As an adjunct professor, going into my sixth year of teaching, I quietly wrestle with this sentiment constantly. I feel a low-level guilt that I know we aren’t setting the next generation of sustainability practitioners up for success, entering a job market that is HIGHLY competitive and under-empowering. The ethics of not sitting them down, looking them in the eye, and telling them honestly in-house sustainability work may be hardest thing they will ever do in their life, really plays on my mind. That there is not yet a defined infrastructure for support or mentoring in this field, thirty years into this profession, is a failure.

I started working in sustainability in the Bush 2.0 years. When “climate change” was a phrase that was only whispered, and we quietly did the incremental change work, hoping that our collective impact would eventually yield big results. Then we were SPOILED with hope and possibility in the Obama years; Trump 1.0 was a weird dynamic because corporations for the most part wanted to accelerate this work as a form of defiance and independence; Biden- we were back to hope-y change-y vibes; And Trump 2.0 sucks. Full-stop.

People who do this job are mission driven at their core. They are activists who have decided to dedicate their lives to improving the way capitalism works from the inside out. It takes an enormous amount of grit and determination, and a sprinkle of idealistic insanity, to make this your career. This is not a 9-5 job. There is no switching this work off. And that, is why so many people, myself included, burn themselves out eventually.

Corporations don’t understand how to support the people in these roles well because we aren’t wired the same way as the people who are marketing lipstick. We are reorienting the private sector to solve climate change. We have THE AUDACTITY to think we can. And mostly the people doing this work are young, brilliant, women who are expected to influence up without any real corporate power.

I have been in this sustainability game for a while now. I’ve encountered CFO’s who have said “don’t talk to me about lightbulbs”, senior leaders that don’t think child labor is “that big of a deal”, and heads of HR who have asked me bluntly what I planned to do about my “gray hair”, when I went in to have a serious development conversation about the future of my career at the company. I have reported to CEO’s, CFO’s, CCO’s…and really had to be deliberate about not letting myself get mired down by the internal bullshit we all deal with on a daily basis at work because I was there for a higher purpose.

The potential is what keeps us going. The small wins that mean impact at scale. The millions of dollars I was able to unlock for monarch butterfly conservation, funding green infrastructure projects that built outdoor recreation for local communities, product certifications that ensure the health and safety of products that millions of people use everyday, the hundreds of thousands of tons of virgin plastic avoided, the renewable energy projects, the list goes on and on. All of this materialized, slowly, incrementally, over time, while also juggling how to manage my grays!

Just last week I spoke to three practitioners across two different companies who are ready to throw in the towel. “This” is not what they signed up for. That’s because they were learning how to calculate carbon footprints instead of creating coalitions. There is a mismatch between the education that is being provided and the real-life practical skills it takes to do this work.

As my friend and fellow practitioner says “it’s all relational.” Sustainability 1.0 was about establishing ourselves as experts. Showing we could make a business case for saving the butterflies (not easy…lemme tell you!). But as this profession has matured, we need to gain the skills to decentralize the work across the organization and preserve our sanity. We need to enter the era of sustainability 2.0.

This is my call to action for people who have been doing this work for 20+ years. The old guard, the pioneers, who know what works and what doesn’t through trial and error. We have to fast track this knowledge for the next generation. Your experience is INVALUABLE. My ask as we enter conference season: seek out people early or mid-career and check in on them. Make time to connect. Make them feel hear and understood. Like us, they are pushing boulders uphill alone. Except now they don’t have to. It’s our duty to be there for them to ensure the future of this profession. This work is too hard, and this moment is too urgent for us to just retire and leave them to figure it out on their own. Not to mention, being of service to others can really get us out of our own heads, and ruts and give us some, (dare I say it) hope that this work doesn’t begin and end with us. That’s an extremely liberating feeling and changes how we orient ourselves in this work.

And to the early and mid-career practitioners. I see you. I know what you are dealing with. Stay in the game. The work is hard, but I promise you will have an amazing list of tangible results to point to at the end of your career that show the world how you helped preserve our planet for life to persist. Not everyone in their lives will be able to say that. And that makes the hard parts worth it.

Love you, mean it.

x

PS: I’m thinking about setting up office hours once a week for people to connect. If this is interesting to you, drop a comment below.

I love houseplants but cute plant pots are absurdly expensive. I say that and then I think “well, if you want a pot that’s sustainably sourced and paid fair wages to artisan craftspeople, that’s gonna be expensive.” Shut up, sustainability brain!

Second hand plants are a great way to plant-up your living space without spending a ton of money. Plants improve indoor air quality and they add a certain life and warmth to a space that makes every corner feel homey. Plants are good for my brain. I think there is actual hard science that supports that.

In my experience, movers won’t take plants (or spices, apparently! Don’t get me started on the time my movers left me ugly crying holding a box of spices on my stoop after a particularly stressful move, suffering from severe decision fatigue only to be rescued by my best friend’s sister). So you are left with a few options: toss, gift, or sell.

I bought an accent chair a couple of weeks ago from a lady who is moving to Seattle and in the photos she sent me of the chair, I noticed a lot of plants in the background. Pretty plants, in pretty pots, all well maintained. They looked like they had been watered the perfect amount to thrive but not so much that they had fungus flies (if you know, you know. gross).

When I asked her what she was doing with them, she said “selling them”, and in that moment, my opportunity to fully furnish my new house with all her pretty plant effort came into full view.

There was one plant in particular that caught my eye. It was whimsical, purpleish and fuzzy. And bonus - it was on a plant stand! SCORE! I asked about that one and she said sheepishly “You know, that plant is called a Wandering Jew?” and then she blushed and got squirmy and said “its so inappropriate!” and I thought man alive the shit people will say to your face when they don’t know you, too are a wandering Jew!

In an effort to make this moment as brutally uncomfortable as possible I said “Well I’m a Jew and I had no idea botany could be so antisemetic” and then we all giggled, not making eye contact.

Before settling in Nashville I have been wandering the literal and figurative desert for the past 3 years so I felt like an immediate kinship to the Wandering Jew. The moniker made me want that plant even more. So I bought her, took her home, and now she will live a life free of micro-aggressions. Transparently, I don’t have the best green thumb, which is kind of ironic for an environmentalist, so I hope I don’t kill her. Especially considering all she’s been through!

For now, let’s all try to incorporate more whimsical plants into our lives and also do our best to not offend any Jews. Thanks in advance particularly for that second part.

Love you, mean it!

xx

I’m kind of late to the Substack game, and I am a bit delayed in really engaging with this platform at all, except for a few people who’s thoughts and opinions I relish on a weekly basis.

So why now? WHY ME?!?!? (Sorry, I couldn’t resist the drama of asking that second question in sequence.)

WELLLLLL honesty moment: I think I have been over-relying on AI to do the heavy lifting where I used to have active neural pathways in my brain. In an attempt to achieve machine-level output, at record-breaking speed, what once was an opportunity for deep focus and thinking, was replaced by expert-level prompting and a more generic feeling output.

What’s weird about this dependency is you feel the brain mush creeping in, in real time, but somehow, maybe because of the impressive nature of the tool, I started to feel like I was INCAPABLE of duplicating the same output. Maybe in some instances that’s true but mostly, I felt like I needed to do something drastic to reconnect with my brains before they full turned to oatmeal.

So I set myself a challenge, because I’m annoying like that.

For 30 days, I would start my day writing a Substack (which I quickly realized in early 2000’s parlance is just a blog, but social) using ZERO AI. I’ll pause so you can process how impressed you are. I know, I’m amazing to even attempt such a feat of superb human ability.

BUT, and here’s where I hope its maybe a little unique to the other environmental content you read, its going to be light hearted. This is where I am a glutton for punishment. As the world burns down, I endeavor to make it cute.

Things are HEAVY right now. I see it in my friends and fellow sustainability practitioners, I hear their voices who were once leading the charge towards eternal hope, sound deflated. The deep breaths and sighing signaling their brain needs extra oxygen to just process the bigness of this moment and how we saw it coming decades ago.

Sitting with ALL of that and processing it is important. But we can’t ONLY do that. We need levity and silliness to balance out the heaviness. And also, I feel like we could all probably benefit from changing the tone of the conversation sometimes away from PPM’s to stupid-everyday shit that is by default going to be about sustainability because that’s just who we are in our blood, bones, and guts. We have to remain hyper-focused on building a movement, and we don’t do that with acronyms and expert language. That excludes people. We do it by being approachable. Lucky for our Earth Mother, so many of us are!

So that’s what I’m doing in this Substack:

1. Breaking my AI addiction (addiction is overstating the problem but see above for my innate flair for drama)

2. Getting silly about climate change

Come with me on this journey. I literally have no idea where its going to lead but I promise you that it will be honest and light-hearted, and hopefully a respite from the news. (dude, seriously turn off the news. You already know what’s on there. Go plant some tomatoes and say hi to the bees or play with a puppy.)

Love you, keep going.

xx

Something about me: I love buying things at online auctions. The thrill of online bidding, and setting a ceiling for what you’d be willing to pay for a taxidermied mouse diorama from the 1950’s (turns out it’s $50 and I was outbid!). I have gotten some cool art, accent chairs, and my dining room table, that way. However, it can take a long time for everything to come together. You start browsing a week before the auction, your brain starts placing all of the imaginary stuff you’ve hearted in different spaces in your house, only to deal with the gutting disappointment of, well, a taxidermied mouse diorama from the 1950’s going to the next highest bidder. (But how will anything else I ever put on this shelf ever compare!!). And then, there you are back at the beginning again. You have to be willing to trade the fun of the process for the immediacy of the stuff. There is no Prime membership for online estate sales!

Enter Facebook Marketplace: the wild wild west of the circular economy. Zero quality control or accountability, all the dopamine you ever wanted. It’s fast paced, it’s action packed, it’s the perfect way to get kidnapped. It’s where you have no idea if what you’re buying fell off the back of a truck the day before. Perfect!

Moving from NYC to Nashville has been an interesting experience. Blue-state people will give me a funny look, cock their head to the side and say “NASHVILLE?!” like it’s a brand new city they never heard of before. Red-state people will use this as an opportunity to tell me how it’s “so sad” what’s happening in NYC (they never say what the “it” is that we need to be sad about!) and if only they could “get it together” it would be a “truly great city”. By “get it together” one can only assume this is a racist dig at NYC’s newest mayor, who is actively capturing the hearts and hopes of residents across all five boroughs. But I guess that part hasn’t made it to Fox News. They then ask me if I ride the subway and make a face of GREAT concern like it was a hardship I endured with unique bravery, ready with a “you poor thing” or a “God bless you” as a response to my single-syllabled response: “yup!”.

But one thing that makes us all a deep shade of purple is buying and selling each other’s crap online because it’s fun. And since I just moved from a one bedroom shoebox to what feels like a MANSION (a 3 bedroom house that non-NYers assure me is a total normal amount of space to occupy), I am finding myself woefully under-furnitured and over-echoed in my new place. But who has the money to spend on NEW stuff. What, with these gas prices?!? I’m not a Musk (thank the LAWD!).

My interior decorating style is a mix between MCM maximalism, art deco, and 70’s Palm Springs kitsch. I’m from Miami. It’s who I am. Accept it. I have.

I own a white piano and a pink couch. I like color. The joy of my decorating choices affects the joy of my mood, so I say go big! If you ever catch me buying anything gray, call emergency services.

I digress. So, I was scrolling The Marketplace yesterday after my workout when I came across a couple of beauties. Light.Up.Metal.Cacti?!?! The perfect amount of whimsy and glow to light up the future corner bookcase I’m also stalking for my office. And for only $10?!?! Today is my day! The resale gods are shining bright on me. They will be mine!

I contact the seller, we make a deal, arrange a time to meet. I drive 30 mins to a suburb of Nashville. (side bar: a co-benefit of furnishing your home this way is you learn the city because you’re driving all over the place to pick up other people’s crap!). I arrive and the seller agrees to meet me at the gate of her complex. I get outta the car, make room in the backseat and I see her approach. Wait, what’s this - where’s the big box with my winnings? Not even a bag? I already venmo’d her $10. Is this a scam?

She walks up to my car and reveals in her hand (one hand) two TINY, battery operated, lightup cacti. To which I said “This is them? I thought they’d be bigger.” and she said “Nope they are tabletop.” not even acknowledging that her expert photography skills made these puny plastic ornaments the tool of online deceit.

I looked at her, smiled and said “oh ok then. thank you!” rolled my window up and drove away. I’m in the south now. Tennessee is an open carry state. NY attitude doesn’t fly here, so off I went.

But the real moral of the story is: the circular economy is an environmental issue that unites the left and the right. Sell your stuff. Meet your neighbors. Don’t get kidnapped.

xx

We recently moved to Nashville and somehow in the tumult of our move, Peanut disappeared. It’s not easy to misplace a dachshund shaped, ceramic urn that was made to match her likeness full of her carbon atoms, who used to be my soul mate (let’s be real…she still is!). I’m really, really bummed out about this, but I remain hopeful that she turns up somewhere as we unpack the rest of our lives to take up this new space called home.

This experience sent me down a death wormhole where I started overthinking how weird all of the rituals we practice post-life really are. Then I started thinking about it as it relates to me and how I’d want my remains to be managed. My conclusion is that literally none of the popular options appeal to me.

Option 1, which I assume is the most popular option, based on the sheer number of cemeteries I seem to drive by in my life, is spending eternity in a gated, pesticide-laden, manicured and well-sprinklered field, where you’re lucky to get the plot by the tree. Six-feet-under, next to the people who may have LITERALLY annoyed you to death, forever and ever. With an environmental footprint that I’m sure rivals a golf course’s, being forgotten under a marble slab with my birth and death dates is not “it” for me. And don’t even get me started on the mausoleums. A cross between a museum and a morgue, people get drawered in, shrine-style, with all the curios they cherished in life.

Nothing about this option spells spiritual peace and tranquility. It really just feels like eternal chaos.

Option 2, cremation seems better to me. It somehow feels less lonely to be in an urn on a mantle, or in a drawer for that matter, than a cemetery. I don’t know about the whole scattering ashes thing, though. I kinda want to stay all together in one smoosh, even if it’s just a pile of dust. And what kind of environmental damage would this cause at scale? We are now over 6 Billion people on this planet. Imagine the energy demand that is required to meet the end of life cremation needs for that many people! I also need to see LCA data on how scattering ashes at The Grand Canyon, or in the Pacific ocean, impacts the local ecosystems. Its A LOT of people! It has to have SOME impact.

It’s also a bit weird to turn loved ones ashes into gemstones. Carbon under intense pressure turns into diamonds. I thought about doing this with Peanut’s ashes for a quick minute and then I imagined myself answering someone who complimented my necklace with “yeah that’s my dead dog, Peanut” which felt too unhinged. I suppose it’s a little cute to be able to always have your grandmother around your neck, with you wherever you go, but leave it to humans to turn even this moment into a major market opportunity. Hyper consumerism gone crazy!

Option 3, is, I believe the only good option, albeit the least popular, and my (and my forever crush, Luke Perry’s) preferred method. Being buried in a mushroom suit. Well, its not a mushroom suit when you first put it on. Wait, that’s inaccurate. You’re dead. You can’t put it on.

It’s not yet a mushroom suit when someone else puts it on you and buries you in the ground wearing it and only it. It looks like a white sack but over time, the spores grow into fungus and your body decomposes to become one with the earth. It’s the most poetic option, aside from wandering into the desert and dying sitting proudly on a rock, when your decrepitude becomes a burden to others. This is what they do in some indigenous communities across the world, and I assume that, once you die vultures and other fauna feast on your meat suit.

Did you know vultures are endangered? If they die off that would be VERY bad for our ability to manage dead stuff efficiently.

Anyways, I think probably the mushroom suit is most ecofriendly and what I plan on going with.

What were we talking about again?

Oh yeah, unpacking. I’m gonna try and get that all sorted out this weekend. Hopefully Peanut turns up!

xx