Update
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to step away from work and the nature/carbon space for a few months — giving myself some space to rest, reflect and recharge instead of jumping right into the next thing (which is my default move). During the last couple weeks of decompressing and getting some perspective on my last few years, I’ve realized how much of myself I’ve wrapped up in my work. I’m naturally someone who derives much of their sense of purpose and worth from my “work”, which can be an amazing source of motivation but has a dark side — losing myself in the work and letting my sense of self-worth become too attached to professional successes and failures. I’ve never been good at setting boundaries between work and personal life and one of the main reasons I’m taking some time off is to try to establish a healthier relationship where I can show up for nature, climate and equitability, causes that I am so passionate about, but in a way that allows me to also keep a part of myself entirely outside of it, dedicated to my family, friends, other causes and simply enjoying life.
Another aspect of this decision was wanting to be a more supportive partner, taking these couple of months before my partner starts residency to spend quality time with her and be fully in support mode around the house during her first couple months on the job. Fortunately, a few mentors and friends far wiser than me helped me realize the uniqueness of this moment in our lives and encouraged me to be fully present for it. During the last year, I’ve really struggled to be present for my friends and family outside of work. Even when I wasn’t actively working, most of the time my mind was half trying to sort something work related and that’s not the person I want to be for the people that I love. I’m hoping I can build some practices over the next few months that will enable me to continue the work that I am so passionate about while also being present for my friends and family (and simply appreciating life). I recognize I’m in a privileged position to be able to take a few months off and have my biggest worry be about where/how I am deriving my sense of value and worth in this life, grateful to be in this position and I don’t take it for granted.
And now, for what it’s worth, three meta-reflections on the nature/climate/carbon/equitability space (for lack of a better term).
1. I love this space and the vast majority of the people working in it. What a fascinating opportunity to try to incorporate the values of nature into our economic system and do so in an equitable way that maybe even has some flavors of restorative justice.
2. As I’ve stepped out over the last few weeks, I’ve gained a bit of perspective as to the extent to which we are still in the sandbox. We are creators, and we are builders — tinkering with potential solutions, market-based, regulatory, and more to achieve a vision for the planet and people that I think we all share. But, over the past few years, I have met many people in this space that have a default mode of being critical and judgmental, often without proposing any solutions. I’m going to use a very silly analogy, but I hope it resonates with some of you. What if all the tools that we are working on, carbon markets, regulatory policy, etc, what if they were each our collective child? Really, imagine they are a child, and we are all their parents. How would our expectations of their growth/progress change? How would we treat them differently? And maybe most importantly, how would we treat each other differently in supporting them to be the best they can be? We all might have different approaches to parenting, but we’d all want to see them succeed at the end of the day. Many of us have different ideas as to what might be the right solution to the problems we face, but I’ve realized that I do my best work for myself and others when I come more from a mindset of curiosity, than a mindset of criticism. If I see a flaw in something, shouldn’t I support those working on it to make it better? If I had a child who had a flaw, would I critique it, or would I help my child to overcome it? I believe that the path forward for environmental markets and for environmental policy is to take the 80/20 approach, if we are getting things 80% right, then we are doing great! We must give the solutions, each other (and ourselves!) the space and compassion to fail and learn and grow.
3. I see two ways of thinking in the space right now, one is those who approach the space as a zero-sum game where winner takes all. The other is those who see opportunities to work symbiotically and grow the pie, each person, each organization filling its niche to create an ecosystem that can thrive. Instead of putting pressure and attacking each climate solution to compete for a small amount of demand for climate mitigation and ecosystem service outcomes, why are we not focusing our energies on pushing for more decarbonization and putting pressure on the corporations/governments that have benefited from the lack of incorporating the externalities of their actions to start taking action to make it right? Yes, we don’t want bad actors to take advantage of a system that is still under development, but at least that system under development is starting to put pressure on those that have financially benefitted by harming the environment and people to take action to rectify their wrongdoing. My call to action is for us to focus our energies on growing the pie to finance/fund climate action and nature conservation and restoration and do so equitably. And for each of the individuals and organizations playing in this space, let’s find those niches and work together! I believe that the only way this works is if the human systems we build to support climate and nature are as interdependent and symbiotic as nature itself.
I’ll be coming back online towards to end of June and looking forward to catching up with you all then, hopefully with a bit more perspective and reflections to share. I’m still as passionate as ever to develop the tools in the toolbox to achieve climate mitigation, conserve and restore nature and work towards global equity. And here’s to the next iteration, being able to do so as my best self for my colleagues and my friends and family.
