#climateweek2024

Today I have my first event for Climate Week! I've been getting psyched up for representing my company, Unified Ground, at Climate Week for weeks. This year feels different than other years - a lot different. I feel much more connected to my environmental justice community and community of people of color in energy and justice than I have before. Conferences and climate week in particular can feel so overwhelming. Honestly a lot of coporate things that don't feel like they have anything to do with change. This year, I'm connected to so people and projects so all the events feel natural for me to be a part of. Here's what I wrote on LinkedIn today:

NYC Climate Week is Here! 🎉 It’s going to be a full exciting week of events starting with opening night of the Climate Film Festival tonight!! I’m feeling really connected to my environmental justice community and I’m looking forward to seeing so many people in person.  If you want to know all the places I’ll be, send me a message and I can send you the full schedule. Here are the key events you can find me at: 

Climate Film Festival: I’m Moderating the panel "SHORTS: Power Shift: Defying Fossil Fuels" on Sunday, September 21st at 12:30 PM at DCTV.  I’ll also be attending films and the closing ceremony on Sunday. (https://climatefilmfest.eventive.org/schedule/shorts-power-shift-defying-fossil-fuels-66bc11ef3bea91005c3b6dd8 )

Make It in Brooklyn Climate Tech Pitch Contest: Pitching Unified Ground’s business in front of industry judges on Tuesday, September 23rd at 6 PM at Hana House. (https://lu.ma/ghfgy25v) 

New Climate Futures @Newlab: We have a small display as part of the Founder’s Fellowship program and I’ll be at the conference on Thursday, September 26th from 10 AM to 6 PM at Newlab. (https://www.newlab.com/new-climate-futures )

Climate Karaoke 🎤: If you know me well you know my love of Karaoke so no way I was going to pass up this event at one of my favorite spots Planet Rose Thursday, September 26th at 8 PM. (https://lu.ma/climatekaraoke )

Climate Justice Lives Here! Festival - Finishing the week in Brooklyn where Climate Justice Lives!!  Pier 4 Brooklyn Army Terminal, September 28th 2-7pm (https://www.uprose.org/event/save-the-date-climate-justice-action-in-september-2024/ )

Hope to see you! 🌱

#ClimateWeek #NYC #ClimateChange #Sustainability #Innovation #PanelDiscussion #PitchCompetition #Conference #Karaoke #climatejustice #environmentaljustice #ClimateJusticeLivesHere

Now I wouldn't be me if I didn't add some fun creative for Climate Justice and Climate Week. So Created some ClimateWeek songs and images!

I usually love it when I remember my dreams. Sometimes they are odd. Sometimes I turn them into AI images.  Sometimes I try to search for deeper meaning. What is my subconscious trying to tell me?

Not sure of what to make of last night’s dream but I won’t soon forget the moment I woke up. I was in a gigantic office tower. I get into an elevator to go down - I believe to go home. Instead the elevator takes us up - way up to the top. This happens sometimes, so me and the three people on the elevator are not too taken aback. I know the people on the elevator but not too well. They look like familiar faces from my past - maybe middle school. Then the elevators plummets - fast - we must be in free fall for 50 floors and then we stop with a crash. Part of the floor is dislodged in the crash. I have grabbed onto a part of the ceilingof the elevator and my feet are dangling above the abyss below. Somehow the four of us get on the floor that is remaining in the elevator. One of the people in the elevator pries open the elevator doors somehow. Luckily we are at a floor. Alarms are blaring. People are evacuating. Someone on the floor sees us and helps us out of the elevator . The building is clearly on fire. This is not a drill.

We are on the 145th floor and will need to walk the stairs. There is smoke evident. We know we must leave our belongings. If find a wet cloth to put ove my mouth for the long way down. I make my way down and out of the building.

I look up and see that the buidling is an out of control fire up top. I watch the fire burn and the smoke fill the sky. Too late like many around me I realize pieces of the building are raining down deadly debris. I search for cover. I ended up seeking shelter in a nearby subway station. The building is raining down deadly debris harder. I see people perish in front of me as the debris pierces the underground shelter - slicing through the ground like it's butter. I start to try to to go deeper ineo the station - somehow avoiding debris. Then I see that the weight of the debris is too much for the subway station structure. I see it bend and buckle - it's going to to give way and I will be crushed. I'm not going make it. I wake up...

It's 6:30 am and the rain drops falling on my parent's house sounds like hot debris.

Today I am the definition of unmotivated. Slight Climate Week/Climate Karaoke emotional hangover. Networking for a week straight is just a lot. I could not get myself going today - there were many competing emotions - things I was dealing with on a personal level that I can't share in a public posting. I'm sure you've all had days like this - something real in life - more important than any work you could possibly drains all your attention and focus. I try to focus on the things in life that I can have an effect on - but today one of those things I can't have effect on took too much focus. I felt helpless? paralyzed? I tried a nap. I tried a trip to work in a coffee shop. It's funny I guess I was motivated. I was motivated to move forward - I just didn't know how. It's in an interesting perpective shift actually. I was motivated to change, to push, to break free. I could feel the weight of the week trying to drag me down or somewhere I didn't want to be. I eventually did a little work- follow-ups to the networking I'd done this week... and now I'm writing - so I guess I'm not the definition of unmotivated. I'm a man trying to get unstuck, refusing the back down, stubborn in the face of adversity, fighting, balancing parenthood, love, life, work, and creativity.

Second year in a row doing climate karaoke. I love karaoke and the climate. I also just killed a lantern fly with my bare hands while everyone was afraid to do anything. I was at this same party a year ago and it makes me think of the simple but complex thought about where you a were a year ago. As you get older a year means less... but when the change is big a year is a lot. I am now as of one or two weeks ago in the transition out of my 10 year marriage and 20 year relationship. Sometimes we lose context of what a year means. Also as a dad of an 11 year old, i know a year to her is so different than a year to me.. ok... more to say on passage or time.... but karaoke is happening..

It definitely feels like a Wednesday / Hump Day . I could not get myself going today. My post yesterday released a lot of emotions that have been hard to contain - the flip side of the vulnerability of creative writing - the emotional hangover. Utimately good to be in touch with the things that touch my emotions and to channel that into creative work, but it sometimes brings up suprising feelings.

The day it self had the feeling of a hump day. I have half a week left of climate week events with tomorrow being a huge day! It felt like I was climbing a mountain throughout the day. I think I've got to the other side. I had dinner with my daughter, we sat in the park and talked Halloween outfits and about our overnight this weekend. The two leading options are human lego and Captain Planet.

I'm glad for all the events that I'm taking part in, but a lot of socialization also takes a lot out of you. I'm outgoing but I don't actually like a lot of socialization with strangers... I like parties of people I know and love. I love to host and bring people together and bring people joy. But networking is another beast. Networking every day for a week is exhausting. I've decided to take tonight off and I'll be back on tomorrow.

Anyway - I made to the other half of the week. Tomorrow night is Climate Karaoke so there's even a reward for making it through tomorrow!

Oh I should say that if I'm Captain Planet that it will be Don Cheadle's Captain Planet:

Tonight was out at networking at a climate week. I was talking to some of the people I knew well. I shared my story of being the white rabbit in white face and may have sung a few bars of the song "i'm late":

I'm late. I'm late. For a very important date. No time to say hello good bye I'm late, I'm late, I'm late. My fuzzy hair and whiskers took me too much time to shave. I run and then i hop hop. there's danger if i dare to stop. and here's the reason why. you see I am i'm overdue I'm in a rabbit stew I'm late, I'm late, I'm late.

Yes I had some wine but I do not need wine to remember the words to the song or sing in public.

I did buy the white clown pain to get into white face again....

But I digress.... or I had a different point...

I tend to be a little bit of oversharer in social situations. I have been told the dangers of sharing too much too quickly. I have lived the consequences but its just me. I don't ever want to change that part of me because connection is important.

I had a conversation tonight of reminded of how much its important to know you are not alone in the experiences in life.

One of most important selfcare things i do is group therapy with other dad's going through divorce. It's an amazingly supportive group of guys. All going through different but related and all who want to do best they can do for their kids. Sometimes when things go sideways you feel alone it's important to know that you are not alone. Divorce, job loss, family turmoil, financial turmoil, depression, physical health problems - whatever your dark days are - there is someone that can understand and you will be found. Cue for the song that I used to listen on my dark days.

A whole day of films today at the Climate film festival. I moderated a panel https://tickets.climatefilmfest.com/schedule/shorts-power-shift-defying-fossil-fuels-66bc11ef3bea91005c3b6dd8 - . It was movies I'd seen in preperation but still had a deep effect on me. To see black and brown bodies be so abused and devalued - just seeks to break my soul - but I will not break.

I also saw a film Hollow Tree about three teenagers from Lousiana. One of the kids in the movie moved to Thibidaux Louisiana after she came out - Thibidaux was where my dad was born. It's a town of 15K it Lafourche county. I've only been there once when my grandfather died. I drove my parents and brother there when I was in my late 20s for the funeral because I was the only person in my family with a driver's license - NYC family defined. The first real family death I experienced as an adult. The movie touched so many nerves. As a father to watch these young women come to terms with the damage of what the system of oppression has done to them. Afterwards I got to talk to one of the young women from the film. She is now in her third year at college studying computer engineering - the same degree I got. It was.. I don't actually know the right adjective - to say to this young woman, how amazing it was that she was studying computer engineering and she had shared that she is one of two or three getting that degree at her school. I didn't have the heart to tell that 25 years ago I was getting that degree in college and I was still one of 2 or 3 people of color getting that degree. It felt like to much weight to share what I felt the importance of people of color being in positions in science in engineering to be where she was.... I think she already knows. She was already being brave and shared so much. I saw myself now, my daughter growing up in this world...

When I've asked my daughter about the climate crisis, she understands how bad things are but doesn't blame me or my generation or me - but I feel guilty. I remember the sky was orange and I wanted to apologize to my daughter about the way the world was and let her know that I was fighting to change it.

She said she didn't blame me. She didn't blame my parents generations. She blamed generations before grandpa and grandma. Part of me felt good - because it wasn't me or anyone she loved that she loved for where this plane is - but at the same time I didn't feel better - because I don't believe it - my daughter's words can't absolve me of the guilt I feel - of the need I feel to do better with the time I have left on this earth - to leave this planet in a better state than it is right now - as impossible as that feels.... somehow I am still optimistic that the fight for this planet matters.. and will never stop mattering.