Greenland Dispatches #1 -- "Ice Floes"
Over Greenland by Plane, Copenhagen to Washington’s Dulles Airport, July 3, 2009

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September 10 Note: As I ready for an early morning flight to Greenland tomorrow, I wanted to post a pre-Greenland trip blog from writing I did earlier this summer on a flight from Copenhagen to Washington, DC. I was watching a documentary about the Northern Lights, in awe of the beauty of the Arctic, when I took a break to open the window and look outside. Through the clouds there it was, the Arctic. Greenland. This is what I saw and experienced. I can’t wait to see it live and in person, and fear also seeing the reality of how fast the impacts of climate change are being felt there. More to come, from the ground.

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Ice floes, lakes of dark blue surrounded by white, fresh snow on jagged mountain ranges. Greenland. A gorgeous reminder of what is happening, why we do what we do, and of the urgency, and yet also the reality of time. These mountains have been here for so long.

I am flying over miles and miles of ice floes, white chunks of ice, white specs in a pool of icy dark blue. The cloud breaks allow me to see a massive glacier as it flows into the ocean, a runway, a big, wide slide into the mouth of a bay. Incredible. And there is another, a smaller one. And now the clouds seem to mirror the glacier below, flowing toward the water, and then broken up over the water with shards of ice below. I realize I must be at the tip of Greenland, I am looking at a wide expanse of glacier as it flows into a couple of others that are smaller, they are all moving, and melting -- oh! A pool of bright turquoise water on top of the glacier, two pools really, beautiful. Yet an ominous sign, one that I’ve seen in footage before, but not directly. It is incredible to see the glacier ripping apart, tears in her fabric as she gets closer to the water, and then a cliff as her pieces fall down and off into the water. It feels like the snow and ice is all running toward the edges of the continent, it can’t stay on top, sliding down, even as we run around trying to convince people we need to stop it, we can stop it. How do we face such an immense challenge and keep hope?

I am overwhelmed at the size of this – but then I think of my friends, family, and colleagues who are doing their work to build the clean economy. I know we can do it. I think we all want to be part of something greater than ourselves, and these times give us the chance to do so.

I was born to idealistic, justice-driven, engaged, and busy parents. We went on Sierra Club trips every year – my first one was in the Gerry Pack at 8 months. Mom volunteered at Audubon Canyon Ranch and on her back and walking by her side I learned about nature as she taught visitors the miracle of the transformation of the pollywog into the salamander, and the caterpillar into the chrysalis into the butterfly, and the egg into that tall, graceful snowy egret. The taste of miner’s lettuce, the scratch of old man’s beard moss, hanging from the great oaks, and the smell of anise – and she taught us how to detect anise’s nearly identical but poisonous relative, poisoned hemlock with its purple striations – when I was two she had to grab a handful out of my throat before I swallowed it… That was not fun for either of us.

My dad talked about a time like this back when he was young: the time when Franklin Delano Roosevelt inspired a nation in crisis, and called them to serve, establishing a new deal with our country. This is time for another new deal. A new foundation for a new America: one that is clean, kind, generous, healthy, and happy. Proud.

I look back out the window and see the tip of Greenland. I am heading home to Washington from Copenhagen, from the World Business Summit on Climate Change. 500 business leaders learning, collaborating, sharing knowledge, and making plans and finding new resolve and inspiration. It is good, this work. We are all doing our piece. Yet it is so urgent, we must do more and fast: Congress must pass a law to put a price on this pollution spewing from our power plants, cars, and from burning trees, destroying forests and wild lands.

This economic recovery, the investment we are making, can be the beginning of the rebuilding of our world. China is spending $288 billion on the green parts of their economic recovery. In the U.S. we are spending half that, with the money going to projects and programs that seed new industries, expand clean energy, restore green spaces -- how do we keep it going? This money must be accompanied by policies that support the growth of these new green industries, and by the creation of new financing vehicles to bring private dollars to bear to expand on the government dollars. And also be reinforced by service. We are in such a dire economic situation, the government dollars are nowhere near enough, and the private dollars just are not there right now. The speed at which we need to make the transition to the clean economy demands more. Service that brings more people in to help weatherize peoples’ homes to save them money when they need it most, and to save energy; and service where people install solar panels in low-income communities, their volunteer labor cuts costs: installation can be half the cost of a solar system. We need service now.

Service is a concept that is so much broader than I ever thought.

Service is people choosing to take positions that pay less than what they could do, but that serves the greater good: think Teach for America, college graduates paid to become teachers in places who need good ones the most. Service is also volunteerism, what we did in school, I worked with MassPIRG and surveyed students on their energy use. And what my mom does, teaching Story Hour at the Children’s Library, where kids flock each week to learn about the lifecycle of the amazing northwest salmon, or see that week’s creature mom brought in from the pet store: an iguana, or a tarantula. And her tracking classes in the winter, where kids and adults excitedly tromp out into the snow surrounded by trees and quiet, to look at the tracks, and then the hole in the snow, and is that blood? – they decipher the mystery: the predator, the prey, and how it all happened.

So many people are in service and they probably don’t even think they are. I think of Steve Schneider, Professor of Climate Change at Stanford University, and his speaking to the business leaders in Copenhagen, of him briefing the founders of Google on climate change to inspire and inform, and of him supporting a young law student as she advocated for a climate change policy for the university’s endowment. I think of Jeffrey King and of his support for Marcus Ryan, a man in service himself, as he launches the dc project, training homeless people to build the green recovery. And Jeffrey’s drive organizing legislators, businesspeople, and others, to pass a law that will scale energy efficiency retrofits in Oregon. This was not in his job description, he just did it because he thought it needed to be done. And I think of Shelley Cohen, who raises her one year old daughter while developing renewable energy and energy efficiency projects, educating cities, counties, and companies how they can do this and save money. And she volunteers as a representative to her local ward, and this winter she helped organize the Green Inaugural Ball, not just a party, but an opportunity to educate attendees and the public about greening. She ran her cousin’s campaign for City Council, and she serves on the board of the National Wildlife Federation. Amazing people making the world a better place. I feel so blessed to know them.

Back in Washington I will refocus on work with my friends and colleagues at the Clean Economy Network, this group of passionate businesspeople who are building the new economy, and who are bringing their creativity to new business models, new policy frameworks, new financing structures, that will enable us to rebuild our country.

I settle back into my seat and turn on the documentary I was watching, about the aurora borealis – and it is incredible. These flowing curtains of magnetic energy, green light, changing shape, undulating, as the lights move through the night sky. Nature is amazing. Our little magnetic planet with its energy, its perfect placement for life to be and thrive, and for so long. And yet here we are, heating it up, faster than it’s ever warmed before, a grand experiment that it turns out we now know is destroying our planet.

The documentary winds down, talking about the town they visit at the farthest north, jobs and electricity powered by coal mining. And yet it is that coal that will destroy it.

The Arctic. So quiet. Hostile, beautiful. Melting.