Updates

Here’s a way to find all three. I’m just back from three and a half days traveling with strangers…and it was exactly what I needed. It was a trip organized by an environmental NGO I support. Our organization is still young, but it has been growing at a nice pace and has reached the stage […]

Check out the new biography of Yvon Chouinard David Gelles’s biography of Yvon Chouinard is hot off the presses. We enjoyed reading it, learned a lot, and recommend that you read it too. It’s an entertaining and inspiring report on Yvon’s singular life. It’s also a good examination of the challenges and opportunities associated with

Getting the dialogue going Following our last issue, where I proposed we all weigh in on how the environmental movement can make more progress, I reached out to a few colleagues for their take. I’m pleased to share their responses here. I hope you’ll read all of them and even respond. We need more of this.

Is it Time to Pivot? Next week, New York City will be abuzz as leaders from government, business, nonprofits, and philanthropy (many of them friends and colleagues I deeply admire) gather for Climate Week 2025. It’s always an energizing time as we share ideas and collectively push for faster climate progress. That spirit of collaboration

And how he thinks about impact, environmental optimism, and scaling solutions I’m delighted to introduce my friend and former colleague, Rich Gilmore, to readers of this newsletter. Rich and I worked together at The Nature Conservancy for many years; he led our Australia unit and was a conservation finance lead in Asia during my tenure

Tell us how you really feel. Time really does fly when you’re having fun. This month marks the fifth anniversary of The Instigator! As we approach this major milestone—and hit send on our 115th newsletter!—we thought it would be a good time to check in with the most important people engaged in this endeavor: You, our

Planning an Environmental Career Now I welcome opportunities to advise people who are pursuing careers in the environmental field (as evidenced here, here, and here). I remember with genuine gratitude how many people kindly advised me when I was trying to figure out how to transition from a career on Wall Street to the environmental world. So when

Michael Grunwald on How Diet Drives Climate Change Years ago, I visited the Everglades with a group of colleagues and drove everybody crazy with my never-ending questions. Finally, a park ranger handed me a copy of Michael Grunwald’s The Swamp. “Just read this,” he said. I started the book on my flight home and didn’t put

The Global Atlas of Underground Fungi is published! It feels very good to have some positive news to report in the world of environmental progress. A few days ago, SPUN, the NGO that I often write about, published a global analysis and data set that maps out underground mycorrhizal biodiversity. And the news got some

How the New Budget Bill Undermines Energy Security, the Economy, and Climate Resilience I hope you’ve noticed by now that at The Instigator, we make a concerted effort to maintain a constructive, non-partisan, and non-alarmist point of view. We want to get as many people on our side as possible. We try to focus on pragmatism over