I believe that change happens from the ground up.
Nothing is given to us in life or as a culture. It is always the commons that rises en masse to make changes that define who we are.
True for the movements that have bookended my life. From civil rights to gay liberation to the women’s equality movement.
True as well for the uprising around climate change–but with a twist.
There is something different here, something truly unstoppable coalescing at the ground level. A revolution starting with the youth at the center. At a pace driven by the urgency of the need and by a new fuel to the community structure that is unique and platformed on top of tech and entrepreneurial possibilities.
The fact that I wake up challenged by a 16-year old activist from Sweden to do something, and that the thousands outside my building last weekend in New York were teens and younger is something to stand in awe of.
This is a wave of cross-generation connections that is more prevalent than in any other movements I’ve lived through. Parents, their kids, their grandkids all focused on a world beyond themselves. Mothers and fathers proud of the young children for speaking up. Kids finding their voices as such an early age.
This coalesced unity is immensely powerful. Possibly unstoppable.
Climate change is different as well as a collective cause as it is a high-level umbrella touching everyone cross countless potential actions. It is larger than a single issue, it is a mindset, a behavior, and collective change
This is in itself a political uprising albeit, as well, a social revolution.
Unique as these generations are in many ways empowered by their own uncompromising leadership and creating their own heroes and leaders from amongst themselves.
Such brazenness as Greta’s speech in the UN yesterday is something to kick us all to do something.
Notable because it is the younger generations that will impact the voting direction and priorities of the older voter blocks. These are kids changing views of their parents and extended families in ways only they can.
Equally unique is the connection to entrepreneurship, tech, and innovation.
There is so much work to be done and it will create new businesses, new innovation bringing science, technology and community together in brand-new ways.
I admit, I can only look at it from my own vantage point, of my generation, talking to friends and family with younger members.
But on the action side, in my world, there is also direction for change.
I am connected to a number of environmental non-profits that conjoin tech, entrepreneurship and the environment. And to movements and projects in the NFT blockchain space addressing new forms of economizing communities for environmental impact.
Certainly we raise money for projects, in old and new ways, but the majority of companies being funded are impact businesses, For profit, equity funded, hanging loosely under the idea of creating businesses that grow while they are equally part of a collective solution for social good.
The problems of environmental change are daunting and the need for tech innovation to build product to ameliorate the impact of climate change many.
What makes entrepreneurship economic and possible, as a business not as a philanthropic movement is a vast change in market coherence.
It is not enough to build products that scrape for example plastics out of the ocean. It requires the common belief of the mass market that it matters. It is people’s will that is the change agent to support technological innovation. The same market force that drives Amazon’s move to electrify its delivery fleets, and will force it eventually to rethink its packaging from an environmental perspective.
I’m a pragmatic optimist, but I fight daily against laziness and the ease of doing nothing. I’m also fortunate to have found avenues to lend my skills to do something and potentially make a difference.
The drive is the immediacy of the need.
Twice in the last handfuls of years, I’ve been evacuated from my building which is in the flood plain of the Hudson River in downtown New York and subject to the fury of this new age of super hurricanes.
I acknowledge I’m a big dreamer, forever positive about change happening.
Interesting as a counter point, on a blog string yesterday, I was told point blank from a friend, that I’m basically being stupid and am totally misinformed, part of an environmental cult based on ignorance.
Changing his mind is not a good use of my time, acting is on my own convictions is. I need to lean into this to get stuff done.
The fear of this change, changing our world forever in unimaginable ways is real. And obviously terrifying.
But in the end, doing something, using the inspiration of possibility, is the only logical and creative response.
I hear the voice of my father telling me as a kid to get up, turn off the TV, do the stuff that matters to the world beyond myself as that is the stuff of being a man, a member of society.
If everything is in the end a process of getting there, this is tens, possibly hundreds of millions, choosing to spend some piece of their time to make an impact.
That to me is a win. It is what we can and must do.
An outcome in its own right even as a first step.
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Big thanks to my friends Bill Tai and Gigi Bresson for leading an industry to think differently and giving me early opportunities to figure out how to lend my hand to participate.
And to the projects that have trusted me to be part of their drive to build something different, tell a story in a new way, to a better end.
