Trans Environmentalists Making A Big Impact

Today and every day, we're celebrating these people and the positive impact they've had on the planet 🌎

Pınar Ateş Sinopoulos-Lloyd
"Pınar Sinopoulos-Lloyd (they/them) is an award-winning Indigenous multi-species futurist, mentor, wildlife tracker and trans eco-philosopher. They along with their spouse are the co-founders of Queer Nature, a transdisciplinary “organism” stewarding earth-based queer community through ancestral skills, interspecies kinship and rites of passage."

Precious Brady-Davis
"A trans woman from Chicago, Precious is the Associate Regional Communications Director for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, which seeks to close all coal plants in the U.S. and replace them with clean energy. She is also a speaker, author, and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) consultant."

Vic J. Barrett
"Since he was 14, Barrett has been attempting to bend the world and the people who run it to care more, feel more, do more in response to the urgent ecological crises humanity faces. In 2015, he joined 20 other young people to sue the U.S. federal government for its role in fueling the climate crisis." 

Find out more about the lawsuit filed by Vic and his group here. 

How Acting Like Mushrooms Makes Us Better Humans & Business Leaders

There's a global movement to organize our lives and businesses in a way that mimics nature. Specifically, mushrooms.
 

Mushrooms are comprised of mycelium - an incredible network of root-like fungal threads that stretch out underground and absorb nutrients. This mycelium also wraps around and bores into tree roots, creating what is called a “mycorrhizal network,” which connects individual plants throughout an entire forest and allows them to freely exchange essential nutrients.
 

In this mycorrhizal network, no single organism is more important than another. There is no withholding of resources so one organism can profit over another. And organisms across species and classification connect to sustain life.  In human terms, we would call it a 'gift economy.'

So, what would happen if we organized our lives to mimic this natural process?
 

Many indigenous communities and various groups have been doing this for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
 

One way is through councils. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is one great example.

According to The Haudenosaunee Confederacy website:

"The confederacy, made up of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas was intended as a way to unite the nations and create a peaceful means of decision making. Through the confederacy, each of the nations of the Haudenosaunee are united by a common goal to live in harmony. Each nation maintains it own council with Chiefs chosen by the Clan Mother and deals with its own internal affairs but allows the Grand Council to deal with issues affecting the nations within the confederacy."

By operating as a council, you advocate for equity and justice among members, by ensuring everyone has an equal voice, and free exchange of ideas within your organization or business.  A modern-day version of this that can be applied to businesses is the practice of organizational self-management, which is the work culture that Alliance for a Viable Future is establishing in our internal processes and our climate leadership curriulum (more to come on that this spring).

It's an inspiring way for us to design our lives, build symbiotic relationships, and establish networks of resource sharing that builds equity, justice and resilience.

The Links Between Racial Injustice And The Climate Crisis

While mainstream thinking doesn't always connect racism and the climate crisis, we know through systems analysis, research, and hands-on experience that these two issues are deeply connected.

Because, while many tie the "beginning" of the climate crisis to the industrial revolution, it can actually be traced back even further to the beginnings of colonization, as shared by AVF council member Sara Jolena Wolcott of Sequoia Samanvaya. 

This pattern of disconnection expanded through slavery and it was also through colonization that indigenous knowledge and stewardship of the earth were discouraged or completely erased from cultures.

Today, it's communities of color and disadvantaged groups that are the most vulnerable to the negative effects of the climate crisis.

If you would like to learn more about the connection between racial injustice and the climate crisis and how you can help create new systems to cultivate healing for people and planet, we highly recommend listening to this interview with Sara Jolena Wolcott.