it at a profit.

As an aside, @eFreyaWilliams, the brilliant CEO of @Futerra-Sustainability-Communications North America — the best #creative agency I know of — was recently walking me through some research they’re doing, wherein they ask #sustainability professionals and ordinary people if they think we can beat the climate crisis.

Almost to a person the experts say, “Yes!”

Ordinary people were divided evenly between:

“Yep.”

“Sure — but we won’t.”

“Nope, too late!” 

My friend, the experts know it is possible to win this one, but ordinary people are giving in to despair. We need to inspire our friends, and our neighbors, to help them realize that the work to which you and I have committed our lives is possible and will drive profitability, and then get them to join us so we can get it done.

If, on the other hand, we succumb to despair, we will get to be right. We will create the collapse. Because we did not believe we could beat it and didn’t try hard enough. That is why I react so strongly to idiots like the panelist guy who wanted to coddle the deniers.

You are better than that. We’re the result of 3.5 billion years of evolution: Act like it.

Go read Alex Steffen’s “A talk given at a conservation meeting a hundred years from now…” Then, if you still need help, call me.

Five minutes later, my friend emailed back, citing Alex’s words:

“When they understood the planetary crisis they faced, their answer was not cynicism or surrender, but to seek out others and together meet that crisis with action.”

Thank you, Hunter. At risk of overstating, “A Talk Given…” is one of the most important pieces of literature I have read in my life. It brought tears to my eyes and chills to my spine.

Let us work with clarity and purpose for the rest of our days. Let us find ways to bring this work to the masses. ??

It was one of those times when a smiley face emoji seemed fitting. I returned to the task of eating my rapidly cooling enchilada.

Then I wrote Freya to thank her for the Climate Optimist campaign that Futerra launched, which helps citizens gain the expertise they need in order to have the #courage to act. 

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Circularity

When the #donor appeal pasted above was emailed, it rang true of an inconspicuous LinkedIn article penned by this author, Profits Will Save this Planet — Not Prophets . . .

The message is the same: Market-driven #reinvention doesn’t break the bank. No way. In fact, it can even help you make bank.

So, in that spirit, seize this #seachange [ironic pun], take action, and drive the market.****

After all, who among us wouldn’t leap at a profitable opportunity to save us from us?

Chart disclaimer: Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

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Footnotes:

* See RMI.org

** Manspiracy Theory: Just as men programmed the #AI miscreant "Hal" in the fictional “2001: A Space Odyssey” (cf. #HALexa in the LinkedIn article “Hire Digital Aboriginals”), men — this time non-fiction! — programmed myriad #digitalgorithms to fvck with our search results and skew our #feeds and #threads. Ergo, the eco-optimists don’t hit @Gargle’s search results until well after page 666. Thanks, men. And thanks, #media newsrooms [#snarchasm]. Anyone knows that critics & debunkers sell ads and subscriptions. Optimists do not. Done ranting [hmmm... maybe this rant will spike viewers for this article ha!].

*** Among the greatest professional experiences in his life, this author counts his time spent alongside Hunter and Amory Lovins (et al.) as one of the most transformative, profound, and challenging—!

**** In an #EV, mind you ??.

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#2019groundswell #humblebrand