Danae Wolfe is an award-winning conservation photographer, writer, educator, and the founder behind the @chasingbugs social media handle, focused on fostering appreciation and stewardship of backyard bugs and wildlife. Ever the pragmatic, she believes that everyone has the power to make a difference in combatting climate change and biodiversity loss. Danae was the 2022 recipient of the Garden Communicators International Emergent Communicator award, and […]
“Can capitalism and sustainability co-exist? Amazon, for example.” -C.K.C. It’s a question that comes up a lot in conversations about the climate crisis, the future of our economy, and how we live on this planet: Can capitalism and sustainability actually coexist? My personal answer is: No—at least not in the current form of capitalism we live under. Modern capitalism is […]
What if education wasn’t just about knowledge, but about resilience and real-world impact? Dr. Pavel Cenkl, Academic Dean at Prescott College and Founder of the Regenerative Learning Network, is rethinking how we learn, integrating regenerative design, global collaboration, and sustainability. Pavel is a leader in transformative education. He’s also an endurance athlete, using Arctic expeditions to document climate resilience. Get […]
For this week in Leadership, the exercise of the week was to lead others using empathy. The process was as follows (modified slightly for how I did it): I found this exercise to be REALLY challenging to start doing. I spent a lot of time thinking about the implications of doing the exercise: is it manipulative? Is there a reason […]
Paula Whyman is the author of the new memoir Bad Naturalist and the award-winning short story collection You May See a Stranger. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The American Scholar, and numerous literary journals. In Bad Naturalist, Paula shares her often humorous and deeply honest journey of ecological restoration on 200 wild acres in the Virginia mountains […]
Today I found myself thinking a lot about the values that are embodied in sustainability. I think the definition of “sustainable” varies from person to person, and to some people, believing in sustainability means being naive or unrealistically optimistic – that we humans could never get to a world that is just, because we’re just too corrupted and selfish. But […]
Exercise 18 of Leadership Step By Step was to have another 10 conversations with a goal of making people feel understood. Again, a script was provided and the short version is: The idea with this script is that you ask someone about their passion, then give them the space to delve into their passion and really explore what it is […]
One of the small things I take joy from is being privileged enough to be able to live in a first-world country with a strong currency that can do amazing good for a relatively small (to me) amount of money. One of the ways I do that is to used Kiva.org, which I’ve done for years. Kiva is a nonprofit, […]
Tamara Dean is an award-winning essayist whose work explores the intersection of nature, community, and resilience. In Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless (University of Minnesota Press, April 22, 2025), she reflects on her move to a Wisconsin farm and the lessons learned through living close to the land. Through twelve vivid essays, Dean blends science, history, and […]
This week, while mommy had a hair appointment, I spent a couple hours with our son at the nearby shopping mall. We had 2 hours to burn, with nothing in particular to do. And me not being particularly interested in shopping, I decided to just let my 2-year-old explore and wander the mall. One of the first things he discovered […]