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
