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Here in the northern U.S., days are shortening and the temperatures are chilling. Birds, animals, and people are on the move. A shift is underway.
In this season, I’m also ready for a shift or two—and so is this platform.
I started ‘Ruminate & Move’ over two years ago as an experiment. I wanted to find my voice on climate, break my own spiral of silence, and contribute to wider conversation and change.
I’ve gained perspective since then.
An example: I named the platform without in-depth research. Google defined “ruminate” as:
and this double meaning seemed fitting. Writing about topics of import would be a way for me to think, process, work through all the inputs, and slowly metabolize them to propel growth for myself and (hopefully) readers. Rumination yields energetic output (moving).
And it does…for cows and goats.
When it comes to humans, however, I see now that psychologists are pretty clear: ruminating is not what you want to be doing. Lol.
Some of the hallmarks of rumination: dwelling on negative thoughts, living in the past, stuckness, and catastrophizing. Endlessly, unproductively stuck on something, unable to let go or move on, lacking a solutions orientation. Different from healthy emotional processing and coping. Wikipedia: “the focused attention on the symptoms of one's distress, and on its possible causes and consequences, as opposed to its solutions.” Another definition: “engaging in a repetitive negative thought process that loops continuously in the mind without end or completion.”
Yikes, yeah, not what I am going for.
These connotations are unhelpful, especially when living through a climate era that requires forward motion, courage, imagination, solutions orientation, and yes, speed.
So, ‘ruminate’ has unwanted associations. That cultural-linguistic ship has sailed.
Besides the name, my own mindset has shifted.
I’ve been identifying some unhelpful mental patterns of my own the last few years. I’ve realized how easily I get stuck in my head in unhelpful rather than helpful ways. Maybe not full-on ruminate, in a clinical sense, but usually ‘too little Rumi and too much Nate’ going on in there.
But as my therapist has said on (maybe more than one) occasion: “Too much mental experiencing keeps us stuck; the only thing that changes anything is taking action.”
So I’m leaning into controlling what I can control, acting where I can act, without ignoring the gravity of the situation.
I’ve also shifted my perspective on climate communication. My first piece on climate was of the ‘awareness raising’ kind. Which has its uses, but most of us already know things are not right, even if subconsciously. The impacts are obvious. (Sure, there is still fringe denialism but it’s not worth engaging.) Climate is not as much an awareness problem anymore as it is a psychological and political one. And that piece did little to connect readers to what they could actually do (which is: plenty!).
What is most useful is not someone telling us stuff is going wrong, but showcasing ways to get involved, signposts of what is possible if we try, and tools for working through the psychological barriers we maintain in order to deal with something as large and overwhelming as climate breakdown.
What most of us need is the sense that our actions actually do matter (agency and self-efficacy) and ways to get in the game. And from what I’ve learned from others and experience, what helps more people become and stay engaged on climate comes down to three main moves:
1) healthy emotional processing,
2) finding and cultivating community, and
3) contributing to solutions.
These are the moves I want this newsletter to support.
So all of this to say, it’s time this platform has a new name. Going forward it will be Movement & Meaning.
Less unique, but I think it keeps and enlarges the focus: holding together action and reflection, outer and inner worlds, practice and thought within this ecological era.
I think it’s important in these years for as many people as possible to both: a) take meaningful action, and b) actively make meaning.
→ Meaningful action: what needs doing? What can I contribute? Where are opportunities for me to plug in? The forward arrow in the logo.
→ Active meaning-making: what does all this mean? How do I integrate these realities into my life? How might my values align or realign in response? The circles in the logo.
I’ll keep writing on many of the same themes but now with more of a bias toward action and ways to get involved with solutions.
On that note, I’m starting a little consultancy by the same name: Movement & Meaning.
It’s mostly just me doing environmental sustainability side projects part-time. But my goal is to help individuals and organizations work through ways they can take sustainability steps that are also significant—significant in terms of their goals and values, and also in terms of advancing solutions in their spheres of influence. For example: a consultation to talk through the opportunities in a person’s life and sphere of influence, identify the barriers, and co-create a workable roadmap based on their goals. If this kind of thing is of interest to you or someone you know, we can have an initial no-pressure call just to talk about it.
I am also offering research, communications, and project management services (basically, a part-time environmental and social impact task rabbit).
You can check out Movement & Meaning on LinkedIn for now. Or reply to one of these posts anytime to connect.
This is a new leaf I’m turning over, another experiment. But I think the times call for experimentation and implementation. There’s no time for perfection if it gets in the way of actual forward steps. Considered, careful action? Yes. Perfectionism and paralysis? Nope. So I’m giving this a go.
This Substack will continue to be where I occasionally write and share my writing but in tandem with this new side practice.
Next up, watch for a more quick-and-ready series on steps people can take, ways individuals can contribute to collective change, solutions that you and I can join.
Okay, thanks for bearing with these announcements.
Some more I’m turning over…
And sharing here for your consideration:
Hurricanes. A sad and destructive theme of the last few weeks, between Puerto Rico, Cuba, Florida, and the Philippines, and elsewhere being hit. On Instagram, I threw out an under-nuanced line about how, in a climate-changed world, the term “natural disaster” is a misnomer. This deserves more explanation.
While it’s true that hurricanes are naturally occurring events, their strength and speed (their “speed limit” as someone put it) is higher than it would be if the world weren’t warmer, due primarily to the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation for animal agriculture. But over to an expert: Dr. Katharine Hayhoe compiled what is known about hurricanes and climate change, here.
But there is another sense in which ‘natural’ doesn’t quite describe extreme weather events anymore. If people are harmed because there are still incentives for people to build buildings in floodplains, or elected officials have not made adequate investments in infrastructure to prepare to withstand such events, ought we describe the fallout as a “natural” problem, a human-caused problem, or something else? This is the type of question disasterologist Dr. Samantha Montano poses in her work. What do you think?
On the note of adapting for extreme weather: this is a systemic issue not solved just by individuals, but there is a lot individuals can do to prepare. Preparation is not resignation; it’s just another way to protect one another and create a better future where we can all be safe. Here is a practical reference guide for preparing for extreme weather, even if your home area is or feels unaffected right now.
Refrigerant treaty. On the very good news front, the U.S.finally joined a major treaty designed to reduce greenhouse gasses from refrigerants (the linked recap is solid). The Kigali Amendment now has 138 nations agreeing to phase down the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are a major atmosphere-heater and such a low-hanging climate protection fruit. This was a rare bipartisan vote, featuring both environmental orgs and some industry groups’ backing.
This step reminded me of a talk I heard recently where Dr. Jonathan Foley, a climate solutions leader, shared how most of the most time-sensitive, easiest actions on climate are boring and unsexy (like refrigerants) and basically come down to: stop doing stupid sh*t. Like using HFCs when good alternatives exist and won’t change much for consumers. Like cutting down the lungs of the planet (the Amazon) to meet global beef demand. Etcetera. Anyway, for now, the Kigali Amendment is a sensible step, and good to see.
Social species and the Six Americas. Last week the local grassroots org I volunteer with collaborated with one of the city’s local breweries, Speciation, to hold a Climate Beer Friday event. The brewery brewed a cherry Saison named Shifting Saisons and launched it on Friday.
I love the name, with the double meaning of its allusion to ‘seasons’—yes, physical season, but (maybe?) political and social seasons are also shifting. As part of the team organizing the event, it was awesome to see different skills coming together for a collaborative event that connected different communities and got them talking about what’s going on locally and globally. It was a good reminder to me that we are a social species, and connection to one another is so important if we’re to come together to address shared challenges. And that organizing for a better future has a lot to do with building local relationships.
On that note, one of the other organizers, John, went around to all the socializers with a large map and asked them to place their pin where they see themselves in Yale’s Global Warming’s Six Americas. People placed their pins. Then John would ask, with curiosity and without judgment, why did you place yourself where you did?
John has a bolder style than me, but he generated a lot of good conversation. So I’ll also ask you: Where would you place yourself? You can take a quiz here. (Note: you don’t need to be U.S. American for the categories to be useful.) Then, as a follow-up: why did you land where you did? Care to share your answer? Just hit ‘reply.’ Or tell someone you see in-person and see where the conversation goes!
Ordinary Time. For the Christian folks reading along, here’s a piece I wrote recently for Faithward about ordinary time and neighbor-hood. This is part of a series I’ve been writing on creation care and time.
Imagination, again. Last week I had a chance to explore the topic of imagination in a co-led workshop with Climatebase colleagues. There is more to share at some point, but it really pushed my earlier take on imagination further. The major impetus for this session was this On Being episode with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.
Here’s one of Johnson’s quotes:
"[We run towards] what we can see. Right? Which, when we don't spend enough time talking about the future we could have and engaging our imagination and envisioning a world in which we actually implement all these climate solutions we already have, then, why would you run towards an abyss? If all it looks to you is just a blank canvas, then it's sort of insane to run full-tilt toward that. And so I think as a society we just have a lot of work in filling in those details for each other so it feels less scary."
Besides Johnson here, I keep hearing other smart and wise people talk about the importance of cultivating a desirable vision of the future you can imagine and orient yourself towards. This is a needed shift in approach from can easily become doom-and-gloom. And it is one I want to better contribute to via this platform.
Thanks for reading today.