{"id":2413,"date":"2019-08-05T03:13:46","date_gmt":"2019-08-05T07:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/?p=2413"},"modified":"2020-11-03T19:03:03","modified_gmt":"2020-11-03T23:03:03","slug":"to-rise-with-the-challenge-of-our-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/2019\/08\/05\/to-rise-with-the-challenge-of-our-time\/","title":{"rendered":"To Rise With the Challenge of Our Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"L.<\/a><\/h3>\n

Legendary leader and honored pioneer of the sustainability movement Hunter Lovins fights for \u201ca finer future\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

Hunter Lovins is a force of nature. A lawyer, professor, author, policy advisor, activist, and founder and president of several organizations dedicated to sustainability, she has been at the forefront of the sustainable development movement for over 40 years. Her lifelong work in the field garnered her such accolades as being named a \u201cgreen business icon\u201d by Newsweek and a millennium \u201cHero of the Planet\u201d by Time Magazine. Among other honors, she has also received the Right Livelihood Award and the Leadership in Business Award.<\/p>\n

Lovins\u2019 groundbreaking achievements include founding the Rocky Mountain Institute in 1982, a non-profit research center with the mission to \u201ctransform global energy use to create a clean, prosperous, and secure low-carbon future.\u201d She is also the current president of Natural Capitalism Solutions<\/em>, another nonprofit internationally recognized and revered for its groundbreaking insights in the field of sustainable development. She has also co-authored 14 books, including \u201cA Finer Future: Creating an Economy in Service to Life.\u201d<\/p>\n

When we sat down to talk, she had just arrived by plane to teach a class at Bard College\u2019s MBA in sustainability program. On her flight, she acted as a first responder when a passenger began experiencing heart attack symptoms. \u201cWow,\u201d I say. \u201cAre there any other qualifications we don\u2019t know about? You seem to have so many.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d she responds. \u201cI was a firefighter for over 15 years.\u201d She started fighting fire at her Colorado high school. Most rural fire departments are members of the ambulance, she explains, so she wore both hats. She recalls one instance when she saved a man from choking. \u201cI did the Heimlich and he popped the piece of steak, breathing again,\u201d she retells. \u201cI patted him on the back, told him to eat a little more carefully, went back to my whisky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe earth has a fever\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n

When she finds herself in situations where medical attention is needed, she knows when to act based on the symptoms in front of her. I ask her what symptoms she sees in the sustainability world that crucially need acting upon. \u201cClimate change,\u201d she responds immediately. \u201cWe\u2019re warming. The earth has a fever. And fevers that get too high are fatal. Climate change will destroy life as we know it on this planet if left untreated.\u201d<\/p>\n

It can be overwhelming to hear such daunting words, which we do so often hear. But the key word is \u201cif.\u201d She continues: \u201cWe [do] have all medical interventions to resolve the crisis: i.e., stop putting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by shifting to renewable energy; take the excess carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere by using regenerative agriculture. In both cases, it\u2019s profitable. So, let\u2019s go. We have all the technologies we need; let\u2019s implement them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sustainable investment philosophy of holistic management<\/em><\/h3>\n

So, how does this happen? Beyond being an expert in the field of sustainability, Lovins has been especially monumental as a leader in sustainable business. Her model is that these sustainable solutions that we have access to make financial sense. So why are more companies not getting on board? \u201cApathy, inertia, inattention,\u201d she says. \u201cA lack of responsibility.\u201d Companies thinking, \u201c\u2019climate change is not my problem.\u2019\u201d The thought that \u201cthe government ought to do something about it, not [the company].\u201d But a growing number of companies are realizing that implementing climate protection measures is, in fact, better business; that they\u2019ll actually make more money that way. That\u2019s the most important leverage point \u2013 the economic factor \u2013 to creating a behavioral change. And once the behavioral change happens, morality follows. \u201cMaking money is awfully good proof of concept.\u201d<\/p>\n

What can everyday people do?<\/em><\/h3>\n

When I ask her this question, she advocates education and proactivity. \u00a0\u201cGoogle the science of climate change, and then DOT \u2013 Do One Thing.\u201d Burning fossil fuels is 60-70% of what\u2019s driving climate change, but refrigerants are also contributors. So if you have a leaky air conditioner, change it, she says. As an individual, how we engage with agriculture is important. \u201cIndustrial agriculture is a driver of climate change, and climate change is threatening agriculture as we know it: increasing droughts and heatwaves. \u201c She calls it \u201cGlobal weirding. Farmers can\u2019t rely on normal climate patterns they could before; there are incredible heatwaves, fires, and floods. The more we can localize agriculture and the more we can shift to organic, and better regenerative, now, rather than being a contributor to climate change, you\u2019re a part of the solution.\u201d Taking carbon out of the air and putting it back in the soil, profitably. So to the extent that it\u2019s profitable, this stuff can go to scale.<\/p>\n

So, yes: eating locally, learning about farmers markets, and supporting your local agricultural sector really is important.<\/p>\n

These are a few operations she suggests buying from: Brown\u2019s Ranch, White Oak Pastures, Polyface farm, or whatever local producer you have in your area that is managing the land holistically, regeneratively. By buying from them, \u201cyou are keeping money in the local economy, you\u2019re making their holistic, regenerative practices more profitable, more viable, and the food will taste better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Legendary leader and honored pioneer of the sustainability movement Hunter Lovins fights for \u201ca finer future\u201d Hunter Lovins is a force of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":603,"featured_media":2414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259,1],"tags":[132,11,18,287,23,13,862],"class_list":["post-2413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mba-students","category-stories","tag-bard-mba","tag-business","tag-carbon","tag-circular-economy","tag-clean-energy","tag-climate-change","tag-sustainability-leaders"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/files\/2019\/08\/IMG_6091-Edit-2-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2413"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2416,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions\/2416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}