Earth: Respect
This is an open letter to all writers, scholars, reporters, and policy-makers. More specifically, we also address this piece, respectfully, to editors from the world’s leading newspapers and news...
View ArticleNew streamlined text to move negotiations forward
Today, the Co-Chairs of the ADP—the ad-hoc all-nation working group that is responsible for writing the Paris climate agreement—released their new draft of a potential streamlining approach for the...
View ArticleIntroducing the People + Planet Project
Building Partnerships to Achieve the SDGs and Climate Agreements Report on the July 23, 2015 discussion on the People + Planet Project, a Post–2015 Action Platform Hosted by the United Nations...
View ArticleOptimism: Valuing Success Honestly
The pessimist argues: most things don’t work out in an ideal way, and entropy is the way of all systems, so to be realistic, let’s err on the side of lower ambition. Pessimism, which often calls itself...
View ArticleLeveraging Linkages from the SDGs into Climate Action
by Sarabeth Brockley and Joseph Robertson Late on Sunday, August 2, the member states of the United Nations succeeded in adopting by consensus an ambitious outcome document from the intergovernmental...
View ArticleLyme Disease: emerging climate pandemic in the USA
Lyme Disease is emerging as a climate-driven pandemic in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 300,000 Americans are diagnosed with Lyme...
View ArticleThe Regeneration Charter: a manifesto for generative design
Inspiration When I ran for VP of Communications for my graduate program’s student association, I mentioned the idea of creating a Charter Message for our association of students to serve as a long term...
View ArticleMargin of Error: Our Habitable World
When you look at the Earth from a distance, like anything, it appears much smaller than when you look at it up close. At ground level, we look around and feel the sky is immense, the reassuring...
View ArticleThe Bonn Conundrum
Last week in Bonn, during the ADP 2.10 (the 10th Part of the 2nd Session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action), there was a general sense that too little progress is...
View ArticleWhy Abbott was Ousted
Australian PM Tony Abbott, who dismantled a policy to price carbon, rose to power by attacking and dividing—a strategy that eventually backfired. Tony Abbott came into office with a hard-charging...
View ArticlePope Calls for Dialogue & Mutual Empowerment
In his historic address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, Pope Francis called America “a land of dreams”, which he said can lead the world in a shift to deep, inclusive politics and economics...
View ArticleThe Luminous Particular
The poet Jane Kenyon was known for her mastery of the style known as “the luminous particular”. The phrase is a reference to imagery, expression and ideas, that ground us in the local, personal,...
View ArticleFull Report from Minneapolis 2015
A new platform for citizen engagement in global negotiations—the Citizens’ Climate Engagement Network—was announced at Minneapolis 2015: Climate Action, Last Stop Before Paris. The spirit of...
View ArticleClimate Integrity Means No Excuses
A few weeks ago, former Minnesota Governor Al Quie said to a small room that the climate issue requires the same approach he believes should drive all public service, and he expressed that approach in...
View ArticleACCESS to the Future
It is the next to last day of the COP21, according to the official schedule. The French presidency of the COP says the draft Paris outcome will be finalized and approved by 6:00 pm tomorrow, the...
View ArticleCarbon Pricing Leadership Coalition: 1st Major Success of COP21
On the first day of the COP21, there was an unprecedented step forward on one of the toughest issues facing negotiators. The Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition is now part of the global policy-making...
View Article1.5ºC can Drive Global Success
Last week, the global climate negotiations got a shot in the arm, when two of the world’s leading industrialized economies—Germany and France—signed up to the 1.5ºC target for maximum global average...
View ArticleThe Paris Agreement is Adopted
The Paris Agreement was formally adopted at 7:26 pm Paris time, on Saturday, December 12, by the Conference of the Parties. The Agreement was many years in the making. The Agreement now sets in motion...
View ArticleGratitude Makes Innovation Possible
We are constantly making decisions about the world. We don’t think of them as decisions. Instead, we tend to feel the world has imposed on us a situation, which we may or may not need to accept. We...
View ArticleHow to Ratchet Up Ambition
The global climate negotiations are a landscape of highly refined vocabulary, experimental ideas, acronyms and jargon. Much of the terminology can seem impenetrable, but all of it goes toward...
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