Each September, New York becomes the epicenter of global dialogue on the climate and nature emergency. Leaders from around the world gather for the UN General Assembly (UNGA), and never has it been more urgent — and hopefully, more possible — to reach alignment on peace, security, good governance, and the shared responsibility of securing a climate safe world for all. This year, the UN convening, alongside Climate Week NYC (September 21–25), offers a chance to chart a path forward: one where cooperation, innovation, and collective courage can overcome fear and division.
Climate Week NYC, organized by the Climate Group, has grown into a truly global movement — London hosted one in June and Ethiopia will convene the Second African Climate Summit next week.These weeks provide space for leaders, scientists, policymakers, and activists to share knowledge, amplify solutions, and connect initiatives that might otherwise remain siloed.
In New York, with so many leaders in town, the city hums with urgency — and yes, somewhat ironically so, as fuel-burning cars create traffic jams transporting anti fossil fuel leaders to meetings on clean transportation or people-centered urban design. Yet even these contradictions remind us why we gather: to imagine and implement a better, healthier, more sustainable way forward.
There are, of course, other challenges to consider this year. . .visa denials and airport detentions will likely discourage some of the very voices we most need — frontline leaders and communities of color — from traveling to the US. And yet, despite political headwinds and national policies that pull us backward, the innovations and technology are already within our reach; the tools to restore and regenerate our planet exist. What is needed more is the collective will — the public pressure that compels governments and businesses to end investments in extractive practices and shift to investments and support for renewable sources of energy and power.
Reuters reported just a few days ago that “yes, politics in the United States and elsewhere are challenging for climate action. But the companies and government with whom we work year round are navigating new realities. They need a place to discuss how that impacts them…. and their urgency to address climate action, and the energy transition has not slowed.”
Hafsat, Mary, Ronda and myself at the Project Dandelion reception in 2023.
Project Dandelion will be on the ground in New York, joining hundreds of organizations committed to listening, learning, and collaborating. Together with our partners, we are committed to shine a light on one of the most powerful levers of change: women’s leadership. The evidence is clear — when women lead, whether in government, business, or climate organizations, the environmental policies are stronger, the communities are healthier, and the businesses are more sustainable. We will be convening an important cohort of women leaders on Sunday with The Rockefeller Foundation, putting forward the provocation to explore what becomes possible when ancestral wisdom meets intergenerational imagination and when feminist leadership lights the path forward.
If you are in New York for Climate Week, we are hosting something a little different, Dandelions in the Field on Monday September 22 from 12:00-3:00pm at the Bryant Park Center Lawn.
Think of it as a pause in the middle of the whirlwind that is Climate Week. Bring your lunch, grab a flag, and come meet the Dandelion team. We’ll step out of the noise together, if only for a little while, to breathe, to connect, and to remember why we do this work.
In my experience, it’s in these quieter moments — when we allow ourselves to rest and gather strength — that we find the courage and creativity to keep going. The more urgent the crisis, the more essential our pause to activate the solidarity that a connected community requires.
Experience has shown us that the more urgent the crisis, the more exhausted leaders — especially women — can become. After all, women activists/advocates/leaders are almost always also carrying the responsibilities of family and home, as they are also the ones that show up in every room, try to hold every line, and in most communities and in a substantial majority of nature and climate organizations, design strategies for a more sustainable future while coping with a lack of a strategy to sustain our own resilience. The urgency of Climate Week highlights the very reason why spaces of rest and regeneration are not indulgences, but necessities especially since the health impacts from a changing climate are also felt disproportionately by women everywhere.
As my co-founder and Project Dandelion Executive Director Ronda Carnegie recently wrote, “The climate crisis is reshaping global health, and women are on the frontlines of both impact and innovation. As extreme heat, disease patterns, and food insecurity escalate, women’s health and livelihoods are disproportionately at risk. At the same time, women are delivering care, innovating delivery models, and quietly reengineering community-based systems. Their contributions are catalytic.”
A study from the NIH further backs up Ronda’s words, finding that “it is crucial to develop programs aimed at mitigating climate related health risks for women. Their well-being is inseparable from the well being of the planet, and leadership is essential to any just and sustainable future.”
In response, Project Dandelion is launching a Health-Resilient Advisory Council. By bringing together health leaders, we will assess where to focus our health related campaigns and initiatives to best determine how Project Dandelion can support the work of our partner organizations who are effectively engaged in addressing the challenges of health-related impacts and the need to strengthen climate resilient initiatives everywhere.
Becoming more resilient and more prepared for these intersectional challenges requires us to shift our thinking about rest, restoration, and regenerative practices for ourselves as well as for the planet. In a world that too often equates worth with productivity — and in activist spaces that can sometimes mimic the urgency of the systems we’re trying to dismantle — rest becomes more than self-care. It becomes political. Especially for women. Especially for those of us who have been conditioned to believe that we must earn our right to pause and rest, for some personal attention to the subject of resilience and restoration for body and spirit.
One opportunity came to us to do just that when invited to help curate the first Women in Sustainability Week at Rancho La Puerta.
With the permission of founder and owner Sarah Livia Brightwood Szekely, and her 103-year-old mother, Deborah, who still engages Rancho guests every week in conversation, I’m sharing this information and invitation in case there are others among you, reading this now, (open to all genders) who may feel the need for this kind of restorative week and who can take advantage of the special opportunity. Very few spaces remain, but in the spirit of sharing something we all need — opportunities for rest and restoration — I feel fortunate to extend the invitation to join us in a beautiful natural environment in northern Mexico‘s Sierra Madre mountains just 15 minutes from San Diego.
Mother Nature models why this matters. There is power in a pause. Seasons shift. Trees go bare. Soil is regenerated by time without seeding, so why shouldn’t we? At Project Dandelion, we believe the answers to our biggest planetary crises will come not only from bold policies and breakthrough technologies, but from cultural shifts — especially those that center care, community, compassion, and the leadership of women.
We know that women are driving climate solutions around the globe. We also know too many of them are running on empty. And if we are serious about changing the world, we must be serious about protecting the well-being of those doing the work. That means building movements that value care as much as courage. That means reclaiming rest — not as a luxury, but as a necessity.
This is one of the core truths we’re bringing into the work of Project Dandelion — that a regenerative world must begin with regenerative people as well as practices. We cannot build sustainable systems on unsustainable lives.
Onward!
- Pat
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