Thinking out loud
I've been reflecting a bit on moments that move, that create a shift. It's challenging to identify those moments in real time. Only looking back do you recognize the shift. Which means: If you wish to make change, you probably need to create a lot of
Thinking out loud
The end game for this curriculum: Folks have the power and resources to invent their own ways to create healthy neighborhood communities. I started thinking about this curriculum as involving two types of folks: Those who live in the neighborhoods impacted by historical injustice and environmental inequities. And those who
Thinking out loud
I recently started reading Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness (science fiction is now my favorite holiday from current news and events). A moment in the story stood out. Genly Ai is a human envoy sent out to convince another human world to join an
Thinking out loud
At the upcoming April 2026 meeting of Environmental Justice Evanston I am due to propose a curriculum for leadership development. The desired outcome is to increase the number of people who can lead environmental equity efforts in Evanston. This need comes together for a couple of reasons. The Evanston environmental
Design
Last week I had coffee with two friends from my days teaching and helping lead the learning and organizational change graduate program at Northwestern University. One - Beth - is Head of School at a private Montessori school in the Boston area. Beth is an amazing leader; she gets results
Thinking out loud
I am building off of the first part of my last post: Update on Evanston environmental justice. And folks who give a f*ck. Since that post was published, a second person - Alex Pretti - was murdered by federal agents. The feds lied about what actually happened, refused cooperation
Thinking out loud
I don't remember exactly when I first read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. But it must have been in high school (1972 or '73), probably during my days as a budding young journalist and editor of my high school newspaper. That was when I first started
Thinking out loud
A few notes and quotes from recent readings and research. The thread here is the power - and necessity - of connectedness. Environmental justice pioneer Hazel Johnson The arc of the story of environmental justice pioneer Hazel Johnson is instructive. As is the maturity of the organization she founded in
Thinking out loud
I just returned from a 10 day trip, with my wife Jamie, along the coast of Maine. Our first visit to the state. In the final days of our stay I remarked that every Mainer we encountered just seemed so...nice. "I think they're just happy,"
Thinking out loud
I've been thinking about a post that I wrote earlier this year: What if everybody’s job is to do repair? It's on my mind after several meetings with folks in my network and running across some new readings. It all points toward the lesson of
Thinking out loud
A couple of recent conversations about climate change and green energy efforts led to the topic of capacity. People capacity, not green energy capacity. People capacity to learn, and then to do. How might we build the capacity to learn and do things (differently) that move us forward to address
Thinking out loud
What gets lost in my weekly thinking-out-loud routine here is the through-line of activity generated by Environmental Justice Evanston (EJE), the group with which I became associated earlier this year. A lot is happening behind the scenes and I want to honor that work. For what it accomplishes in environmental