Tag: sustainability

creativity

Rewilding the World with Ben Goldsmith

Christa Avampato
Rewilding the World with Ben Goldsmith

If you’re interested in rewilding—the practice of restoring and protecting wild places and the many species who call those wild places home — the podcast Rewilding the World with Ben Goldsmith is incredible. Ben speaks to some of the most influential people behind the most exciting and dramatic rewilding projects across the globe including Turkey, the Balkans, Chile, Argentina, Africa’s Sahel, India, England, Scotland, the UK, Spain, Portugal, Western North America, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, the Sinai peninsula, Transylvania, Carpathia, Romania, and the Great Plains of the U.S. (What a list!)

Not only has this podcast further ignited my passion for rewilding and the promise it holds to make this a healthier, more sustainable world for all beings, but it’s also grown my list of places to travel to, my reading list, and my desire to care for wild places in any and every way I can. In a world that’s often dark and difficult, rewilding is a bright light of hope and joy that shows us what’s possible when we realize we are a part of nature, not apart from nature. 

Right now there are 20 episodes to enjoy, and Ben will be back again with a fresh set of episodes in early 2024. I’m so grateful for his efforts and the work being done by all of his inspiring guests.

creativity

The Most Creative Look to the Future

Christa Avampato
From the UN Global Pulse . https://www.unglobalpulse.org/

Too often our society is quick to label people, to put us in a box as creative or not creative, and that term is not always used as a compliment. Regardless of our profession or where we work, we are all creatives. Our imagination is the most powerful tool we have to build a brighter future.

UN Global Pulse, The United Nations Secretary-General’s Innovation Lab, just published “The Most Creative Look to the Future” that offers learnings and recommendations about how creative practices can help the UN embrace uncertainty and complexity through peace, unity, and collaboration. The creation of the UN itself was a bold creative act borne out of darkness and difficulty, and continues to be a work in progress in a complex and complicated world. This publication is valuable for organizations of any size and type. My favorite take-aways from it:

– Our imaginations give us a way to connect with one another, even those of us who have been previously disconnected.

– Creativity helps us to give voice to emotions and values, and offers us a new way to see others and to be seen by others.

– Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of technology, allowing us to describe and grapple with complex systems to model change and play out a wide variety of scenarios.

– A more peaceful, sustainable, healthier, and happier future begins in the imagination, and we can imagine ourselves and our world into a better state.

– Imagination is a team sport, and becomes richer and more meaningful when we collectively pool our creativity.

The publication concludes with further resources and frameworks that organizations can start using today to embed creative practices into their work and teams. In the new year, I’m excited to share these with my teams as we begin to shape our future work together.

You can download a free PDF of The Most Creative Look to the Future here: https://christaavampato.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/the-most-creative-look-to-the-future.pdf

creativity

My dream job at the New York Climate Exchange

Christa Avampato

After returning from a week at University of Cambridge / Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), I’m thinking a lot of about what’s next for my career after I finish my dissertation in July 2024. I envy people who have a single passion that drives them. I’m interested in so many areas and I’m not sure which path to choose.

At Cambridge, one of my favorite session was run by Louise Drake whose scholarship I deeply admire. She asked us to reflect on CISL’s new Leadership for a Sustainable Future Framework principles: connected, collaborative, creative, and courageous. Our task was to consider how we might move forward our careers in one of these areas. I chose courageous, and it was an emotional reflection for me. Questions that flooded my mind included: How might I be more courageous in my career choices and actions?; What is the most impactful way to use my time and talents?; Am I taking enough chances, risks, and big bets?; How do I ensure I don’t regret how I spend my time?

After this reflection, some of my friends helped me see that my many interests and desire to connect and rally people through storytelling, joy, and hope is my superpower. I believe in breaking down walls and repurposing those walls to build a longer table for people to connect, collaborate, and create together. These friends and Lou helped me reframe what I thought was a distraction into a focus, and I’m immensely grateful for their wisdom.

Reflecting on this, I do have a dream job and it’s right in my backyard of New York City where my ancestors entered this country 120 years ago. The New York Climate Exchange (“The Exchange”) is a first-of-its-kind non-profit organization and partnership network based at Governor’s Island in New York Harbor (near the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island) comprised of leading universities, businesses, and community groups collaborating to accelerate climate change solutions for NYC and beyond. Its mission is to confront urgent climate impacts and issues of environmental injustice, breaking down silos through an innovative, scalable, and sustainable model that will rapidly develop new urban climate solutions. In 2024, I’d love to join the team at The Exchange that’s embarking on this grand adventure.

Already, Domus has named the design of The Exchange’s 400,000 square-foot-campus by Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill (SOM) as one of the best urban regeneration projects of 2023. With a combined ~$700 million investment, construction is anticipated to begin in 2025. Collaborative projects, including research initiatives, programs with community groups, workforce training programs, and K-12 outreach will begin earlier.

This is a place that can be the massive lever for change we need to mitigate, adapt to, and become more resilient to climate change impacts. I hope I can give my talents to such an incredible cause and place. https://nyclimateexchange.org/

All images above are renderings from the New York Climate Exchange website.

creativity

Let love lead

Christa Avampato
Dinner at Selwyn College. Photo by Mitch Reznick.

I’m flying back to the U.S. now after a week at University of Cambridge / Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) with passionate, intelligent, and inspiring classmates, presenters, professors, and the CISL team. This time I grew as much personally as professionally. I was able to ask questions, have discussions, and voice ideas I’ve previously struggled to articulate. I couldn’t have done that without my classmates and friends who listened, provided kind and constructive feedback, and offered their ideas, perspectives, and experiences. This is a gift I carry with me now. I’m so grateful for all of it.

Humour, play, creativity, and imagination played a role in many of our classes and social activities, and they helped bring joy, light, hope, and optimism into this challenging field. The work we do, on this course and in our lives as we attempt to tackle climate change issues from many different angles, is intense. It can also be intensely fun.

On a personal note, I began the week thinking of my stepfather who was my Dad-by-choice. My family lost him a year ago exactly on the day this workshop at Cambridge began. I honoured him in my pecha kucha presentation by sharing the last words he ever said to me in-person. I went to see my family right before our first workshop in September 2022. He said to me, “Hey, I know you’ll work hard at Cambridge, but please try to have some fun over there, too.”

My Dad knew me well, and it’s been difficult to lose someone who was always in my corner and read every piece of writing I’ve ever published. I could feel his spirit with me all week, encouraging me to embrace laughter and love whenever possible, especially during challenging times. Love and laughter serve as resources to help us stay with the trouble. They make us resilient. When we lead with love, we can open people up so that we deeply connect, collaborate, and create to tackle the most serious challenges together.

These photos show our formal dinner together at Selwyn College, my view from the train leaving Cambridge, and my Pops. As I go back to my New York life, I will do my best to put into action everything I learned in this beautiful, inspiring sanctuary with these beautiful, inspiring people. I’m already looking forward to July when we’ll be together again in Cambridge. I’m the luckiest person to be a part of this.

My view from the train – Cambridge to London. Photo by Christa Avampato.
creativity

The National Climate Assessment shows us we can save the world

Christa Avampato
Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash

Look at your hands. Coupled with your mind and heart, your hands, joined with mine and with people across the globe, have the power to save the world. We can choose to be the artificers of our own bright and bountiful future.

Today we have a once-in-human-existence opportunity — the chance to create a healthy, vibrant, sustainable world for all beings. And not just for our children and grandchildren, but for ourselves and all beings alive right now.

The 2023 National Climate Assessment released Tuesday in the U.S. lays out the dire possibilities from global warming. It also shows that collectively we have all the knowledge, money, and creativity we need to halt emissions that cause global warming. There is proof the solutions work. Climate solutions are being deployed nationwide in every region and annual emissions dropped 12% from 2013–2019. We need them to drop much more but this is progress.

The one remaining hold out is us. Do we have the will to save ourselves and life on Earth?

“How much more the world warms depends on the choices societies make today,” states the report. “The future is in human hands.”

The report is hefty and so is the opportunity before us. Let’s not waste it.

creativity

Cultivating our roots in difficult times

Christa Avampato

I ran the few blocks to Prospect Park for my morning run. On the way, I passed one of my neighbors who was sitting in a chair in her front yard. She had her eyes closed, face up to the sun, with her bare feet sinking into the ground.

“Morning, Marta,” I said.

“Hi dear,” she replied. “Just feeling my roots.”

As I ran through the park taking in all the reds, golds, and oranges of the leaves, I thought about Marta’s comment. We all have roots — where we live, where we work, in the communities and with the people whom we spend time with. It made me think about the value of connections, and how those connections form a kind of life journey and path as we carve our way in the world. It reminded me how strong roots take time to cultivate, how that work is mostly hidden from sight, and may appear like we aren’t making any progress.

But the progress of building our roots may be the most important progress we make because everything else we are and do comes from them. It’s our roots that sustain us, as people and professionals. They are what remains when everything else falls away. They help us grow, transform, and heal. They help us weather the tough times and flourish when the light returns. And it does always return, eventually.

The world is a difficult place right now in so many ways. Perhaps as difficult a place as we’ve ever seen. I’m finding hope in fostering my roots, in deepening my relationships, and rededicating myself to my community, in my city, in my work, and in all the places where I find points of connection. I hope that you are able to find this, too.

Photos of Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Taken by Christa Avampato on October 25, 2023.

creativity

Climate communicators must become storymakers, not just storytellers

Christa Avampato
Photo by Camellia Yang on Unsplash

This piece by World Economic Forum posted by UN Biodiversity gets it right when it comes to climate communications. It starts with the important grim facts of biodiversity loss — human activity is destroying biodiversity faster than in the last 10 million years, over 1 million species face extinction, 80% of threatened species are impacted by our activity, and we’ve degraded 40% of the land. Then it pivots to 5 solutions that improve our lives, save nature, create 117 million jobs, and generate $3.015 trillion dollars by 2030:

1)Higher-density urban development to free up land for agriculture and nature — $665 billion; 3 million jobs

2)Architecture with nature, not just humans, at the core of the design to benefit us and other species — $935 billion; 38 million jobs

3)Utilities that effectively manage air, water, and solid waste pollution in cities — $670 billion; 42 million jobs

4)Nature-based solutions for infrastructure like wetlands, forests, and floodplains to manage the impacts of rain, wind, and storms — $160 billion; 4 million jobs

5)Incorporating nature such as wildlife corridors into infrastructure — $585 billion; 29 million jobs

Total: $3.105 trillion; 117 million jobs

Tell me another set of policies that produces that much revenue and that many jobs. There isn’t one. Line up the investors for this unicorn deal. Which politicians are turning down this set of policies with these societal benefits? Those who won’t be elected. This is the power of effective climate storytelling about solutions and their benefits. These are stories that change the world. Tell them. Make them.

As climate communicators, we can’t drop audiences off at the abyss and leave them there. We can’t just be storytellers; we must be storymakers and solutioneers if we want to be part of the web of humanity that weaves a healthier, more joyful, peaceful, and sustainable world into existence. This is a lot to ask of my inspiring and beloved climate communications colleagues who are already doing so much. But I’m asking us to do more because the world needs us now more than ever.

You wanted to be a writer, journalist, filmmaker, or video game creator. You hadn’t planned on becoming a product developer, systems designer, policy maker, and community organizer. That wasn’t the deal. I know. The deal changed. The world changed. We have to change.

There’s a Hopi proverb that says, “Those who tell the stories rule the world.” As the CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, Steve Jobs said “The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. They set the vision, values, and agenda of an entire generation.”

This is the mantle we have to take up. We have to tell stories about solutions that clearly communicate their benefits. Then we lead our audiences into the trenches to collectively roll up our sleeves and get the work done using the empathy and compassion in our hands, hearts, minds, and spirits to build a better world for all beings.

creativity

Bringing storytelling through video games into the climate change movement 

Christa Avampato
Photo by Rodion Kutsaiev on Unsplash

During my Masters program at University of Cambridge, I’ve been researching how video games can inspire and foster climate action. Today I had the chance to play the vertical slice (the beginning prototype) for the game that I’ve been working on. It’s beautiful, emotional, and challenging — all characteristics of a game that connect with players, and connect those players to something far beyond their screens.

3 billion people across the globe play video games. However, storytelling through video games has largely been absent from the climate change conversations that involve policy makers, governments, businesses, climate scientists, academics, and climate communicators. As someone who belongs to all of those communities and has worked in all of those sectors, I hope that I can be a bridge that not only brings them together but also helps them to collaborate and work together toward their common goal for a healthy, sustainable planet for all.

This game could be a game changer, and I can’t wait to see where this goes. More details soon as the prototype grows toward the market launch in Fall 2024.

creativity

A river flows in Brooklyn

Christa Avampato
South Brooklyn during Friday’s floods. Photo by Christa Avampato.

A river flowed from Prospect Park through my neighborhood in South Slope, Brooklyn on Friday when we were pummeled with 7+ inches of rain in ~12 hours. I didn’t realize NYC’s floods were international news until I started getting messages from friends outside the country. With over 13 inches of rain in September, this is the 2nd wettest September since NYC began keeping weather records in 1920.

I took this photo of the flooding from my apartment at 8am. As I watched the water gushing through the streets, I thought about a conversation I had with my friend, Alex MacLennan, almost a decade ago. He told me the climate models then predicted the western half of the US would grow increasingly drier and hotter while the eastern half would be regularly flooded. How right they were.

NYC is an archipelago that sits mostly at sea-level surrounded by brackish water with the busiest shipping port in the US. Though it looms large on the national and international stages as a financial, cultural, political, and media capital, area-wise it’s small and easily overwhelmed by water.

It is, in many ways, a climate disaster waiting to happen. It’s the mostly densely populated city in the U.S. with nearly 28,000 people per square mile and has the largest population with almost 9 million people, more than double the size of the next largest city. The population doubles during the workday with as many commuters as residents. It’s also a city of hard surfaces (though we have 7 million trees and the tree canopy covers 21% of the city). Aged infrastructure and a subterranean subway that is 100+ years old further compound threats from flash flooding, coastal storms, and sea level rise. Flooding here is a crisis that must be urgently and unrelentingly addressed.

The country and world can’t afford to lose New York. While some strides have been made to protect the city from climate change, it’s not nearly enough. But all that may be changing, and fast.

There are plans underway to transform Governor’s Island in New York Harbor into the largest climate research and entrepreneurial center in the world. We desperately need this. The scale and impact of this project on our city, the country, and the world will be significant. It has to be significant because the climate crisis deepens every day.

These floods will become more frequent and intense in the coming years. We have to mitigate and adapt at the same time with nature-based solutions like biophilic architecture, mangroves, reefs, rooftop farms, and the transformation of vacant lots into bioswales. They are proven, efficient, and relatively inexpensive solutions. I hope the work at Governor’s Island can make these ideas realities.

Like all investments, nature-based solutions take time to create and scale. We have no more time to waste. We have to get started now, and it’s my hope that I can do my part to push this work forward.

creativity

Takeaways from Climate Week NYC 2023

Christa Avampato
Photo by Willian Justen de Vasconcellos on Unsplash

I spent last week inspired by storytelling, a mechanism of empathy as Neil Gaiman calls it, during Climate Week NYC. I met dozens of family office leaders and their advisors. My dissertation for University of Cambridge focuses on this intersection — how storytelling can galvanize family office investment in nature-based solutions.

A few take-aways:

Language matters
I went to a New York Public Library event with Eliza Reid and Dr. Jenni Haukio, the First Ladies of Iceland and Finland. The discussion was moderated by Neil Gaiman, my favorite author. All three of them emphasized the importance of language and how the words we choose are intimately tied to our culture, geography, and ecology.

When talking about climate change, we can feel overwhelmed by inertia. One way to break that inertia is to go out into nature and listen to the stories she tells. The beauty and wonder of nature, and the inspiration she provides, is worth protecting, saving, and sacrificing for. Stories, in any medium and format, can center nature in powerful ways that emotionally connect us to one another and the natural world.

Art is vital to the climate conversation
Science, governance, and finance matter enormously in climate. Art matters just as much. It is the way in for many people. The expression of climate change’s impact on a personal level sticks with people more than facts and figures. We save things we love, that hold meaning for us, and art is a way to convey love and meaning. I want to create more climate talks and actions that are cross-sector, cross-generational, cross-geography. Let’s tear down the walls that divide us in favor of the bridges that connect us. I didn’t see a single talk at Climate Week that includes scientists, artists, policy makers, and financiers together on one stage. I’d like to make that the norm.

Where there are helpers, there is hope
I went to E2’s session on how New York (City and State) can make the most of the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate investment ever made by the U.S. government. I met three entrepreneurs who are doing innovative product development in the energy space. All are career switchers. They sincerely want to help, and that gives me hope.

Passion drives progress
I spoke to some financiers trying to serve family offices. I asked them what they love about what they do. They looked at me wide-eyed and silent. They have no idea what they love about what they do. They’ve never thought about it. They’re working on climate because as they said, “it’s what’s next”. 

I emphatically encouraged them to consider the why as much as the what. If they are just in this for their piece of the pie, that distracts from and hinders the movement. This work is too important, too vital to the well-being of every being to be in this just for the money they think they can make. Passion is the driving force for progress. Money is fuel for the journey. Let’s not get it twisted.