17 Comments

Bill, you are unfailingly generous in your appreciation of others. We appreciate you too!

Expand full comment

"Alongside the solar panel, the nonviolent social movement was the key technological innovation of the 20th century; if we survive the 21st, it will be because of both."

Let's move beyond "survive", and set our sights on building a new economy of social equity and habitat longevity in which we can all live our best lives in the 21st Century, and beyond.

The innovation we need to build that new economy is also a legacy we have inherited from the 20th Century: the social institution of Fiduciary Money, the tens of trillions, collectively, worldwide, of society's shared savings that are aggregated into social superfunds for retirement (pensions) and civil society (endowments).

This is more than enough money to finance the new economy we need and want. Right now, this money is being used to finance a different economy, a Neoliberal economy of Growth At All Costs - the economy that is creating the climate crisis, and a cascading cavalcade of other social failings.

We need to Mobilize this Fiduciary Money to finance a new economy, a Post-Neoliberal Economy, of social equity and habitat longevity for living our best lives in the 21st Century, and beyond.

This is our work at Bank of Nature. bankofnature.eco

How do we get "the core of climate activism around the world" to join us in this work?

Expand full comment

Third act.org members and many other orgs are planning to move those massive assets and money away from those fossil fuel- funding banks. So too - on a local scale- are many around the world creating eco villages, intentional communities as experiments in a new way of living with our planetary systems and to develop new and local .economies.

Expand full comment

Yes!

It is vitally important that we get a proper accounting from our Pension Fiduciaries, and also from our Endowment Fiduciaries, for where they are directing the Fiduciary Money they own as a public good - a kind of new 21st Century Global Commons, if you like, in which we all have the right and the responsibility as a new kind 21st Century Global Citizen to know where that money is being made to go, and to speak our mind - to articulate our common sense - if we don't think that money is being directed the right way.

Philosopher of Accounting Paolo Quattrone talks about how we all, as humans, must hold opposites in tensions and mediate those tensions in our daily lives. Money is a primary tool through which we mediate many of those tensions, and accounting for money is a powerful tool for showing us ourselves, and the choices we are making for mediating those tensions.

When we examine our accounts, we can see what we are doing, based on where the money is coming from, and going to, and then reflect on whether what we are doing is what we need and want to be doing.

At the level of society, more generally, different kinds of money are used to mediate different kinds of tensions. Fiduciary Money mediates for society, especially, the tensions between "now" and "later".

Accounting by Fiduciary Money should show us how the fiduciaries who own that money, and control its deployment as financing for enterprise to shape our economy, are mediating those tensions, so we can decide if that is how we need and want those tensions to be mediated.

That is the only way to true accountability.

Rather than accounting for Asset Allocations and Net Asset Values, we need Fiduciary Money to be accounting for the impact of the financings they provide to enterprise to shape our economy on:

• the Sufficiency of cash flows from those financing to support the Pension Promise, or Endowments equivalent;

• the Popularity of the social contract between the enterprises being financed and popular choice - are they on the leading edge of new and better, or propping up the old and out-of-date;

• Fair Trade in all supply chains;

• Fair Engagement with the Law and Community;

• Fair Reckoning for impact on society and Nature;

• Fair Working conditions and compensation;

• Fair Dealing with customers and competitors; and

• Fair Sharing between enterprising visionaries and their financiers, fiduciary and otherwise

These can and should be made the social currency of public discourse with the public good of Fiduciary Money: Sufficiency + Popularity + the Six Fairnesses: Trade; Engagement; Reckoning; Working; Dealing; and Sharing.

Expand full comment

It was inspiring to see the faces, learn the names and hear the stories of all those activists.

Expand full comment

Inspiring!

Expand full comment

I feel in the thick of it. Thank you so much.

Expand full comment

Thanks for the vicarious experience. I haven't been in the street demos since 1999 Seattle WTO. I lived in that region then. Or I wouldn't have been to that occasion . . . . . Location, location, location -- as they say in real estate. My impression is civilization benefitted thru Greta living where she could go either to school or to a spot beside the Swedish Parliament building . . . .

Expand full comment

Beautiful

Expand full comment

Excellent travelogue !!

Expand full comment

This is a moving homage to all who put their hearts and souls into stopping the climate crisis. Thank you, Mr. McKibben.

Expand full comment

This is a really beautiful piece- and thank you for all of the photos!

Expand full comment

Beautiful. Thank you.

Expand full comment

This gave me goosebumps to read. Thank you for highlighting all these voices! And for remarking that, “It is hard to just decide to speak up, to try and make the world listen. We do our best.” This is so true. 🙏🏼

Expand full comment

Thank you Bill 💚

Expand full comment

Praise and gratitude

Expand full comment

What a beautiful rainbow coalition you all are. Thanks for the photos.

Expand full comment