Choosing The Stress Response
You're already making choices. So why hunker down?
We live at a time characterised by the perpetual onslaught and absorption of information - texts, thoughts, billboards, emails, questions, more thoughts, scrolling almost everywhere, light rays, sound waves, even more thoughts, notifications, somehow even more thoughts, incessant thoughts. Overlay that with emotions, memories, expectations, character flaws and virtues, values, obligations, duties, responsibilities, aspirations, hopes and fears. Add to the mix a cacophony of voices and realities and worldviews. How’d you end up making the choice to read this then?
Underneath all of that noise is the imperceptible but always-on choice making mechanisms of our mind and body. The immediate dread of an election campaign being called after what’s already felt like months of it. A rush of outrage at the latest cowardly and farcical backflip on Federal environmental legislation from a possible one term Prime Minister. In 2024, the “even more small target” PM chose to back WA’s Gas Baron’s anti-science profiteering demands over previously stated commitments and weakening his own position with his electoral voters. In 2025 the shrinking has somehow continued by worsening already bad environmental legislation he promised to strengthen in favour of supporting an industry that 65% of Tasmanian’s now want to see shrunk. It’s been difficult to make sense of the choices the Federal Labor Government has made over the past three years on the environment front - unless I choose to accept they were either lying to win or just inept at doing what they said they would. Add in approving a near record number of fossil fuel-driven emissions in one term and it’s difficult to escape that sometimes it’s the hope that kills you.
Our friends/enemies in the US have gone off the ledge. “Looking at the definition of fascism… he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.” What to make of all this is beyond the wild speculations I’d offer. I know I feel pain, disappointment and fear about what is happening. I have loved ones in the US. The sense of being trapped is palpable. An ideology is being swiftly implemented. Actions appear arbitrary but are part of some master plan. The US that I have visited many times may no longer exist - is that hyperbolic? From afar it’s difficult to understand, so I’ll leave it to the incredible and unbelievable Nina Jankowicz. She’s been named on the ill-qualified FBI Director’s ‘enemies list’, along with names like Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton and Kamala Harris. Nina has been fighting all along, and she’s choosing to over and over again.
Don’t forget we now also live in an era defined by opinion, half-baked perspectives, ill-informed understanding, deliberate mis and disinforming, and the Chief Appeasement Officers. The choices of what to do are confronting or paralysing. Action is difficult or dangerous or inconvenient or awkward or pointless. So what do we do? What do I do?
As is almost always the case - my instinct is to fight.
I wish the sustainability community had more fight. I’ve been increasingly picking this thread (fight) the past few months. I know the conundrum of the sustainability professional makes it an unfair fight considering the structural barriers, vested powers and our own personal limitations when attempting to respond to the climate crisis or the housing crisis or the violence towards women crisis or the extinction crisis or the cost of living crisis. I can’t shake my discontent between what the sustainability community knows, values and seeks to accomplish and the continued passivity of hunkering down. Accepting more of the same is delusion. Expecting individual people and households can and will suddenly become sustainable because of an ad you made to help your inadequate reporting targets. Attending committee meetings where incrementalism is the most ambitious theory of change. Posting online another report on how grim another crisis is without a personal commitment to action and specific ask for help. Avoiding asking the CEO or an Executive why every decision process in your organisation doesn’t start with a values, principles and ethics reminder and discussion about the type of people we want to be in regards to the choice about to be made. Filling in another ESG survey or completing another cycle of sustainability reporting without acknowledging the underlying structural barriers to meaningful action and how immaterial your efforts therefore are in the grand scheme of change.
It’s easy to throw stones in my glasshouse when there’s no glass left. I’ve been that person, I am that person. What if our tools and practices and activities and activations were different. Informed not by the experience of always-looming structural barriers and fears of our own personal limitations but something maybe more innocent or clear or intentional? The beginner’s mind involves letting go of what our experiences have taught us and expectations tell us.
Remember when you first started caring? When you first discovered the climate was changing or a species was going extinct due to human’s insatiable appetite for destruction or a refugee’s life was imperilled by a cruel populist politician or when you raged at the injustice and inaction of violence towards women. Who were you then, what did you feel? You first learnt about what you cared about in a state of beginner’s mind. Maybe it was incredulity at what you were reading or seeing - surely not? Perhaps you immediately entered into the red mist. Were you sad or upset or fearful or disbelieving or shaken or in tears?
The beginner’s mind is free of constraints, beliefs and ideas of what should be done or how to do it, it’s curious and caring and present. It acts without regard for consequence, is radically honest and perhaps most importantly, it does not start with the limitations that have been taught or learnt and is free to imagine the impossible that is still entirely accessible.
In that beginner’s mind, would the week you’ve had be the same? How would the week ahead be different? More meetings or less meetings? More social and news scrolling or less? Would you keep accepting the crumbs of mediocrity and bare incrementalism?
So a few ideas from just a couple of minutes of imagining without limits:
Don’t complete your sustainability disclosures if you’re not disclosing something material in relation to the actual problem and just say that.
Immediately lobby and picket banks to remain in and maintain the net zero ambition of the Net Zero Banking Alliance (the Alliance Formerly Known as The Net Zero Banking Alliance is legitimately absurd).
Sticker-bomb retailers salmon products that RSPCA have refused to certify and copious footage and stories reveals as a toxic industry.
Donating to Climate 200, volunteering with candidates, learning about how to become a candidate in 2028.
Supporting the outrageous Greenpeace US litigation outcome.
Writing on a piece of paper “am I really, deeply, truly comfortable with what I’m doing?” and spending some time literally looking at yourself in the mirror as you contemplate that.
Start a Sustainability Professionals Union.
Join the American Sunrise Project, get safe online and learn about similar groups here in Australia to contribute to averting a similar future.
Read Jess Hill’s heartbreaking Quarterly Essay “Losing It; Can we stop violence against women and children?” and then find an organisation to help or give to, ask your elected official what they’ve done to address violence towards women and show you the demonstrable difference of whatever non-action they did and get vocal in your groups and communities about respect for women and girls.
The list goes on and on and on. No doubt you have yours (add them in the comments if you wish).
Sustainability - in its broadest form - is a way of seeing the world and being in it. Not a checklist, not a form, not an assessment, not a report, not a circular debate over definitions. For me, and as Finding Nature, it just boils down to helping to contribute to a safe, healthy and just future. Some of those tools and practices are necessary, but are just the absolute minimum of what’s needed.
I love this work and I hate this work. I love this community though. I love the people who embody what this works is really about. I hate the reverential navel gazing about definitions or frameworks or conference quality. Our work is about delivering real change to real people in real places. I don’t need a consultant to build me a measurement and evaluation framework to help me know if I did that today, or yesterday, in the last year or over the last decade.
Our work is about a program of action that delivers real change. It seems time to reflect on the tools and practices we have and largely still use and make a choice as to whether change is occurring. The answers are the facts and figures and statistics of a changing climate, of women and children dying in their homes, of nature destroyed, of fossil fuel company tax payments.
So what next? Probably a lot. Recent pod guest and youth environment Crusader Kal Glanznig had the best suggestion I’ve heard for a long while recently and is as good a suggestion as any to start making my choices from; “leave nothing in the tank”.
The contributions this month are again outstanding. Take the time to immerse yourself in the heart and soul generously shared.
See ya in the pit.
The Podcast In March
Wonderful, wonderful guests. A Nobel Prize for Physics recipient, a creative genius, a force of nature and one of Australia’s most esteemed climate adaptation practitioners. These conversations are a gift.
Available wherever you pod.
Listen, subscribe, rate & share.
Reality Can Be Overwhelmingly Painful, But Fantasy Is Dangerous
How often do you hear someone speak and break into tears? Jack Rowland did that to me two weeks ago. This was what he wrote and read at a youth-focussed climate event two weeks ago. I won’t be forgetting his grace and poise - and the choices he’s made and those he’s encouraging apparent leaders to take - anytime soon.
To the leaders of the world,
My name is Jack Rowland. When I was twelve, doctors told me I had a degenerative disease called Muscular Dystrophy that would prematurely end my life. At first, I refused to believe it; denial was easier than facing reality. I was in shock. I told myself the doctors were wrong, so I could continue as if nothing had changed. But denial wouldn't give me more time, it wouldn't make me better, and it would, instead, accelerate my degeneration.
I had two choices: keep pretending and ignore reality or fight for my life. I chose to fight; doing nothing was not an option. So, I decided to live my life filled with hope, joy, and authenticity and do whatever I could to slow down the degeneration of my body. I refused then, and I refuse now to let that fear paralyse me. I researched scientific journals tirelessly; I interned at a biotech company in Boston to learn more about the search for a cure; I changed my diet and lifestyle; and launched a GoFundMe campaign to create a website called Vitality Pod to bring hope and inspiration to others like me.
Today, I am studying for a Master of Public Health degree and have started an internship at Muscular Dystrophy Foundation Australia to positively impact as many people as possible in Australia and the world. I can't control how long I have, but I can control how I use my time and how much I love my life. And I will not waste it. Sadly, I cannot regenerate my body; I can only slow down the degeneration unless a cure is found.
Australia and the rest of our planet are also facing a degenerative disease caused by human overconsumption, pollution and ecosystem destruction. We treat our planet like it's disposable and will take care of itself no matter what we do. But it won't. The science is precise: Earth is heating up, people are suffering the health consequences from ecosystem collapse, those least responsible for the environmental crisis are suffering the most significant impacts, and we are running out of time. You know this. You have seen the reports. The fires. The floods. The mass extinctions. And still, you delay appropriate action. You make promises, but you don't act, or if you do, it isn't fast enough or with the urgency required to make meaningful change. You talk about solutions while approving more coal, more gas, and more destruction. That is not leadership. That is a betrayal of the future generations. We cannot afford denial; we need bold action, and we need it now!
Climate change is not a distant threat; it is happening now. Our planet is running a fever, and we keep pretending it will break on its own. It won't. And so, our oceans have more bits of plastic than fish; our forests are falling silent as species collapse; the ice sheets are melting; our atmosphere has more greenhouse gas than ever in the last three million years; and air pollution is killing thousands every day.
It seems you are still in denial. I was in denial, too, but I snapped out of it; we need the same for our society. Most people think we can go on as we have, that someone else will fix it, and that the consequences won't be as dire as the scientists say. But I know what happens when you ignore a diagnosis; it gets worse the longer you leave it, and if we don't act now, our planet will reach a tipping point where no treatment is enough.
I have learned something powerful through my own experience: action matters. Small steps, when taken together, can change everything. I could have given up, but I didn't. And I am pleading with you not to give up on us and our future generations. We need bold leadership. We need policies that stop treating the planet like an endless resource. We need renewable energy, clean air, and protected wild spaces. We need you to act like time is running out—because it is.
I wish I could regenerate my body through effort, but sadly, I can't. That is why it is heartbreaking for me when you have the chance to regenerate our planet but do not take the opportunity to do so.
We all need to do everything we can to support our current and future communities. I decided to overcome denial and take the most positive action I could with my time. What will you do with your time for this and future generations?
Yours sincerely,
Jack Rowland
Fighting for life and our future.
12th March, 2025
Give Me a Benevolent Leader Any Day: The Burden of Personal Choice & the Power of Decree
Melody Smith Gets It. A career spanning design, customer experience and sustainability means she’s incredibly well-placed to understand the structural barriers that exist to actually deliver on a vague public commitment to being a good citizen and making a positive difference in the world. Words are cheap. If only our systems made space for genuinely safe and health lifestyles without pushing the onus and guilt onto regular people.
Understanding the choices and behaviours of people has been central to my work for more than 15 years. Aiming to help people make better choices - often in difficult circumstances - from ensuring financial well-being for individuals to advising on appropriate insurance to help people safeguard their futures, the questions I’ve grappled with always centre around making the best decisions, not just for ourselves but for our communities. And yet, the trouble with choice is that, as human beings, we are poorly adapted to consider long-term consequences, to think beyond immediate gains, or to act for the greater good when it doesn't directly serve our own interests.
When it comes to sustainability and the climate crisis, we face this same challenge: the problem is invisible and slow-moving, making it harder to stir urgency in the hearts of many. It's easy to ignore a problem when it doesn’t have a single, clear face. We don't have one enemy to rally against as we might in times of war. Climate change, like the proverbial frog in boiling water, unfolds gradually, leading us to believe we can make incremental adjustments rather than demanding radical change.
The worst part of all this for me is that even when I know the right arguments, the statistics, the science, the case studies, there are times when I find it difficult to make the right choices. Did I remember to take my reusable coffee cup today? Did I inadvertently buy something made from synthetic fibres? Was my food packaging plastic or compostable? In the relentless noise of daily life, all the things I “should” do can feel relentless and overwhelming. While I know that I can’t be perfect, the guilt that hangs over me when I fall short, when I fail to live up to my own standards, is heavy and at times robs me of the simple joy of living.
This is why I reject the illusion of individual choice as a solution.
Rather than putting my energy into influencing my own decisions I’d rather focus on changing the systems around me. If we had systems in place that prevented single-use cups from being available in the first place I need not fuss about my coffee cup. If renewable energy was the default energy choice I wouldn’t feel guilt for flicking a switch. These types of systemic changes would free me from the daily burden of personal responsibility and avoidable guilt. Not only would it drive more meaningful impact than the choices we’re pressured to make daily, but it would also liberate my energy for deeper purpose and the simple pleasures of life.
On paper, choice is a powerful tool. It represents autonomy, the potential to shape our futures, and the capacity to make decisions that benefit both ourselves and the communities we serve. However, when viewed through the lens of climate action and systemic transformation, the burden of choice can be more paralysing than empowering. We are tasked not only with making decisions that benefit the environment or future generations, but also with navigating a complex web of competing priorities, personal convenience, organisational constraints, political dynamics, and economic considerations.
These aren’t decisions we should have to make alone. But in a system built on consumption, convenience and cheapness we’re stuck with an almost infinite number of individual choices. Then it’s easy to feel that our efforts will never be enough, no matter how carefully we consider each purchase, each action, each choice. That’s why, for me, the solution is not in more choice but in shifting the systems that govern those choices. We should no longer need to ask ourselves whether we should be using a plastic cup, installing solar panels, or buying ethically produced goods; the right choices should already be baked into the systems we work within. We should be making it impossible not to make the right decisions.
In our roles many of us are tasked not just with making the right decisions for ourselves but with enabling those choices for others. This involves a level of influence that transcends personal action and calls for collective engagement, collaboration and persuasion. Our work is not simply about advocating for better decisions on an individual level, it’s about facilitating those decisions for others, whether by engaging colleagues, stakeholders, or decision-makers who may not view the urgency of the issue in the same way we do.
But herein lies the paradox: the more we try to influence others to make better decisions, the more we are confronted by the same biases, short-term thinking, and resistance. The challenge of driving organisational change is amplified manifold when it involves persuading those who may not share our sense of urgency or perspective. Despite these frustrations, it is precisely the challenge of shifting these systems that makes this work so crucial.
One moment that stands out in my career came when I spoke with the CEO of a large financial organisation. He told me that he was planning to address sustainability and transition to a greener future, but only once employee pressure began. He was waiting for their voices to rise before he took action.
This was frustratingly passive, to say the least. But it did make me reflect that most employees have no idea how much power they have, both individually and collectively. They don’t recognise the influence they can wield within their own organisations.
That’s where, I believe, we need to focus: encouraging others to see the power of their voice within their own organisations. If employees can see that their collective voice is one of the most potent forces for change, we can reshape organisations from the inside. It’s not always about waiting for a perfect moment to call for change from the top down; it’s about recognising the incredible potential that already exists within the individuals who make up an organisation. Together, we can drive the decisions that have the greatest impact.
True transformation takes time, patience and persistence. I often reflect on the heroes who have driven the biggest changes in history—those who stayed resolute in their pursuit of a cause, no matter the resistance they faced. Whether it’s the fight for civil rights, gender equality or climate action, these individuals didn’t stop because the path was hard. They showed up day after day, making their case with conviction, challenging the status quo and slowly but surely shifting the world around them.
I can’t change the world on my own. But I can choose to influence what I can—starting with the organisation I work within and expanding from there. I choose to focus on the larger system. I choose to be the voice for change within the organisations I inhabit. I choose to encourage others to realise the influence they hold.
Structuring Your Choices & Welcoming The Tedious
Andreas Ludwig is Another Colleague Who Got Away. I’ve met few others who are as diligent, thoughtful and open to exploring the (bizarre) human condition. The arrival and acceleration of convenience seems to lead to a version of learned hopelessness. Everything, right now. Healthy change takes work. The work to make the many necessary healthy choices to bring about that change can be tedious.
Choice. Let’s spend some time reflecting on how to choose.
In a time when the consequences of our individual and collective choices are literally changing the world every day, wouldn’t it be good to know how to make the right choices? After all, taking the right choices could be the difference between having a world we and generations to come can live in and a planet that needs to reboot and wait for millions of years for a new intelligent species to evolve and try civilisation again.
Do we have a choice?
Albert Camus stated that "Life is a sum of all our choices." Or is it?
There is no free will and all our behaviour is determined without any room for individual choice, argues American neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky.
I have been interested in how people make choices for the past 30 years in academia and business. In my undergrad years I studied economics and sociology and saw very different perspectives on choice. "While economics is about how people make choice, sociology is about how they don't have any choice to make" (Bertrand Russell).
I am very sympathetic to Sapolsky’s work as a behavioural scientist and loved sociology at university while being critical of economic rational choice theory. But I still want to believe that we have choices and what we decide matters.
What choices are there to make?
Not all choices are created equal.
The psychologist Dr Eva Krockow estimated in 2018 that the average person in the developed world makes 35,000 choices a day – one every 2 seconds we are awake. Most of them are small choices. (You just made the choice to continue reading – thank you!)
I think about choices along two main dimensions: easy to difficult and trivial to important. Everyday consumption choices are often trivial and easy. What to have for lunch? What to wear to work? You makes these choices often. There are few lasting consequences of your decisions.
Other choices are easy, but consequential – do you brush your teeth and floss on a regular basis? The right choice is easy. But taking the wrong turn or not following through with the easy choice can harm our oral health significantly over time.
Then there are complicated choices. How do we win the next level in a strategy game? What profession should we aspire to for a life long career? While the first one should only have trivial consequences for our lives, the second is crucial for our wellbeing and that of our families.
Unfortunately, this is not all. The hardest choices are the ones that are not only important and difficult. There are choices we have to make under significant uncertainty. Not only the risk of being wrong some of the time, but fundamentally not knowing what it is that we are deciding about. These choices are not just taken, they are produced with lots of effort.
How should we choose?
In a nutshell: Think about what is at stake, what you know and still need to learn, and how complex and hard the problem is. Then use the right mechanism to work out your decision. Be strategic.
If the choice is trivial, don’t waste too much time on it. Lunch? Depending on your personality, you will mostly go with your favourite or try whatever is the new offer of the day. If you cannot decide what to pick – use a randomiser. If I am indifferent between trivial options, I tend to look at my mechanical watch and see if the small hand points right or left at the very moment. If I feel regret on what option the hand point at, I take the alternative – in this case the mechanism has helped me discover that I was not indifferent in the first place. Trivial choices are taken for you more and more by AI. What movie to stream next – just trust the algorithm.
If your decision is easy, but crucial, follow best practice. Or ask someone to support you. If your dentist tells you to floss to avoid losing teeth to gum decease, believe her. Focus your energy on how to follow through with your decision and build powerful habits for the small, but important decisions and actions every day. James Clear’s “Atomic Habits” gives excellent guidance how. Make it a habit to stick with the better choices – or at least start your choice process with them. You will end up choosing more often what is at the top of your list or at eye height in your fridge.
If things are crucial and complicated, spend the time to collect information, score the different options against each other across all important dimensions, put your personal priority weights on the dimensions and add up the weighted results. Sounds tedious. It is. That is the reason I hardly ever take the approach in private life. But sometimes it’s justified. When we moved to Sydney we wanted to find a place for rent that would accept us and our rescue dog, be affordable, in a nice location and somewhat close to both my wife’s and my office by public transit. We spent some time exploring different neighbourhoods, both by day and at night. Based on our criteria and impressions, we put filters on the property websites, evaluated a handful of serious options, applied to the top three and got extremely lucky to choose (and be accepted at) a place that the three of us are still living in three years later.
But what if the information is not readily available? What if the choice is not only complicated but the options are uncertain? How can we make the really hard choices? Same as above – a tedious process. On top of the complexity, we need to account for what we don’t know, and what we don’t even know that we don’t know.
Before entering into the process and spend countless hours, make sure to follow rule number one: Make sure you really need to deal with this choice. As Mark Manson would say: “Do you need to give a f*ck?” I am often pondering questions that sound essential for my identity and happiness – but they are not.
What is crucial for hard but essential decisions is to invest the time needed to think through the options, discuss with others to test if you have a comprehensive picture (is this career really what the job ad promises?) and have a plan for when you are wrong. Then decide and act according to your choice. Be honest if your decision was wrong and needs to be reversed. It’s usually better to take a decision and correct than wait or be stuck in decision paralysis.
No decision is also a decision – if the question is crucial, procrastination can literally kill. I lost my father because a doctor was waiting to see if his sudden weakness would subside on its own. My father did not want to alarm everybody and told the doctor that he was under the weather with a flu and would recover as usual after relaxing a bit. In fact, he had a heart attack. He would not recover from it when the doctor re-considered the case and he was finally treated the next morning. At the time I was furious about our family doctor and a health care system that could not save his life. But it challenged my prior belief that the extensive German health care system will protect you and find a solution once you made it to intensive care alive. Taking care of my health has increased in priority significantly and I stopped procrastinating with routine checks and regular exercise. I certainly wish that this choice came easier.
When making a hard choice you have a significant stake in you may have the option to assume what an uncertain future will bring and then commit to make it happen. When my former partner and I parted ways, I committed to dedicate the time and financial support to her and our son so they continued to prosper. After countless phone conversations and long weekends spent in Munich, after eventually getting married again, we all together built a nice patchwork family. We invested the effort needed and ended up working it out. Half a year after my wedding, my wife, my son and my ex-partner spent Christmas together. The future was uncertain, but we were committed to build a bright future for all. I am extremely happy and proud that things turned out as they have.
Choosing for climate
Let’s close the loop and talk about choices in a changing climate. Climate change and environmental protection pose choices on all levels of complexity, impact and uncertainty.
A lot of uncertainty has been resolved – it is very clear that climate change is real and that it impacts our lives in a more and more dramatic way. We are also learning how to think about the remaining uncertainty. We build scenarios and assess what a +1.5°C best case future in 2100 looks like compared to a +2.3 or +3°C future when we follow business as usual. We also know that our current level of climate action is insufficient to reach a +1.5°C future.
It is also more and more certain what behaviour makes a difference and what is less impactful. The debate is shifting much more towards how we make sure to do the right things.
Are there any trivial choices related to climate? While not without impact, way too much energy and behavioural science research has been spent on recycling. Many people still think that recycling properly is saving the planet. It does not. Collect your rubbish so that it does not enter the environment. How each kind of plastic can be recycled is not something to spend too much time on. Take a bag along for shopping, buy take a plastic bag if you forgot (don’t buy a new permanent bag if you have one already).
Easy but crucial is our choice of transportation and diet. I suggest to build simple habits. Eat vegetarian if there is an option you like. Eat chicken if not. If you cannot give up beef, lamb or pork, make it count. Instead of eating processed meat everyday, treat yourself to a nice steak or spare ribs once in a while. Use public transit, cycle or walk to work if you can. Start making it a routine – and within a few weeks you will transform it into a habit. It’s not a difficult choice, it’s a matter of using the right technique to make it happen consistently.
Complicated choices arise when the change is more structural. But these choices are essential. Shifting to solar and wind to generate energy can close 30-40% of the remaining gap for Australia’s climate goals for 2030. Land use change and forestry makes up another 20%. Home electrification and fuel switching is the third biggest contributor. Put solar on your roof if you can. Or source your energy completely renewably. How to do this? What to start with? Follow best practice. Fortunately, more and more professional services and AI tools are available to support us in finding the best alternative. It’s difficult, but generally we know what to do. Structural decisions also become easier with technical progress – next time you upgrade your car or have the means to invest into your home, simply use the most environmentally friendly and cost effective solution. What we do not have is time. We need to eliminate the gap between good intentions and (lack of) action.
The hard choices are the most fundamental. Here, scientific and technological uncertainty meet the general uncertainties of life. Are mindful consumption choices enough or do we need to engage in other ways to make a difference? Do we need to move to a place that is more likely to prosper in a hotter world? The options are unclear and success is uncertain. To solve the hard questions, we need to collaborate, be open and engaged. Find our optimal path and keep our eyes open while we go.
For the collective action problems, we need to choose determined and capable leaders in the next elections we have the opportunity to participate in. Structural reform of the energy grid and infrastructure cannot afford to lose even more time. I have supported the Green party in the last two German elections. Even though they are no longer in the new German government they made sure that the net zero target made it to the German constitution and EUR 100bn will be invested over the next twelve years to reach this target by 2045 instead of 2050.
Personally, I am currently working on the hard choice on where to re-direct my professional life to support these efforts most effectively with my abilities and experience. Multiple dimensions need to be weighted and flow into this choice – location (stay in Sydney, moving back to the Middle East or any other option), industry (climate related finance or public sector work on the energy transition), role (corporate, academia or freelance) and function (behavioural science, strategy advisory or carbon impact management). All this under the boundary condition to be able to pay a Sydney rent for the time being. The choice will keep me busy for a bit longer – and I am happy to receive input and guidance from others!
Thank you for getting this far. I love this work. I hope you do too. If you do, please share it wide and far, that’d mean the world to me.
Really enjoyed this post Nathan. Left me with a lot to think about.