Influence & Influencers

When I asked my 11-year-old granddaughter, Marisol, what she wanted to be when she grew up, she answered very quickly — "a social media influencer!" I was surprised, and so were her parents, since she's not even on social media. She'd picked it up somewhere–-school, maybe, or older friends. After all, "influencer" has become an actual occupation, one that shows up in surveys of most-desired jobs among new college graduates.

It might surprise you to know that some of these influencers make millions of dollars a year, paid by companies and brands and even political campaigns to influence what we buy and how we vote. Some argue that this is just an updated form of advertising, but the difference for me is that it is “dressed up” as reporting and given an authenticity not easily verified.  

It may also surprise you to know that the blurred distinction between what is “just an opinion” and what are paid endorsements has led social media platforms to require influencers to disclose when a post is actually a paid ad or endorsement. And oddly, knowing whether or not a post is an influencer's opinion or a paid advertisement doesn't seem to stop many from following the influencers’ recommendation anyway. By most means of measuring impact, social media influencers have influence! 

Reflecting on all this has led me to do some deeper thinking about the subject of influence–how we get it and how we choose to use it–or not.

We all have influence, even though for most of us our sphere of influence is a much smaller circle than the numbers social media platforms reach. But it’s also true that while our choices of what we talk about or write about, how we spend our time and money reflect our personal values, each choice also has the potential to influence others. 

Clearly, the choices I make about what I write in this newsletter reflects personal preferences or interests, and while I’m hoping these posts inform and inspire, I am also motivated by the potential of my choices to influence you to read a recommended book or support an organization or consider a new perspective. The question that arises is not so much whether or not this influence is something gained or earned, but is it something that we use for ourselves or steward it for a greater good? 

In my former careers as a producer and media executive, I had a much bigger sphere of influence like everyone who had the platforms of TV or radio to express ideas and to choose which stories or subjects got reported. It's worth noting, however, that journalists in those earlier days were prohibited from expressing opinions or attempting to influence by promoting a product or even a personal point of view. Yet, even then, every choice could and often did have influence, intentional or not. As an example: there was time when I was anchoring a news broadcast, hosting a talk show and producing documentaries about women in war zones– intentional choices to focus on untold stories and to report the news that mattered, but the influence of my choices that had the most impact, according to the majority of letters from viewers (yes, we actually got letters in those days, not clicks or likes) were mostly about my choices of wardrobe or my hairstyles!  

Unintentional influence for sure. 

Those early experiences with the influence accrued to those of us with media platforms has clearly had an impact on my personal interrogation about influence: to use it or not and when and how to use it are, indeed, the questions. 

There is a profound difference between building a personal brand and building public trust. Influence, used well, can give people access to reach and platforms that once belonged to a few, and it can create ways for real expertise and authentic voices to have bigger reach and impact. Used poorly, it turns visibility into the whole point: attention collected for its own sake, with nothing underneath it. I don't think the difference is necessarily the platform, but the way impact is measured on social media platforms encourages misuse–doom scrolling, hate baiting, just to name two negative strategies for attention…and there’s the rub…what is the attention for?

To add another consideration, especially for women who are still encouraged in many parts of the world to keep whatever influence they have gained or earned out of the spotlight: at what point does humility become invisibility? When does putting others first teach women that our own voices, achievements, and ambitions belong in the background? Is this because visibility for us is seen as vanity, and we live in a culture that treats visibility itself as a measure of value and evidence of influence?

The subject of influence gives rise to conflicting expectations for women raised in the US South, especially those of us coming of age in the late 50’s or 60’s. From early girlhood, many of us were discouraged from seeking positions of influence or certainly not to be upfront about wanting it or having it. You’ve heard the term– ‘steel magnolias’--the label for a Southern woman who pairs an outwardly soft, gracious charm with a real inner strength and resolve: women who clearly had influence but were smart enough and charming enough to never let it be visible; women who were clever enough to use their influence through proximate surrogates–husbands, male colleagues. 

For example, First Lady Rosalynn Carter was often described as a ‘steel magnolia’. Having had the good fortune to observe her leadership up close in Washington and around the world, I have no doubt about her influence or that it was made more palpable through her warm smile and soft voice. I would describe her as an influencer who never hesitated to use that influence for the good of others, but she always used it quietly and often through her proximity to power.  When President Carter invited her to sit in on cabinet meetings, as he valued her advice above all others, there was an uproar! The deal for ‘steel magnolias’ is that influence is permitted, as long as it never looks like ambition. Strength is accepted as long as it stays wrapped in softness. Southern women, in general, learned what women in every culture continue to face–being effective and being seen as effective can be two different things.

Quite a different story about defying culture and the effective use of influence comes from one woman who rose to elected power in one of the most challenging cultures at the time she chose to run for her country’s Presidency. Mary Robinson came of age in an Ireland where women were expected to quietly wait their turn in the strongly Catholic and patriarchal culture, and never to exhibit ambition or power. When she decided to enter politics, she was held to a different standard, a challenge women everywhere and to this very day still face when seeking the power of elected office. Mary was given a ‘1000 to 1” chance of winning the election but stepping into power as the first woman President, she never hesitated to use her influence to advocate and support policies that transformed Ireland into a country that led the world in laws protecting women’s rights, gay rights, and with her passion for human rights, Mary also led Ireland to become a global force for human rights–all this transformation was possible because Mary Robinson chose to use her influence and power for positive change, not for her own ambition or power.

And she continues today to use her influence and every platform and position she has to advocate for a fairer, more sustainable, healthier world. She is the influencer who influenced me to consolidate and optimize whatever platforms I had access to and wherever I might have influence to encourage others to step up to the challenge of ensuring our once bountiful Mother Earth continues to be able to sustain life. Through the global movement, Project Dandelion, that Mary, myself, and our other co-founders: Ronda Carnegie and Hafsat Abiola, launched three years ago, we committed to use our collective influence and storytelling backgrounds to make more visible the women leading frontline solutions to the global climate and nature crisis. We take our inspiration and name from the resilient, persistent, and healing Dandelion. And can there be any greater stewardship of influence than to influence a healthier, habitable future? 

Yet, the question of how and when to use influence rose again recently in my life with a request to be the honoree for a gala benefiting National Jewish Health. I hesitated. Writing this newsletter, or doing the work I do for Project Dandelion, is one kind of influence. This felt like another type. For me, doing that work and elevating the challenges of the global climate and nature crisis is stewardship of the planet and each other. And the influence I’ve gained from a steadfast commitment to telling women’s stories hopefully mediates the ego question. But being the name, face, ‘influencer’ for a fundraiser still surfaced the conflicts I referenced earlier about intention and attention. 

So I chose to do a deeper interrogation about the work I was being asked to use my name and whatever influence that could generate for support, and I discovered why National Jewish Health is a world renowned research and treatment center. Founded by a woman philanthropist with a proud history of offering free medical care to the thousands of tuberculosis patients in the early 20th century, this medical institution based in Denver specializes in environmentally related lung diseases which are increasing at an alarming rate. Intention became clearer–bring greater visibility to this work, even if the means, a gala fundraiser, would put me in the spotlight. Making this choice led me to some of the reflections I’m sharing here.

I must also add that I was further encouraged by the alignment between Project Dandelion’s work to advocate for an end to the fossil fuel reliance that is poisoning our air and water and the work that National Jewish Health is leading to bring attention to the rise in lung diseases connected to the rise in air pollution everywhere. When my persistent friend strengthened this connection by suggesting the theme for the evening could be "A Breath of Fresh Air”, I felt the intention justified the attention, and the invitation to use my influence as stewardship could be considered a privilege as well as a responsibility.

Perhaps, the woman whose life models using privilege and fame best and who is a beloved legend for many reasons and interestingly, who defined for many a "steel magnolia"-- in part because she starred in the movie by that name–”Steel Magnolias: Dolly Parton. 

We mourn her passing and celebrate her extraordinary legacy. Very few people have used the influence of celebrity better than Dolly. It never felt like vanity or ego, even though she chose an intentional focus on her personal appearance — and even that, I believe, she used as influence, making fashion and hairstyles a fun and meaningful connection between her internal values and her external appearance. It's something all women, and yes, some men, aspire to do, since appearance is always part of what shapes opinion, whether we like it or not.

Everything about Dolly felt authentic as well as intentional, and I believe that grew out of her commitment to using the influence she'd earned as a steward for impact, never for ego or self-promotion. What a gift she leaves the world — her songs, of course, and for all women, a much-needed model of how to be both visibly and boldly "feminine" and steadfastly a powerful feminist, never hesitating to use her voice and influence to support greater equality and social and economic justice, aligning her values harmoniously in everything she sang, said, or wrote. Among the many memorable words from Dolly…"If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, then, you are an excellent leader."  

And I would add…if our words and our actions influence others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then we are being better stewards of the potential and power we all have to be influencers. 

Onward!

- Pat

Resilience is not Enough

There was a certain irony that London Climate Action Week—a gathering dedicated to building a livable future—unfolded under record-breaking heat. One session titled “Addressing a Global Heat Crisis!” had another sign attached reading- “Event canceled due to extreme heat!”

Some events proceeded with warnings to participants to ‘stay hydrated’ with water and fans distributed. Tube trains were stopped, and people searched for relief in the shade or the few air conditioned options across London. 

For anyone, like myself, who has lived in the American South, 36°C (97°F) may not sound extraordinary. But London is about as prepared for extreme heat as Atlanta is for a winter ice storm. Systems designed for a different climate suddenly struggled to function. The climate itself became one of the week's most compelling and definitely persuasive ‘participants’ and her message was impossible to ignore: the climate and nature crisis is no longer something we prepare for someday. It is reshaping how we live and work today.

The disruption in a conference, even one convened for climate activists from around the world, is a glimpse into what millions of people in many places in the world experience often. Smallholder farmers cannot postpone a harvest because of extreme heat. Health workers cannot cancel a shift because those they serve are still sick and injured. Indigenous communities cannot reschedule floods, droughts, or wildfire seasons. Around the world, frontline communities are already adapting—not because they chose to, but because they must.

These days, we hear the word resilience everywhere. Governments are building resilient infrastructure. Businesses are strengthening resilient supply chains. Community members are told they must become more resilient. But I wonder if we've begun to misunderstand what resilience really means.

Too often, we treat resilience as an individual achievement—the ability to push through, work harder, and simply endure. Yet decades of research tell a different story. Resilience isn't an innate quality reserved for extraordinary people. It is built over time through small adjustments we make as we manage adversity and gradually find footing again over time

Resilience and stress coexist, we know this, allowing us a complexity to our emotions. To build resiliency, it takes meaningful relationships, opportunities for rest and reflection, communities of trust, and the confidence that comes from knowing we do not carry life's burdens alone.

That truth echoed throughout every conversation Project Dandelion convened during London Climate Action Week. Whether we were discussing food systems, climate finance, insurance, philanthropy, public policy, or women's leadership, one message surfaced again and again: the solutions already exist. Across every sector, women are leading extraordinary work to restore ecosystems, strengthen communities, improve food security, and build more resilient economies. What has become clearer and clearer is that in order to do this work, we need, as activists and leaders, to first restore ourselves!

Increasingly, research confirms what many women have always known through lived experience: our ability to navigate complexity depends not simply on our individual strength, but on the quality of our connections. We need places where we can think beyond the urgency of the day, challenge one another's assumptions, restore our courage, and imagine what comes next. They are essential infrastructure for leadership. And especially the resilient, transformational leadership needed more than ever.

Project Dandelion, in our forums connecting resilient, transformative leaders for more collaboration and collective action, we have heard time and time again about the mental and emotional stress of front line leadership and the need for personal restoration of body and spirit needed to be as effective as the times call on us to be. To address this challenge, Project Dandelion is partnering with the Now Be You team for an Inner Wealth Experience retreat with the intention of restoring inner resilience–Restore Yourself. Regenerate the World. Too often, we think of retreats as stepping away from the work, but we believe they are for stepping more deeply into it.

The outer work depends upon the inner work. When women gather with intention, something remarkable happens. We move beyond exchanging ideas. We strengthen one another's courage. We build relationships capable of carrying difficult work through difficult times. These retreats are investments in the leadership our world now requires.The most important breakthroughs rarely happen when we are rushing from meeting to meeting. They happen when we finally have the time to listen deeply, think differently, build trust, and reconnect with the purpose that first called us to lead.

In a previous newsletter, I described this experience as “Sistering”--a construction term used to describe the extra strength of connecting two foundational pillars–and certainly the bonds that emerge when there is time to truly connect, listen, learn, and think, are meaningful. And there is no question that new friendships and potential collaborations evolve as well. 

We are co-convening the next retreat in Ibiza in November, and while space is limited (15 participants), I am sharing the invitation with this community of readers and leaders who may also be experiencing the need to restore and regenerate and find new levels of resilience for the work ahead.

The link describes the program and explains the process for applying. The three founders of The Inner Wealth Experience, Egle, Ieva, and Luna, will curate with a desired balance, geographically and generationally. The donation to Project Dandelion that is part of the fee for the program is to support our commitment to indigenous communities and to making the women-led solutions to the nature and climate emergencies more visible, more valued and better funded. 

There is no question that the climate emergency and all the changes that grow more threatening for the sustainable and healthy life on planet earth, demand resilience, but we also know that resilience alone will not create the future we seek. Nor will adaptation to the changes fully solve the challenges of ecosystems declining and soaring temperatures. But the solutions to these and all other planetary challenges are within our grasp. We have the solutions. We need leaders willing to act and to be as prepared and yes, resilient, as this time demands of us. 

The future belongs to those willing to transform the systems that no longer serve people or the planet—to build new partnerships, invest in new voices, and strengthen the relationships that make lasting change possible.

Onward!

Pat

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What does Project dandelion do?

No matter where I find myself in this beautiful but increasingly fractured, politically divided, and often violent world–whether I am participating in Project Dandelion forums in Nairobi on food sovereignty and gender, health and climate or walking the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival as part of the team of GroundSwell, a film on regenerative agriculture, or sitting in a small circle of women leaders in Ibiza, learning more about self regeneration, or invited to be in community with indigenous women leaders in the Sierra Nevada region of Colombia, or participating in one of the many other opportunities to show up for Mother Earth wearing my yellow Dandelion pin, a question will often arise for me and my Project Dandelion co-founders: 

“What exactly is Project Dandelion and what do you do?”

In a sentence: We are a global campaign to make women-led climate solutions more visible, valued, & better financed. Our theory of change is that when women lead, solutions follow. Like the Dandelion that inspired our name, we are spreading seeds of possibility and hope rooted in a simple but very important truth: we have an abundance of solutions and solutionists– a name often used to describe the global community of leaders committed to ensuring our Mother Earth remains a habitable home. 

To ensure that future, we do not necessarily need more solutions or new technologies or even more climate focused organizations. We need to better understand and support the work that is going on already.

That work is going on in every community, country, continent and much of it is being led by women. Yet, women-led climate and nature solutions currently receive less than 2% of philanthropic funding and even less investment capital.

Project Dandelion’s work is to change that reality by shaping a new narrative–spreading and amplifying the stories of success; by challenging the fragmentation that keeps too much of the work at small scale, siloed and under-resourced. Our work is to create opportunities to connect frontline leaders to learn from each other, to understand more about what’s working and what’s needed most, and we believe among the many ways to meet the need for better coordination, bigger impact, more resources is to connect women leaders, provide space and place for learning exchanges and potential strategies for the collective action that leads to necessary changes in policies and practices. 

Overall, our purpose–what we do–is to elevate women everywhere as the catalytic opportunity for creating a healthier, safer, and more sustainable future. How we do this, in part, is through a practice of process that can be described as “Sistering”.

I first heard this word a few weeks ago in a women’s circle of trust when Jacki Zehner, a close friend and role model for investing in women, described what we were all experiencing in that circle–a powerful sense of connectedness–as “Sistering.”  

She shared this definition: ‘Sistering’ is a term builders and architects use to describe the action of joining one supporting beam or pillar to an existing one to add needed strength and stability. The two connected beams may be sufficient, individually, to hold up a structure, but when connected, they are stronger together, not just because there are two rather than one, but because the ‘sistering’ creates a new level of structural capacity, greater stability and sustainability. 

That one word gave me a way to describe what happens in these circles and convenings that are an important part of what we do as Project Dandelion: Sistering.  It’s not just about connecting women to each other for purposes of strengthening or scaling individual initiatives or organizations, which is one of the desired outcomes, but it is also about redistributing strength, sharing the load and responsibilities, and directing resources where they are most needed for strength and impact.

Think about it this way: when we are placed alongside each other, we are able to understand more deeply the value in each other’s work and appreciate better what’s being held or sustained as well as what is needed to strengthen and support. This new understanding, through proximity and trusted leadership, opens up opportunities for collaboration rather than competition. Such trust allows us to see ourselves and other women as extensions of the same structure, not separate efforts competing for scarce resources, but interconnected parts of something much larger; in this case, solving for the urgent need to better protect our shared planet’s natural resources and to restore the balance needed for a sustainable future. 

That’s how I am thinking about what we do at Project Dandelion: cultivating and strengthening a global culture of sistering. That’s not all we do, of course, but hopefully, for those who ask, it’s a helpful perspective, a narrative frame for many of our recent activities and programs. 

In the past three months, I can share some specific examples of ‘sistering’ in practice.

Project Dandelion hosted a special delegation of women from the Global South at the Skoll World Forum for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University. 

Let me pause here to acknowledge another reframing of language that goes way beyond words–no longer will we refer to the “Global South” but encourage all to consider that the Global South is, in fact, the “Global Majority”! (Acknowledgment and gratitude to Nyaguthii Chege, leader of the Green Belt Movement for this important reframe).

The women entrepreneurs who were in Project Dandelion’s “Global Majority” delegation had opportunities for a lot of ‘sistering.” Along with participating in the sessions curated by the Skoll Foundation for a global community of social entrepreneurs, we curated opportunities to position the role of women as strategic climate multipliers, to focus discussions on food sovereignty, and lead new insights on the impacts of extreme heat and other climate impacts on women’s health. Our delegates connected with others working on similar initiatives, finding new and often uncommon collaborations as well as those serendipitous connections that led to new funding as well as advocates.

From the Skoll World Forum in Oxford to Australia for Women Deliver, an every three year global gathering of women leaders–6,000 delegates from 189 countries–across all the interconnected issues of social justice, equity, health, food, and of course, climate. Here, the call was clearly to position women as system stabilizers across intersecting crises, and the solutions surfaced included the need for more collaborations, more sharing of resources, more collective actions. We are entering a more volatile, post-aid reality. Systems that once stabilized communities are under strain or being rolled back, but the solutions are everywhere. What is missing is alignment, trust, connection, and community and this is where and how ‘sistering’ can and does create collective strength. 

These are just two examples of the convenings and opportunities to connect with women leaders, to learn more about women-led solutions, to ignite new collaborations, strategize collectively and strengthen a global community of committed leaders with shared purpose. 

Like the Dandelion which uninformed gardeners may try to stop from spreading but cannot because of the deeply interconnected root system, Project Dandelion is also building interconnected roots of trust that will become an unstoppable force for change by the practice of ‘sistering’. 

As co founder and Executive Director, Ronda Carnegie describes in more strategic language–

“What’s clear is this: we don’t have a shortage of solutions, we have a fragmentation of systems. Health, climate, gender and finance are still operating in parallel, while governments are not currently structured to respond to the scale and complexity of what’s unfolding. The opportunity and the gap is to better align these systems. Particularly to connect what’s already working on the ground with financing models and private sector engagement that can support delivery, even when it’s complex and costly.”

We are also responding to a growing need in this community to consider the well-being of our sisters and how we can support programs that address the physical and mental stress of frontline work, of bearing the biggest burden of the impacts of weather disturbances and health related outcomes for themselves and their families. They need to strengthen their own physical, emotional and mental preparedness to continue the work to heal the planet. Project Dandelion’s work here has been to seek partnerships with communities of leaders whose strength is sustained by generations of knowledge and practice–our indigenous “elder sisters”. I wrote about our first such convening in Sierra Nevada and share the link again here, with the promise that we will return to the indigenous leaders to observe the quiet sustained power of true connection to Mother Earth, and what is needed to protect, conserve, restore and how to heal and regenerate ourselves and the planet. More gatherings in these sacred places and spaces with indigenous women are planned.

Project Dandelion also partnered with a regeneration team at Now Be You of real life sisters, Lenora, Ieva, & Egle, with their curation and experience, convened a special women's gathering in Ibiza, an island infused with the feminine spirit and with some impressive feminist leaders. I will share more about that transformative experience in the next newsletter, along with an invitation to our second curatorial partnership with Rancho la Puerta, one of the world’s most respected wellness retreats in Northern Mexico. We provide speakers and this woman founded and led beautiful 80 year old retreat provides an inspiring array of programs and practices to heal body, mind and spirit.

All of this–participating in global conferences, convening our own forums as well as shaping new opportunities for self restoration are all part of what we do to support resilience through challenging times while also providing pathways and opportunities for sistering–connecting to optimize each other’s strength for a collective power that can and will create the world we want to live in and the world we are working to shape, together.

That is Project Dandelion’s promise: to help make sense of complexity, remove barriers to support and investment, and protect the spaces where deep listening, authentic connection, and courageous conversation can thrive. We also promise to nurture the leaders who hold up their communities and organizations—the supporting beams who also need care, resilience, and renewal.

Our work is to create the conditions for a stronger, more connected movement: bringing people together to learn, to strategize, and to strengthen one another’s efforts.

And through the practice of sistering, we are building a movement grounded in the simple but powerful truth that we are stronger, connected, working together.

This is what Project Dandelion Does. 

Onward!

Pat

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Thank you Ted

You have most likely read or heard a lot about Ted Turner this week as friends, colleagues and admirers from around the world share reflections on his extraordinary life. Few individuals accomplished so much or had more impact, quite literally, on the whole world.

Much of the Ted story has been told--and hopefully will continue to be told and celebrated. My reflections are more personal. He was once my boss, my mentor and advocate, and we became family when our son, Rutherford, married his daughter, Laura. For the past three decades, we have also shared the joys of being co-grandparents and co-great grandparents!

(L-R) Rutherford, myself, Ted, and my husband, Scott

Like many of the most important moments in a life, meeting Ted Turner was one in my life that almost didn’t happen. I was struggling as an independent filmmaker, determined to elevate the stories of women at a time when the so called 'mainstream media’ considered such programming to be unimportant and unpopular. (One of the reasons why I had left a good position at NBC). Along with my production partners, Jacoba Atlas and Diana Meehan, I had tried, with no success, to interest every cable and broadcast network in a documentary series on women in American history to be narrated by Jane Fonda, whom I had met doing a story for NBC on the Jane Fonda Workout. Before giving up, Jane suggested pitching the project to her husband, Ted Turner, for one of his cable networks. “But would he be interested in the history of women?” I asked skeptically, to which Jane replied, “He married me!”

I requested a meeting and within a few days was in Atlanta, walking a bit wide-eyed, past the Gone with the Wind posters lining the 14th floor of the CNN Center, to be greeted by Ted whose first words to me were “you’re late!” Somewhat flustered, I pointed out that it was just 8 am, the time scheduled for our meeting, to which he responded “5 minutes before is ‘on time!’

That was the first of many lifetime lessons from Ted. 

I had barely sat down, taking in quickly the awards on every surface and the big plaque on his desk – “Lead, Follow, or Get out of my way“ – when Ted began pacing and firing questions, ignoring my attempts to give him the carefully prepared proposal. What I was not prepared for was how much Ted knew about the women in America’s history! As I observed that day and came to appreciate fully, Ted was a lifetime student of history and believed in the power of knowing the past in order to shape a better world in the future.

After our first 15 minute meeting, my future was clearly going to be different and better than I could have planned or imagined! Ted had agreed to fund a 6 hour documentary series which Jane would narrate called “A Century of Women” and I also had a new job! In the flurry of questions and the excitement of realizing we had the funding for the series, I had almost missed the offer (or what felt more like a ‘command’) to move to Atlanta and lead Turner Original Productions.

The next 10 years were the best any filmmaker, producer, media executive could hope for. I had a boss who cared more about the impact of the work than ratings or revenue. I learned how to pitch an idea in 3 minutes or less because that was how long I usually got to get an answer from Ted who greenlit (or not) every project. I also learned early on that when he gave editing notes, which he did often, as he reviewed every film before broadcast, he was right. Not just because he was the boss, but because he expected every program to optimize the power of media to inform and inspire as well as entertain.

We produced hundreds of hours of natural history, wildlife, environmental issue documentaries even when they didn’t get big audiences or lost sponsors afraid of controversy. We co-funded the National Geographic Explorer series, co-produced David Attenborough series with the BBC, financed Jacques Cousteau’s ocean research and voyages and so much more! More than 100 hours a year of documentary films!

Ted often joked that we, the documentary unit that got renamed as CNN productions, were the ‘nonprofit unit’ in a ‘for-profit’ company. It’s a fact that many of our most important films attracted few sponsors, but Ted never compromised the content for commercial benefit. It was the job of my dreams– working for someone who believed stories, well told, could shape opinions, open minds, shift culture and even change laws and lives. I was incredibly privileged to be a part of it all with Ted at the helm, making history while also documenting or reporting it.

When the US boycotted the Olympics in 1980, Ted, passionate about sports as an important pathway to better international relations, created an alternative international world sports competition, the Goodwill Games, and in 1994, he decided the Games would be held in the former Soviet Union.

I arrived in St. Petersburg from my overnight flight to find a note in my hotel room which instructed me to go directly to the restaurant to meet Ted. Without so much as a welcome, he slammed his cup of coffee on the table and asked, “Pat, what about the Cold War?” The Berlin wall had come down in 1989 and I responded: “It is over, isn’t it?” 

“Of course it’s over,” he answered in his best booming voice, and went on to express his concern that future generations would not remember the longest war in history or what it was like to live on the brink of nuclear annihilation as both East and West had built up nuclear weapons for what was often referred to as the MAD strategy: “Mutually Assured Destruction”.  (Ted later funded a global nuclear threat initiative (NTI) to address the dangers of nuclear weapons and to advocate for the end of the arms race.)

That morning in the former Soviet Union, Ted was focused on documenting the whole story of the Cold War which he worried would become a footnote in our grandchildren’s history lessons, and that is what has happened. And once again, as he had done often during our time of working together, Ted was focused on the  responsibility of media to report the facts and tell the whole story, and it was my responsibility and privilege to implement his vision. As he always instructed at the end of such meetings– “get it right!” And in this case, what Ted believed would be right was a 40 hour documentary series, one hour for each year of the Cold War.

I didn’t protest the 40 hours at the time, but other executives at the company cautioned about the cost, and the time commitment. I just got started on what would be a four-year journey bringing together historians from every region in the world and hiring an award winning production team headed by Sir Jeremy Isaacs. For background, we interviewed more than 600 world leaders including Helmut Schmidt, Margaret Thatcher, Andrei Gromyko, Robert McNamara, Fidel Castro, George Bush, Henry Kissinger, Mikhail Gorbachev, among others. When we presented Ted with the production proposal for a 20 hour, not 40 hour series, he called me at 6 am the very next morning to say he had read the materials and we had not gotten it right about four other important aspects of the history. Ted knew enough of the history to challenge the historians and he was right, once again. With his direction, we did the additional research and interviews and Cold War became a 24 hour series, broadcast on CNN in 1998 and received many awards, including the Peabody Award for Excellence. One of the longest documentary series ever, it is still widely considered to be the definitive story of a history that we are perilously close to repeating again.

(Unfortunately, Cold War is not available to stream online. Note to CNN: A rebroadcast would be a public service at this time.)

(L-R) Executive producer Sir Jeremy Isaacs, CNN Founder Ted Turner, The Honorable President Mikhail Gorbachev and The Paley Center for Media President & CEO Pat Mitchell attend a screening and panel on Cold War: The Complete Series at The Paley Center for Media on April 29, 2012 in New York City. (Source: Charles Eshelman/Getty Images North America)

Another experience from those rewarding and privileged days of working with someone who had a clear and compelling mandate for stories that mattered was the Native American initiative that Ted launched in 1992. This was a multi-channel presentation of films, documentaries and books, with all the stories told by the people who lived them! Ted’s big idea this time was to only hire Native American directors, writers, historians and interviewees, and also to invite Robert Redford to get involved, as Redford was a long time champion and advocate for Native stories and was offering mentoring and support for Indigenous storytellers at a Sundance Institute lab, a program that continues to this day.

I had never met Redford but who didn't want to? I requested a meeting, flew to Sundance, Utah and over lunch, convinced him to co-executive produce the six hour documentary series telling the history of 500 nations called “The Native Americans”. Turner and Redford- legends themselves, were both committed to creating opportunities for other stories and storytellers, and both deeply committed to conserving and protecting the planet.

Along with meeting world leaders, working with legends, getting to document relevant history, our documentary films also received 34 Emmy’s, 5 Peabody’s, and an Oscar nomination for the Hank Aaron documentary, "Chasing Dreams". There are  enough stories to fill a book…and I did write about some of them in my memoir.

When I went to Ted’s office in 2019 to read the chapter I had written about him, he listened quietly, and when I finished, with that characteristic, disarming smile, reached across the desk, took my hand and said, “I'm so glad we met!” Then he asked that we sing. Ted always liked to sing as a way to end our meetings or dinners. And on this day, we sang one of his favorites…'Somewhere over the Rainbow’. I cried tears of gratitude then and now, remembering this extraordinary man and his impact on my life, on the lives of hundreds of millions around the world, and on mother earth.

Today, I am imagining him somewhere possibly rearranging the rainbows and broadening the horizons as he did during his time among us, and may we honor his legacy by continuing to protect this beautiful and bountiful planet, by standing up and speaking out for what’s right, and to continue to tell the stories that matter. 

Thank you Ted.

Onward!

Pat

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The Heart of the Work in The Heart of the World

There are places in the world that invite us to show up differently. Not with our expertise or answers, but with an open heart and willingness to move beyond what we know or even believe. 

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is one of those places. Known by its Indigenous guardians as the “Heart of the World,” the place where two great bodies of water meet, where the land between the water and the mountains holds both extraordinary ecological richness and is also home to four Indigenous communities: Arhuaco, Kogi, Wiwa, and Kankuamo.

Walking across the small bridge from the familiar world to the welcome at Gitana Del Mar, an eco-retreat center quite intentionally woven into its surroundings, under the stewardship of its owner, Nina Arias, the place, itself, felt like an portal to a new level of  understanding about how we inhabit a place matters as much as why we come together within it. 

Our ‘why’ was an invitation for an immersive experience and learning exchange to be led by women from the indigenous communities who have been the caretakers of this “Heart of the World” for generations. 

The “how” of  the experience revealed itself in small and big differences from the first steps on the sand that warmed our ‘soon to be bare’ feet to the first circle on the private pristine beach where each of the women who had accepted the invitation were prompted to introduce themselves with a ‘weather’ reference. The responses ranged from ‘sunny’  to ‘unpredictable”, and from that circle to all the ones that followed, we experienced a  different kind of learning, listening, and leading.

The invitation had emerged from a connection between Project Dandelion and a partnership with UNA Experience Productions, founded and guided by Isabella Noero and Natalia Segovia who already had deep personal relationships with the indigenous women who guided our discussions with a steadiness that came not from an agenda, but from a commitment to share with us, carefully and through translation, literally from Mother Tongue to Spanish to English, their ways of seeing and being in the world. 

Unfamiliar. Sometimes nonlinear and challenging to comprehend fully. But we listened. And we felt a different way of learning unfolding, as well as a different perspective on leadership and relationship with community and with Mother Earth which for them is a lived practice, not a theory. 

Each of the Indigenous women shared their leadership as practiced inside and outside their communities.

Ati Viviam Villafaña

Ati Viviam Villafaña is a global advocate for the conservation of the Sierra Nevada, She is part of a team of representatives from the four indigenous communities of the Sierra, working to secure UNESCO mixed heritage status and supporting the effective protection of indigenous rights.

Kundiwe Chaparro

Kundiwe Chaparro works through community action, cultivating gardens in her community and others as spaces where women gather. They come together to grow healthy food and to strengthen the fabric of the community itself.

Gunna Chaparro

Gunna Chaparro,  is a powerful voice for her people and the land they have preserved for generations on global stages. From COP to biodiversity summits, she brings the lived realities of her community into rooms where decisions about the planet’s future are made.

Together, these women and others who came to connect with us also shared unexpected insights; for example, calling us their “Little Sisters” but not in reference to age as they don’t track time on the earth by dates. In fact, some shared that they don’t know their age as it's irrelevant. What they track are the many different ways each has carried forth a responsibility to their communities and all that live on the earth with them, and that is measured across generations, not decades. 

(For me, the “elder” in our intergenerational cohort, this felt a welcomed relief from the age and aging obsession of so many western cultures.)

Anyone who has ever traveled to this part of the world most likely recognizes the Mochilla: the woven bags that are carried across the bodies of men, women, and children. Throughout the gathering, the women wove mochillas, their hands in constant, rhythmic motion. They described the weaving as innate as breathing. Every stitch, every row, assembled with prayers and meditations of love and intention for the person who will carry the bag. Their weaving is how knowledge is carried and how stories are remembered.  It is how relationships are formed. So as they wove, we did also….but for some of us, not so well. My attempts at weaving a Mochilla fell short of my aspiration but increased my admiration for every one I purchased later to share with friends and family.

The weaving that truly mattered were the connections among ourselves: women arriving from different geographies and lived experiences. We wove together perspectives, questions, and, at times, our uncertainties and inclination to seek the kind of directional life or work instruction so much a part of strategy convenings. But what was clear by the concluding circle was that we had woven a larger circle, one that included the Indigenous women as partners in an emerging, evolving relationship. As reflections were shared from each participant, the common theme was inclusion as a process: intentional, and earned.

Importantly, the work did not begin or end with the closing circle or the end of the retreat.

In collaboration with the participants and aligned with Project Dandelion’s mission to sustain learning exchanges with these and other Indigenous communities, a commitment was made to support two projects identified by these communities themselves: the construction of new bathrooms and the restoration of a women’s center. We learned in reference to this choice that to restore their women’s space is to restore more than a building. It is to ensure continuity for gatherings, teachings, for cultural practice, and for leadership.

Given that the women who came to this convening at Gitana Del Mar in the Sierra Nevada, the Heart of the World, are, by nature and in their hearts and minds, problem-solvers, we are accustomed to asking: What can we do? The answer we received was both simple and disorienting as it wasn’t so much an answer as it was another invitation.

We were not asked for action and solutions or even support, but for relationship and presence. “First you listen. Then you come to be in community with us.” That was our answer and our invitation

Embedded in that is a discipline many of us have lost: the understanding that trust cannot be accelerated. That meaningful partnership is built through consistency, rather than urgency, even when so many of the problems faced everywhere feel and are, in fact, urgent. But we were being led to understand that showing up, even in the small moments without an agenda, that only then can we begin to ask what is needed. As our hosts say…”First you listen. Then you come to be in community with us.”

On our final night, Vasser Seydel, my extraordinary granddaughter with whom I was so privileged to share this special learning journey, was invited to plant a mangrove tree as a lasting legacy of a shared commitment to return to our lives and work with new and renewed relationships to each other and to Mother Earth.

This retreat experience did not offer a set of takeaways and a checklist. It offered a shift in orientation. It reminded us that across cultures and contexts, there is a shared human desire: to be seen and heard and to be met with respect for who we are, not who others assume us to be. 

It is this that reframes the work, and in the work to address the challenges we face, from climate to community resilience, Indigenous leadership cannot be peripheral, for it is an essential understanding of the relationship between all human beings and all that lives on this beautiful, bountiful planet together. This relationship requires us to rethink partnership between us and the land, water and all of nature’s gifts…not as a transaction or extraction or intervention, but as relationships built on trust. Trust that is founded on shared values and sustained through individual and collective care. Trust that is strengthened when we show up with intention, and trust that is strong enough to hold complexity and difference…and trust that invites us to pursue possibilities, together.

All of the beautiful photos in this newsletter were taken by the very talented, Leia Vita Marasovich // @leia_vita

Onward!

Pat

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A Love Letter to SEWA

Over the Valentine’s weekend, I found myself thinking about love — not the sentimental kind, but the courageous, disciplined, world-building kind. The kind rooted in trust, dignity, solidarity, and shared purpose. The kind that organizes, that endures, that transforms systems. That is the kind of love I witnessed at SEWA during my visit last week to the headquarters in Ahmedabad, India— love expressed as economic self-reliance, democratic governance and collective action for the common good.

A love letter to the 3.8 million women of SEWA — self-employed workers across India’s informal economy — growing food, selling it as street vendors, recycling urban waste into usable materials, weaving and embroidering centuries-old traditions, installing solar panels, adopting e-transportation, and helping clean the skies of their communities. They are farmers, salt pan workers, waste management technicians, artisans, vendors, solar engineers, and small entrepreneurs. They are self-reliant. They are organized. They are unstoppable and inspiring. Through their membership in SEWA — one of the world’s largest and most successful trade unions — these women demonstrate the collective power of sisterhood, solidarity, and full employment with dignity.

Last week, I had the privilege of meeting many of SEWA’s members and leaders in Ahmedabad, observing their work and listening to their stories of intergenerational transformation. For more than 50 years, SEWA has quietly been building an economic model that works — not as charity, but as collective power.

Founded in 1972 by Ela Bhatt, SEWA is a union of women working at the margins of the formal economy across 20 states and more than 125 trades. Its membership stands at 3.8 million and is projected to reach 5 million within the next five years, under the current leadership of Reema Nanavaty. It is a member-owned movement. Women pay dues. They elect their leaders. They build institutions together. SEWA operates its own banking system. It runs waste sorting and paper-making facilities. It manages solar initiatives, artisan collectives, food services, and cooperative enterprises. (If you visit Ahmedabad, eating at Kamla is a must!) Every initiative is designed to create sustainable livelihoods and long-term security.

I traveled to SEWA as part of a Project Dandelion delegation led by Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, co-founder of Project Dandelion, and a longtime friend of Ela Bhatt. Our delegation included Project Dandelion colleagues: Poppy Mason-Watts and Laura Cook, as well as other leaders working at the intersection of faith, finance, and climate innovation.

Also traveling with me was my dear friend Susan Walker, founder of IBU, who has built a global marketplace for women’s artisan collectives across more than 40 countries. Together we visited a village of weavers, spent time with SEWA’s talented designers, and toured and shopped at Hansiba, SEWA’s artisan showcase. Susan offered strategic guidance on expanding global markets for the SEWA artisans who are preserving traditions of weaving, embroidery and other textile arts.

They are building Green Villages beginning with Green Schools that teach environmental stewardship to the next generation. Establishing Green Skilling Centers that train women in renewable technologies. Creating cold storage cooperatives to reduce crop loss. Installing solar fans in dense urban homes. Developing large scale solar farms led by young women engineers. This is climate action rooted in livelihoods. Then there is one of SEWA’s most groundbreaking innovations: world’s first Parametric Heat insurance. As temperatures in India increasingly reach life-threatening levels, outdoor workers such as the salt pan laborers, farmers, waste workers, face impossible choices between income and survival. SEWA pioneered one of the world’s first heat insurance programs, allowing women to forgo work and receive compensation when temperatures exceed dangerous thresholds. It is a simple idea that is life-saving and importantly, replicable.

During our visit, an African delegation from Ethiopia and Tanzania was studying SEWA’s cooperatives and climate innovations to adapt them for their own communities. Project Dandelion is exploring ways to deepen and expand on similar Global South exchanges. But perhaps the most profound lesson of SEWA is not technological. It is philosophical. SEWA’s democracy is grounded in Gandhian principles: Satya (truth), Ahimsa (non-violence), Sarvadharma (respect for all faiths), and Khadi (self-reliance through dignified work), inspired by Mahatma Gandhi.

Trust is foundational. Trust is between the members and trust in elected leadership. Trust that is built slowly over decades with positive outcomes.

I heard story after story of transformation that is possible when trust deepens through opportunities to pursue a better life.

From one: “My mother was a garment worker, unable to leave her home, barely surviving. Now she is fully employed in a SEWA collective. All her children went to college. Some are lawyers. Some are doctors. I am an elected SEWA regional leader.”

This is not an isolated story. It is happening across India. SEWA proves that poverty alleviation, climate resilience, cultural preservation, and women’s leadership are not separate agendas. They are inseparable.

Imagine if trust were the foundation of our economies. Imagine if full employment did not exploit people or the planet. Imagine if sisterhood and solidarity guided policy decisions. That is not idealism. It is already happening at SEWA. They call it - Building an Economy of Nurturance" - a concept pioneered by Ela Bhatt. I offer this love letter to SEWA’s members and leaders with admiration and gratitude for all they are building, modeling, and sharing with the world. And I am reminded of Gandhi's words:

“What barrier is there that love cannot break?”

Onward!

Pat

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The Power of One Bold Vision: What Tzeporah Berman Shows Us After COP30

Dear Friends,

In the days since COP30, I’ve heard, and shared myself, many of the critiques and disappointments about the final outcomes of another global conference failing to implement a roadmap to a climate safe world for everyone. We made some progress, but not enough because such a roadmap, we know from the science, must include an agreement from all countries on plans to phase-out fossil fuels and shift to other sources of energy. At a time when the number of people who are dying from air pollution related causes is increasing, and the health impacts related to burning coal and the reliance on oil and gas are undeniable, it's clearly essential to keep convening the conversations and the negotiations necessary to keep hope alive and elevate the solutions and signs of real progress. Fortunately, we have the solutions. We need more brave leaders willing to stand up against the powerful fossil fuel industry’s lies and lobbyists, to make the case that we can transition to other sources of energy and must do so to have a livable future on this planet.

Tzeporah Berman presenting at Project Dandelion’s Bellagio forum this past March.

One brave leader has been traveling country to country, making this case for the last five years. Tzeporah Berman who launched the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. I’ve had the privilege of witnessing Tzeporah’s commitment and passion which may have begun as what some described as ‘a fringe idea’, considered ‘out of reach’ by many, but which has become a rapidly growing alliance of nations who have signed the treaty and are charting a real, workable roadmap for a transition beyond fossil fuels. The Initiative is exactly the kind of bold and necessary step, binding countries who sign to a framework to wind down fossil fuel production and invest in a more just and regenerative future.

Tzeporah in the middle with her team at a march during COP30.

At COP30, their work gained remarkable traction. More than 80 additional countries signaled support for a global plan to phase out fossil fuels—an unmistakable sign that this movement is accelerating. And although the final COP outcome fell short of explicit commitments, something historic did happen: for the first time, the COP presidency formally acknowledged that international cooperation on the phase-out of fossil fuels must move forward in parallel with, and complementary to, the Paris Agreement. That acknowledgment matters. It opens political and diplomatic space that did not exist before.

Leaders and officials from Columbia and the Netherlands celebrating the announcement.

There was another historic and important development in one of the final days of COP30: Colombia and the Netherlands announced they will co-host the first-ever international conference to phase out fossil fuels on April 28–29, 2026 in Santa Marta, Colombia. The choice of Santa Marta could not be more powerful. This is a major coal port in one of the world’s top five coal-producing nations. To host this conference in a place whose economy has long been tied to coal extraction sends a bold and unmistakable message: the transition must touch even the landscapes and economies built by fossil fuels. The world–or certainly the countries who have signed the treaty–are ready—finally—to end our dependency on coal, oil, and gas, and to imagine and invest in what comes next.

Pacific nations have also committed to convening a regional meeting to advance aligned objectives, continuing their long tradition of bold and courageous leadership on solving the climate crisis which threatens their very existence. 

Today, 18 nations have formally endorsed the Fossil Fuel Treaty, with Cambodia becoming the most recent to join. Each new signatory is a reminder that global courage is building, step by step. While 18 countries can’t end fossil fuel production or extraction policies at the scale needed to address the dependency—and therefore the negative impacts—everywhere, just getting to this number of presidents and prime ministers willing to commit to doing it is significant, especially given the effective lobbying and misinformation campaigns from the fossil fuel industry. This is real, measurable, progress that is driven not by bureaucratic negotiations alone, but by visionary leaders like Tzeporah, whose commitment to this single and singularly important initiative exemplifies the power of one individual with a vision of what must be done and keeps moving forward towards that goal– country by country. Along with the hope that the convening in April in Colombia will further accelerate the necessary transition, I also hold close this truth: change often begins outside the formal halls of power, seeded by those willing to imagine something better and then work relentlessly to make it so. 

Tzeporah Berman is such a visionary leader. You can watch her TED talk to see her in action. She is, like the Dandelion, resilient and unstoppable, seeding the actions that will move the world forward from reliance on the fossil fuels that are killing us towards the clean and renewable sources of energy that promise a cleaner, healthier and restorative future. You can also get involved by following the Treaty’s progress on HERE. 

 

Onward!

- Pat

What we are really celebrating: The soil, the stewards, and the season

Dear friends,

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday–for many reasons, but primarily because It’s about gratitude and not gift giving.  The ‘gift’ of thanksgiving is the ritual of sharing a meal with family and friends, a meal that is often followed by comments like “I ate too much” or “I feel as stuffed as the turkey!”

For millions, however, right here in the so-called “land of plenty”, the complaints will be not enough to eat, this day or any other. Food insecurity is real and present in nearly every community now. Just this month, the uncertainty that came with the delay of SNAP benefits, coupled with the rising costs of food, have pushed far too many families into uncertainty about something as basic as their next meal. 

This is a hard truth to take in on any day but especially on this day, when so much of it is centered around food, and yet, it could be the right day to reflect more deeply on the subject of food…to consider the journey every ingredient in that stuffing that fills the turkeys and our stomachs makes to get to our tables or food kitchens. Who is growing it? How and where was it harvested, transported, and made accessible in our farmers markets, supermarkets, and food banks? These questions are not abstract, they are central to our wellbeing and in more ways than may be obvious, to the future of our communities and our planet. 

Yet, the answers to the questions about the food begins with what may seem like a paradox or contradiction. With the onset of industrial farming and the introduction of fertilizers to enable large scale production of food and animals, all of which once promised abundance and enough food to meet a growing global population; but we know now the consequences of this kind of food production has been soil degradation, chemical dependency, water pollution, and the erosion of small family farms and in most cases, unhealthy food, animals and of course, less healthy consumers. There’s plenty of data to back this up, but the bottom line that I believe can no longer be ignored–Industrial agriculture is not the answer to food insecurity but is, in fact, the cause of much of it. And the good news is that recognizing this has led many farmers to turn to another way to produce food…a healthier way that is often described as regenerative agriculture.

Simply put, regenerative agriculture refers to a set of farming practices that restore soil health, increase biodiversity, improve water cycles, and strengthen the resilience of farms and communities. It moves beyond sustainability toward healing and rebuilding what has been depleted, rather than simply slowing the damage. Healthy soil grows healthier food, captures more carbon, protects against drought and flooding, and supports farmers in creating long-term stability for their families and their land. It’s starting to become more widely understood to be one of the main solutions not only to a food systems crisis but also to solving the nature and climate crisis. 

Regenerative agriculture is not new, of course, it’s more about remembering and reclaiming the ways growing food in a more ecologically sound process, in right relationship with the earth’s resources and cycles of nature rather than artificial (and toxic) processes- and there is a movement happening on every continent to make the connections real again between healthy soil and healthy food.

This is the right relationship with the earth that has been and continues to be central for the indigenous communities everywhere. So instead of watching football or old movies as a Thanksgiving ritual, consider a new one, and watch the Oxygen Project’s Watch Originarias a youtube series that amplifies the voices of women who cook as an act of sovereignty, heal through biodiversity, lead innovation, guard collective memory, and live in relationship with the cycles of the earth.

Learn more about The Oxygen Project

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I also want to shine a light on three extraordinary women farmers who are doing the hard, hopeful work of reclaiming land and practicing regenerative farming in the US. In fact, one lives and farms right in my city. 

Jamila Norman- Jamila’s vision of regenerative agriculture really started in her own backyard with an acre in her neighborhood, and over the years since she took up farming, after a career in city government, she has patched together other acres and other areas right in the middle of Atlanta. That’s why she calls it Patchwork City farms. On my visit I was stunned by how much you can grow on what is considered a relatively small space. She has innovated her forms of planting to adjust to Atlanta’s hot summers and increasingly wet falls and winters, and she grows nearly everything–from every kind of vegetable to fruit trees and herbs. No fertilizer. Just compost from other people’s food waste. She also opens once a week to the neighborhood for a farmers market, as well as selling the produce at other local farmers markets. Jamila has become quite well known as Farmer J from her streaming series HomeGrown with the Magnolia Network, and she is a founding member of South West Atlanta Growers Cooperative, an organization that she says “exists to strengthen Atlanta’s Black farmers and to create a transformative, environmentally and culturally responsible Atlanta food system that contributes to a robust and equitable high quality of life for its farmers and communities,”. I am grateful the dedication and courage of  a young Black woman taking up the challenge to become a healthy source of food for her community.

Pandora Thomas- At Pandora’s Earthseed Farm, growth is rooted not only in the soil but in a deep commitment to community, culture, and collective wellbeing. This season, Earthseed launched its Community Nourishment Program, delivering fresh, organic fruit at low-to-no cost to organizations serving communities from Sonoma to San Francisco. Their beloved Back to Our Roots program continues to flourish as well, engaging hundreds of young people in land-based learning grounded in Afro-Indigenous ecological teachings. With renewed support from funders and a key award from the CDFA, Earthseed is expanding access for youth while also deepening its commitment to climate resilience through major upgrades to its solar power and battery systems and a nearly fully electric fleet. And as Earthseed’s residencies continue to offer restorative space for Black artists, activists, and caregivers, the farm is growing into an even more powerful model of what regenerative, community-led stewardship can look like when care, creativity, and justice are at the center.

Konda Mason- Konda Mason, the visionary founder of Jubilee Justice, is advancing the SRI (System of Rice Intensification) method of rice growing. It is an approach that must be innovated and adapted to each unique landscape. This regenerative technique is proving transformative, using 25–50% less water than conventional flooded paddies. At a time when rice remains a staple for billions, Konda’s work offers not just a breakthrough in agriculture but a powerful opportunity for global water conservation. Even the rice mill on her Louisiana farm is solar-powered, a reminder that she builds solutions aligned with both the planet and people. As she puts it, their Rice Project “sits perfectly at the intersection of economic justice and climate justice,” addressing two of our most urgent challenges with ingenuity and heart. She markets this extraordinary harvest as Jubilee Justice Rice, a name deeply tied to the story of the land itself. Konda now lives on what was once a Southern plantation where enslaved people were forced to farm the land. The irony, and the quiet poetry, of her tending this soil toward restorative justice is felt by everyone who visits. Alongside the rice, she’s cultivating a strain of wheat, already imagining it folded into homemade tacos for a café she plans to open on her property in Alexandria. I, for one, hope to be there when it opens, to taste the delicious results of her vision, courage, and creativity in a region long burdened by the impacts of climate disruption and fossil-fuel injustice.

Knowing that there are these three women pursuing what many see as the single most effective and timely solution to the climate crisis as well as addressing the food insecurity crisis, may encourage some of us to find our plot of land..a garden in backyard, or shared in a neighborhood or a rooftop. For all of us, there are other ways we can honor the hands of the people who grow our food. We can pay close attention as consumers to the food we buy—where was it grown, and if possible, to know by whom. Individual farmers or collectives or big industrial agriculture companies? What was the journey from farm to table? How much energy was used in that transport? These are questions worth asking because each purchase is a conscious decision to participate in the solution and to choose a healthier option as well.

As the biggest consumer day in the US happens tomorrow, I will be participating in The Oxygen Project’s initiative.

I hope the profiles and recommendations in this newsletter had some nourishment of thought on this day we set aside for gratitude.

Gratitude will be a big part of our family’s thanksgiving meal today which we will share with our oldest son, his wife and our awesome granddaughters. We will also be sharing and remembering the words of botanist and award winning author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, who writes in her book The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. “Food in our mouths is the thread that connects us in a relationship simultaneously spiritual and physical, as our bodies get fed and our spirits nourished by a sense of belonging, which is the most vital of foods,” Around the world, farming families and entire communities are part of a rising global movement to restore our soils and reimagine our relationship to food. I’m honored to be the executive producer of a forthcoming film, Groundswell, which lifts up these global stories, stories of courage, creativity, and commitment to regeneration in every sense of the word.  

Thank you, dear readers for your words of encouragement for my newsletter and for the gratitude you have expressed for the stories and ideas shared here.

Onward!

- Pat

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Hopeful Reflection: Returning from COP30

Dear Readers, 

You may remember that back in September, I wrote a newsletter attempting to demystify the COP process, the annual gathering of global leaders charged with negotiating the commitments needed to secure a livable future. COP, of course, stands for Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. There have now been 29 of these convenings, and while many have been clouded by controversies, including the last two being hosted by oil and gas-dominated economies, progress has far too often fallen short of the promises. These gatherings remain the single most consequential decision-making arena for the future of Planet Earth. They are imperfect, frustrating, and sometimes maddeningly slow, but they are still humanity’s best chance at collective action on a global scale.

We are the first generation to fully understand the consequences of inaction, and the very last with the power to prevent the worst of what’s coming. Now, that may seem daunting to some, but it gives me hope knowing we have the knowledge and the means to solve the crisis. This realization, and my desire for my children and grandchildren to know I did everything I could, is what took me and a small but determined Project Dandelion team to the COP30 Amazonia, convened in Belem, Brazil.

Belém, a city perched at the edge of the world’s greatest rainforest — the “lungs of the planet” — hosted nearly 100,000 participants from every corner of the globe. Presidents, ministers, scientists, youth leaders, Indigenous guardians, mayors, business leaders, artists, and activists moved through the hot, humid corridors of the COP venues with a shared determination: to insist that the Amazon remain a living solution to the global nature and climate crisis rather than a monument to our collective failure to heed the science and implement the changes necessary to ensure a livable future on Planet Earth. 

Project Dandelion was created to meet this moment with an urgent call for collective action. I left Belém carrying stories, stories of women leading with fierce determination, of Indigenous guardians speaking for the forest with unmatched clarity, of youth activists pulling us toward the future with urgency, and of global networks like Project Dandelion insisting that any solution worth having must be inclusive, intersectional, and rooted in justice.

Co-founders Ronda Carnegie and I, alongside our Senior Strategist Laura Cook, spent the first week convening Dandelions across Belém to encourage, together, the feminist leadership and moral courage this moment demands. From spiritual leaders to youth innovators, from scientists to business champions, we witnessed just how many people are ready to lead with imagination, solidarity, and moral clarity. These voices grounded this COP in values and ethics, shaping not just the atmosphere in Belém but the policy center of gravity.

We gathered for the Women at the Forefront of Climate Action dinner held at the historic Casa Dourada Belém’s Cidade Velha. The event was co-hosted by Project Dandelion, Instituto Clarice, and the L’Oréal Foundation together with extraordinary women shaping a more just and livable world. Our partners for this event, Mariana Ribeiro and Flavia Doria, Brazil’s feminist leaders, COP official hosts and organizers as well as Project Dandelion’s strategy and narrative lead, Laura Cook led a celebration of leadership, resilience, and the unbreakable spirit of women connected by a vision of what the future could be and calling for ways to move towards it. 

That evening, Dandelions Marcella Fernandez and Durja Julia also performed a profoundly moving ritual on the power of water for life and reminding us that this circle of women leaders reflects the solidarity that is our power. We are walking this path together and we have every reason to keep believing in what we can achieve.

After a powerful provocation, Brazil’s first Indigenous leader elected to the country’s Parliament, Celia Xakriaba, reached for mine and Ronda Carnegie, Project Dandelion’s cofounder and Executive Director’s hands, and she pulled us into a dance of joy and united spirits.

The next evening at the TED Countdown House in Belém, Project Dandelion gathered more women leaders, innovators, and allies who are reshaping what climate adaptation can look like when imagination meets implementation. The room carried a sense of purpose and possibility. We shared our social media campaign on small holder farmers in Ethiopia, India, and across our global network, as evidence that women are not merely responding to climate change — they are redefining resilience itself.

Through the provocations that unfolded over dinner from Ana María Loboguerrero’s call to recognize women smallholder farmers as architects of innovation, to Sage Lenier’s vision for mobilizing institutional capital, to Estelle Willie’s reframing of adaptation as a new form of development, and Ana Lucia Villela’s reminder that children’s voices must guide us — the evening became a testament to the power of collective leadership. 

Laura Cook, with her characteristic grace and articulate messages, drew insights from all of the conversations to remind us why we gather as Dandelions: to connect, to unify our work, and to imagine what’s possible when we act together. Standing with Ronda at the close of the evening, I felt once again the deep truth at the heart of this work– that the Dandelion grows wherever it’s planted and even grows up through the cracks….wherever there is light, and that light, for me, shines brightest when women lead, together.  

 Always at the forefront in these global convenings was Project Dandelion’s co-founder and courageous world leader, Mary Robinson, who once again, as she has done at nearly every COP, made a compelling case for the interconnectedness of gender justice and climate justice

At this writing, the final language in the Gender Action platform as well as all of the global agreements and commitments has not been released, but I did just receive an update from Project Dandelion’s ever resilient Laura Cook, still on the ground in Belem.

Laura reports that today, “In an emotional, packed-out Press Conference Room 1, Colombia — in partnership with The Netherlands — convened a coalition of countries calling for real momentum behind the transition away from fossil fuels, declaring..There is still time to deliver a success story from Belém. We cannot leave COP30 without an explicit intention and a credible roadmap to phase out fossil fuels.*

The success will be unambiguous language acknowledging that fossil fuels are at the root of this crisis — and a call, however overdue, to not only phase out the reliance on fossil fuels that are responsible for the deaths of more than one million people a year, but to shift urgently to cheaper, cleaner and renewable energy sources; to set clear deadlines for the necessary end of fossil fuel exploration and use; to acknowledge without qualification that oil, gas and coal remain the biggest drivers of climate change and one of the greatest threats to the health of all, in particular, children’s health. 

Consider this: One billion babies have been born since the Paris agreement when most of the world’s nations agreed to do what was necessary to keep the world’s temperature at 1.5 c or below. For them, and all generations now and to be born, we must be the generation that acts now to reverse the damage and protect what we love–and need- to survive and thrive.

Back home from Belem, waiting as we all are, for the final negotiated agreements on global actions to address the crisis that touches us all, I am feeling hopeful. Not naive optimism, but the grounded hope that comes from standing in rooms where people are still willing to fight for one another. Where courage is contagious, and witnessing the changes when women lead, together, when indigenous voices are centered, when youth demand accountability, when movements link arms across borders — something powerful shifts. And that shift, I believe, starts with a commitment within each of us to answer the call to action.

I want to close with this excerpt from Amanda Anastasi’s poem ‘The Last Call’. It is currently displayed in the Oceania Pavilion at COP30, and has been presented to the UN as part of the Oceania Global Ethical Stocktake.

Let it not be said that we could not find the will

to do the work of reforesting, of decarbonising,

of transitioning to the sun and wind and wave.

Let it not be said that we were not ambitious

for humanity; for our child’s air, water and soil

and the spaces they will think and create in.

On the morning after the cruellest bushfire,

listen to how the currawong and crow circle

above the scorched ground, beginning a call

for life to return. Note the persistent budding

from black; the green pushing through despite us.

Let it not be said that our inertia was too strong

to keep home habitable. Let it be said we chose

courage. We chose unity. We chose survival.

Onward!

- Pat

The Power of Place: Starting Right Where You Are

Faithful readers know (and hopefully appreciate) my obsession with leadership and my commitment to elevate leaders who use their powers and influence in service to others…the kinds of leaders that millions of Americans gratefully voted for this week…leaders who know how to create change from the ground up! I will be writing about some of them in future weeks, but as I am traveling to Brazil to participate in the COP30, the UN’s convening of nations to negotiate global climate policies, I am sharing a an inspiring story of a Brazilian leader I’ve come to know through my work with Project Dandelion. 

Thais Corral is a soft spoken, passionately committed social justice advocate, who after twenty-five years of important international leadership for women rights and the importance of protecting and restoring people and the planet, came to understand that global goals of equity and justice can best take root when action is anchored in particular places, and when the people who live there are centered as the agents of that change. That conviction became the seed of Sinal do Vale, a community quite literally restored as a ‘living laboratory’ outside Rio de Janeiro in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest.

Panel discussion during last year’s Human Right Defennders Forum at the Carter Center

Left to right: Jade Begay, Thais Corral, Dr. Edward Cameron, Colette Pinchon-Battle

Sinal do Vale is a vibrant example of change beginning from the ground up–starting with restoring the soil, the forests, innovating nature based solutions for food systems, and creating new forms of livelihoods based on regenerative practices. It is a learning campus where participants, often young people and young women, come for immersive programs and workshops that equip them with practical skills in agroecology, restoration planting, and regenerative business design. The community that lives and works there manage projects that reweave fragmented forests, improve watershed function, and create corridors for biodiversity, while also regenerating local food systems to strengthen local food security. 

At its heart, Sinal do Vale is not only a learning campus, but also a bio-hub for changemakers. It hosts workshops, residencies, and leadership retreats for organizations and leaders from around the world. The intention is clear: those who come to learn here leave with the tools, networks, and confidence to replicate regenerative practices in their own communities.

I haven’t visited Sinal yet, but it’s in my plans as I’m eager to learn more about how this kind of land stewardship and the restoration of community from literally the ground up, are exactly the long-term investments needed to solve many of today’s global challenges. And just as importantly, Sinal is creating economic resilience for rural people as every activity is designed so that economic benefits flow to local families, community groups, and small enterprises, and with a special focus on cultivating young women in the communities to pursue climate resilient livelihoods. This commitment is not symbolic; it is practical and sustained, offering training, mentorship, and opportunities to transition into meaningful local work. 

Thais’s leadership and the living laboratory of Sinal do Vale remind us that ambition for the planet must be translated into the humble work of place-making. The greatest policy frameworks and global agreements are meaningful only when people on the ground—especially women and youth—have the land, the tools, and the agency to act. When we choose to steward a single place well, it becomes a model that ripples outward. Sinal do Vale is already doing that: restoring forests, supporting local livelihoods, incubating regenerative enterprises, and raising up women as leaders of the change we need.

I’m inspired by the story of Sinal do Vale and by Thais’s decision to start where she was already rooted, seeing what could be restored, regenerated and building the community to sustain it.  There are other examples of this place based transformation, and leaders who start something big in their own backyards.

Closer to my own backyard, Thais’s story reminds me of a similar place based community that began somewhat the same way. 

Serenbe, a community less than an hour south from Atlanta, began as one family’s effort to protect a beloved farm from suburban sprawl and grew into a living example of what’s possible when development and nature work together rather than in opposition. The visionary founder/entrepreneur, Steve Nygren, recounts this story of how Serenbe became a thriving model for sustainable living: a place where homes, farms, art, and nature coexist in harmony; where good food, creativity, and community are nurtured side by side in his new book, aptly titled “Start in Your Own Backyard.” 

(Confession: I wrote the foreword and my husband and I bought a small cottage there, contemplating a move at some point in the future as we, like many of you, desire a lifestyle that aligns more closely with what we value).

I believe I can assert with some certainty that we all value leaders willing to take the risks to start something new, to have the courage of their convictions even when many doubt that their dreams can be realized and sustained; leaders who put service to community ahead of profit and conservation of natural resources instead of short term extraction with long term consequences for people and the planet. These values and others motivated Thais and Steve and the other leaders everywhere who understand the power of place based solutions, the importance of community and who move forward towards the simple but transformational decision to preserve what they loved most and to reimagine how we live with the land and with one another. 

And there are small, but significant ways that each of us can start in our own backyards or rooftops, however small or large, to begin to transform how we are living on or with the land or shared spaces. Here’s some helpful books that offer ways to start and perhaps, to become the one who leads your family, neighbors and community from the ground up to a more harmonious, healthy, and sustainable relationship with our shared home, Mother Earth, and with each other.  

Onward!

- Pat

Project Dandelion COP 30 Hub
This Week's Dandelion Digest

Earth's Anthem: Reflections on Climate Week and 'Dear Everything'

Dear Readers,

Every year, I walk into New York Climate Week proudly wearing my Dandelion pin—determinedly optimistic that this year will be different. That this year we will begin to solve for the fragmentation within our environmental movements that too often holds us back from real progress. Progress toward global policies set and enforced by governments, toward new standards and accountability for business, toward real commitments from the financial sector. All of which are essential if we are to move away from catastrophic climate impacts, biodiversity loss, and the unlivable future that looms if we fail.

Ronda Carnegie, myself, Laura Cook, Emily Moody, & Dr. Nancy O’Reilly at Solutions House

And yet, Climate Week unfolded much as it always does: nearly 800 organizations competing for attention, unpredictable scheduling conflicts, traffic jams compounded by motorcades for 200 world leaders—one in particular whose presence can shut down midtown Manhattan, who dismisses this crisis as a “con job”. Tell that to the people of Louisiana, Texas, California, North Carolina, Florida—or any community in this country—that has endured the hurricanes, floods, and wildfires fueled by a warming planet. The latest Planetary Health Check confirms what lived experience already makes clear: climate change is no hoax. It is our shared reality, and if unchecked, it will only get worse.

So yes, it is real. And yes, it is frightening. But here’s the message we carried with us to New York—along with our sneakers for the six miles of walking each day: we can reverse this damage if we act quickly enough and with more collective action.

Even if we exceed 1.5°C in the coming years (and many scientists say this is unavoidable), we can get back there with policies that phase out fossil fuels; with bold investments in renewable sources of energy; with regenerative agriculture and grazing practices; with proximate and indigenous leadership; and with leaders at all levels who take the long view and make courageous choices.

We can still secure a livable, healthier future for all. The solutions already exist. What we need now is a unified strategy for collective actions that will apply pressure on governments, businesses, corporations, and financial institutions to act with urgency as well as compassion, clarity and care.

This is why my radical optimism grows—when I see more leaders wearing the Dandelion pin and committing to its promise: to protect what we love, restore what we’ve lost, and embrace regenerative practices that heal. To choose collaboration over competition, reciprocity over extraction. To remember that we are not separate from nature, but of it—and that every choice we make is a chance to shape a safer, more just, more livable planet.

Of course, there are those clinging to outdated and unfair systems. They enrich themselves while endangering future generations. But that doesn’t have to continue—if we unify, strategize, organize, and vote for leaders aligned with a vision of a sustainable and equitable future.

We need more than policies. We need a cultural breakthrough. We need the breakthrough power of stories, music, and art—the same forces that have fueled every great movement. And one of the biggest and most effective global movements of all time was launched by one play by one extraordinarily gifted writer and passionately committed activist: V (formerly Eve Ensler.) She knows a lot about how to launch movements with words, songs, and personal stories.

V’s “The Vagina Monologues”  launched the V-Day movement to end violence against women, and with performances in 150 plus countries, thousands of cities, villages, public squares and Parliaments, raising over $100 million for local organizations worldwide.

V, the cast, and supporters after the Atlanta performance.

Turning that same creative fire and activist passion to the nature and climate crisis, V collaborated with Justin Tranter, Caroline Pennell, Eren Cannata and director Diane Paulus to create a memorable theatrical experience called Dear Everything which I wrote a bit about last week but got to see again last night in Atlanta.

It was just what I needed after the pressures and stresses of NY climate week to return to Atlanta where Dear Everything launched a multi-city national tour. With a rousing rock musical score, a narrative that captures the challenges of today with a story of youth resisting the easy answers to ‘sell out’ the future and reclaiming their community. There are so many songs in this totally captivating performance that each could become a movement anthem, and given audience response each time I’ve seen this awesome cast win hearts and open minds, I predict that these lyrics and this song could be the new Anthem for a youth led movement. A youth led movement to resist the challenges of NOW that continue extraction and exploitation of our resources and the opportunity to stand up and take action for a better tomorrow.

“We want you to panic! We want you to Act. You stole our future and we want it back!”

Dear Everything has three more cities on this national tour: Miami, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City. Check out listings and information if you live in those cities and watch for other future opportunities.

Many of us now need to get some sleep and more of that self care i wrote about (but have challenges living my own advice), and then we return to the front lines to continue what Christiana Figueres calls “radical optimism”; what Project Dandelion co-founder Mary Robinson calls “radical collaboration” and what I will call for now, a “radical solidarity” based on a new “remembering” as my friend, Tom Blue Wolf, Founder and Director of EarthKeepers, writes in his new important book The Great Remembering that “the earth is a living being, to honor the power of our words and to awaken the deep knowing that we are not separate from creation–we are part of its song”.

Onward to more singing and resisting and regenerating, together!

- Pat

Everyone has a Story and some stories change everything!





Dear Friends,

As many of you know, the world lost a great believer in the power of storytelling this week–an artist/actor/visionary named Robert Redford. As some of you may know, he was also a beloved friend of 30 plus years. His friendship is a gift I cherish and hold closer in this time of grieving the loss of his light in the world.

At some point later, I will share my reflections on this extraordinary man and the enormous impact he had on the lives of all who met him or worked with him and especially the many thousands of other storytellers whose stories were nurtured through the Sundance Institute’s artists programs or screened at the Sundance Film Festival. I’ve had the privilege of witnessing as a trustee of the Sundance Institute for three decades the impact of his vision which was to create new opportunities for discovery and support for the stories not being seen or told because, as he said often, “storytellers broaden our minds: engage, provoke, inspire and ultimately connect us”

I’m going to honor his legacy and the deep roots of our connection by uplifting some stories that I believe embody that promise. Whether spoken from a stage, illuminated on a screen, or performed through music and dance, in every form, stories can create the emotional connections that remind us of our shared humanity. They shape what we believe is possible, and they have always been at the heart of movements for justice.

Whether it’s a documentary that reveals truths we can’t ignore, a performance on stage that stirs us to tears, or a song that lingers in our hearts long after the last note—stories awaken us. They move us to compassion and when compassion takes hold, action follows. That is the transformative power of stories well told.





 

Let me share one of my stories as a filmmaker and storyteller myself, fortunate enough to have worked alongside Redford on a six hour documentary series on America’s indigenous communities which was titled “The Native Americans”.

It had been Ted Turner’s original idea to document the untold and unknown stories from the history of many of the indigenous nations who lived and thrived on this land before there it was called the United States. Redford insisted that all those stories be written, directed, and produced by indigenous storytellers, many of whom had been supported, mentored, uplifted through the Native Voices labs at the Sundance Institute, a program that continues to offer opportunities for indigenous storytellers from around the world.

Working with Bob (and yes, his friends do call him Bob and it’s hard not to do so here) on this series, was my mentorship on the importance of proximate storytellers, of finding and elevating the stories closest to the challenges. That series was broadcast on Turner cable networks, but has never been shown again after Turner Broadcasting was bought by TimeWarner. You can find it online on various film sites.

I am forever grateful for the experience which taught me more about trust, about authenticity, about allowing stories and storytellers to find their way, and watching Redford do this was a master class in shaping stories for greatest impact.

 

Recently, when the Helen Gurley Brown Foundation  gave me the opportunity to support indigenous storytellers, I took this grant to the Redford Center, another organization Bob and his son, Jamie, founded to support stories and storytellers focused on environment. We identified four indigenous frontline leaders of solutions to the nature and climate challenges in their communities. These are not easy stories to tell and the storytellers are not professional filmmakers, but the stories they tell have the power of up close and personal witness. These are kinds of stories seldom seen by large numbers of people as the media companies and streaming services aren’t convinced audiences will appreciate their authenticity or their power to engage and inspire. I believe they are powerful stories of resilience and perseverance and of individuals trying to make a difference. Small actions but big differences. And they are authentic storytellers who are, themselves, part of the stories they tell. I’m truly excited to share that you can now see these films.

From September 15–28, you can watch these short films through The Redford

Center’s free virtual screening series, Films That Move.

And on September 26 at 11am PT / 2pm ET, join the filmmakers for a live conversation exploring Indigenous-led environmental solutions, their on-the-ground impact, and a collective call to action. Register here

Enraizados (Deeply Rooted) shares the story of Cherán, a P'urhépecha town in Mexico, rising against illegal logging to reclaim autonomy and revive their forests; offering a model of sustainable self-determination.

Nuraga Bhumi follows an all-Indigenous women patrol team in Sumatra, Indonesia, as they defend their forest and protect critically endangered tigers, showing the power of women-led stewardship.

Zag follows land defenders Zágbág and Isabela as they fight to save the endangered araucaria “Zag” trees—exploring the tension between tradition and modern pressures while honoring a community’s resilience.

Kanenon: we – Original Seeds follows Haudenosaunee women reconnecting with their ancestral seeds to safeguard them for future generations, weaving culture, resilience, and food sovereignty.

These stories remind us that some of the most effective solutions to the climate crisis are already being practiced by communities deeply rooted in their lands. Shifting the stories we tell—and who we center in them—is essential, because stories shape our sense of what’s possible.

Project Dandelion, as faithful readers know, is the campaign I co founded with Mary Robinson, Ronda Carnegie and Hafsat Abiola, to elevate women-led solutions to a just transition from the current climate and nature crisis to a climate safe and livable world for all, is committed to amplifying these stories of what is already working.

I can’t talk about the power of storytelling without referencing V (formerly Eve Ensler) whose plays have quite literally shifted cultures in communities around the world, opened minds, changed policies, uplifted the frontline warriors ending gender based violence in their communities and even saved lives. “The Vagina Monologues” tells individual (but universal) stories and is compelling evidence of the power of stories to launch and sustain a global social justice movement. Now V has turned her award-winning skills as a storyteller/activist to create a new theatrical experience that will launch a youth led campaign to end the extractive practices that have been a major contributor the climate and nature crisis.

Dear Everything: A Musical Uprising for the Earth – Atlanta Premiere

On Thursday, September 25, Atlanta will host the one-night-only launch of Dear Everything at The Eastern.

This extraordinary new musical—created by V (formerly Eve Ensler) and Tony Award-winning director Diane Paulus, with music by Grammy nominee Justin Tranter—is more than a performance. It’s a movement. With riveting anthems, a youth choir, and stories of families navigating a rapidly changing world, Dear Everything channels righteous outrage into galvanizing hope. It’s one community’s story but as a story of young people finding their voice, their way to protest and to lead forward will inspire, engage, and hopefully activate the generation whose future is at risk.

Join us in Atlanta or in other cities around the country.

All these stories and more I will write about in weeks to come remind us that culture is a catalyst for change. Stories move us from despair to determination. They expand our sense of what’s possible.

Staying focused on what’s possible, even in challenging times. I sometimes seek solace and hope in poetry. One of my favorites is the Maya Angelou poem: “When Great Trees Fall”.

A great tree fell this week when Robert Redford passed from this world, and i am comforted by the words at the end of this great poem: “our senses, restored, never to be the same, whispers to us. They existed. They Existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.”

The world is better because Robert Redford existed among us and created stories and empowered others to tell theirs. The invitation before us now is to let these stories and others open our hearts, fuel our resolve, and guide us toward a future where justice, care, and possibility flourish in everyone’s story.

Onward!

- Pat

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The Need for Rest and Restoration

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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Defunding Public Media Is an Indefensible Decision

For me and the millions of other Americans who understand the connection between their local PBS and NPR stations and access to local news and sometimes life saving information; who value the outstanding dramas, the important documentaries, the educational and safe children’s programs; and who recognize the negative impact of their loss on communities and on our democracy, this is an indefensible decision.

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