Excellent! I’ve just spent the week at SF Climate Week. When I start talking about some of the calls to action you outline, they seem to be far outside of the Overton Window of many people who have dedicated their careers to climate solutions. They listen, then thank me and continue to mingle about the room.
What you’re outlining is going upstream to the source of our challenges. Creating a different story of being here together on Earth.
Holy cow do I feel this, the dissociative response when the diagnosis goes too deep. @Dr. Renée Lertzman speaks eloquently to this. A career in climate solutions has thus far been a career of bandaids and fire extinguishers for most folks. But some of them are fed up with harm reduction (or greenwashing the reputations of plutocrats) and realizing they can’t avoid the BHAG any longer. For me, reinventing our economics is enormously exciting, the most audacious entrepreneurial ambition. A totally different incentive architecture would make our default choices regenerative by design. It would be HARD and shameful to behave like today’s oligarchs. And it would be easy, encouraged and celebrated to consistently do the right things for people and planet. There’s an element of entrepreneurship that’s deeply altruistic and not about products or services. It’s about care and restoration (sympathetic joy), making lives genuinely better, not just more consumptive and cultivating all of life as an active steward, because when all life does better, all life does better. That’s the new entrepreneurial context I want to see manifested for the next generation, no more tradeoffs and handicapping ourselves by focusing on genuine care and dare I say love.
I’d like to recommend an addition to your list of links: socialvalueint.org, which works to expand the way society accounts for value to include effects on people’s wellbeing, and enable decisions to increase wellbeing.
It’s been great getting acquainted and I look forward to more collaboration with you in the years to come!
Well written my friend and the analysis is spot on. I think you’re asking the right questions. How do we encourage more involvement in things like our mutual aid group or PBA? Good fire is at the core of a regenerative system, IMHO. Glad to work alongside you, honored to call you friend.
The feelings are mutual. And you really do roll up your sleeves and show up consistently in support of community, and the other day in support of our garden. Everything we planted incidentally got eaten, so here we are competing with the gophers again.
"The findings were conclusive. About 90% of people when given a big economic boost, become less pro-social, less compassionate. But about 10% of us become MORE pro-social, more caring. Almost nobody remains unchanged." Interesting and memorable stat; off the top of my head I wouldn't have guessed the divide was so large! Would love a link to the study in case you have it handy :)
Thanks Ethan. Good to see you on the call the other day. I amended the piece here on Substack to unpack why I didn't link to this person's meta-analysis. I believe he was coming from his heart and confessing, because his life was at the epicenter of American greed as virtue culture. I've been timid for a long time to share what he said, but decided the statute of limitations on this confidentiality had expired.
Thank you for speaking up Raman. I feel your pain and that despite all the warning signs, education and more information than we know what to do with for many decades now, we appear to be unable to change our behavior, and the wealth disparity and lack of voice in the system is a big problem. It’s beyond frustrating and I did not attend SF Climate week this year due to what I feel is lack of perspective and inclusion in the conversations, such as inclusion of our future generations – hardly any events appeared to be open to teens or pre-teens or children to mention one limitation. In fact, I rarely witness or experience the type of dialogue that David Bohm calls for in his book on Dialogue and what people share seems most of the time scripted (perhaps I am too), and so many people are not part of this conversation – I miss this!!! I’ve found myself spending more time in my garden, learning about growing food, or pruning my fruit trees, and ask myself the question, how can we lead a movement to create a new dream, such as growing food forests. So, since the retreat in 2024 at Camp Earnest learning Regen Economics and feeling a powerful sense of community and voice, followed by a course with John Fullerton, I focus my energy more on designing the life that I want than thinking or expecting that it will appear or that anyone understands. Very few have the time or attention span to participate or really listen, but perhaps in a small way, larger changes happen by the way we live. I’ve been encouraged in seeing local economy trends and your work reinforces my vision: this environment and the company I keep is more powerful than just my pure will power. So more of these conversations, dinners and events are fuel for my resilience and dare I say optimism. I keep reflecting on what you said during the Regen Economics discussion in 2024, that there are 1000 ways to solve a problem. That there, gives me hope that I cannot see all the positive changes that may solve our problems and all the people who truly care. If you look at the Whole Seed Catalog of 2026 (532 pages), that diversity in what we can grow is beyond anything that I could have imagined – same thing. Our children need to know this! What possibilities! And, “Heartwood: The Wisdom of Healing Kinship of Trees” by Lindsay Branham, has uncovered yet another layer of my understanding of the world we live in that reinforces my relational and wholistic thinking – that was not part of my training or might I say got lost in the rat race, LOL. Finally, I’ve been following Geoship’s work on home design resilience. That is close to my heart due to my personal experience in seeing how chemicals in building materials in the homes we work so hard to buy and or build harms our health. I have lots to say but will leave it here for now.
Thank you for leading by example and sharing your hands on learnings Raman. The distinction between harm reduction and systems redesign is so clarifying — we’ve essentially been building increasingly sophisticated bucket brigades while the house keeps catching fire - by design.
Also, much of the intellectual architecture for your proposed R&D already exists (though silo’s). Daniel Christian Wahl has spent years mapping what regenerative cultures actually look like in practice — his work makes the case that we don’t lack vision, we lack the institutional will and capital to operationalize it at scale.
Janine Benyus and the biomimicry framework offer perhaps the most compelling argument for your point: nature has already solved 3.8 billion years worth of design problems, and yet our economic systems treat ecosystems as externalities rather than as the master engineers they are.
And Tony Cho’s work in regenerative real estate and community development shows that these aren’t just theoretical constructs — place-based economies rooted in equity and ecology can be built, right now, at the neighborhood level.
The missing piece your article identifies so well is the connective tissue: a funded, coordinated effort to synthesize these learnings, run minimum viable experiments, and scale what works.
The DARPA analogy is apt. We funded moonshots in defense and technology — why not a social and ecological moonshot that draws explicitly on what Wahl, Benyus, Cho and others have already built?
The 80/20 proposal for redirecting impact capital isn’t radical, it’s just rational. Thank you for naming it so plainly. Appreciate your voice in the world.
Totally agree with the call to experiment with new models of philanthropy and investing toward a different paradigm. Harm reduction matters, especially with how fast climate impacts are accelerating, but if most capital stays there, we’re mostly managing symptoms. What feels missing is real investment in imagining and actually testing what a better system could look like, work like Abundance points in that direction. We’re good at naming what’s broken, but not as good at resourcing bold, regenerative alternatives, and even a small shift there could open up very different possibilities.
And thank you for bringing together people actually doing the work, there’s so much we can learn from one another and a real opportunity to build on what already exists instead of constantly reinventing the wheel!
I think you're awake, sincere, formidably competent and beautifully positioned to work on legitimate resourced implementation pilots, including I hope some that don't just reduce harm, but get to the "generator function" that recursively produces such harm.
Just as high levels of crime strongly correlate to porous and failed social safety nets, lack of education and wages that amount to debt peonage, so our ecological crises reflect our worship of GDP and refusal to embrace a culture of having enough. Jeremy Lent calls this "Wendigo Inc.." Insatiable desire and hoarding complexes have no place in our collective future. Belonging, having all foundational needs met as a birthright, security, kindness and care, access to education and the ability to explore and manifest our potential, regardless of how our birth lottery played out; that's the future we need.
John Rawls "just society" thought experiment should be required of all school children in the classroom.
Excellent! I’ve just spent the week at SF Climate Week. When I start talking about some of the calls to action you outline, they seem to be far outside of the Overton Window of many people who have dedicated their careers to climate solutions. They listen, then thank me and continue to mingle about the room.
What you’re outlining is going upstream to the source of our challenges. Creating a different story of being here together on Earth.
Thanks for all you do!
Holy cow do I feel this, the dissociative response when the diagnosis goes too deep. @Dr. Renée Lertzman speaks eloquently to this. A career in climate solutions has thus far been a career of bandaids and fire extinguishers for most folks. But some of them are fed up with harm reduction (or greenwashing the reputations of plutocrats) and realizing they can’t avoid the BHAG any longer. For me, reinventing our economics is enormously exciting, the most audacious entrepreneurial ambition. A totally different incentive architecture would make our default choices regenerative by design. It would be HARD and shameful to behave like today’s oligarchs. And it would be easy, encouraged and celebrated to consistently do the right things for people and planet. There’s an element of entrepreneurship that’s deeply altruistic and not about products or services. It’s about care and restoration (sympathetic joy), making lives genuinely better, not just more consumptive and cultivating all of life as an active steward, because when all life does better, all life does better. That’s the new entrepreneurial context I want to see manifested for the next generation, no more tradeoffs and handicapping ourselves by focusing on genuine care and dare I say love.
Well said, Raman. Thank you for your work.
I’d like to recommend an addition to your list of links: socialvalueint.org, which works to expand the way society accounts for value to include effects on people’s wellbeing, and enable decisions to increase wellbeing.
It’s been great getting acquainted and I look forward to more collaboration with you in the years to come!
Thank you Sara. So glad we met. SVI looks interesting. I'll check them out.
Well written my friend and the analysis is spot on. I think you’re asking the right questions. How do we encourage more involvement in things like our mutual aid group or PBA? Good fire is at the core of a regenerative system, IMHO. Glad to work alongside you, honored to call you friend.
The feelings are mutual. And you really do roll up your sleeves and show up consistently in support of community, and the other day in support of our garden. Everything we planted incidentally got eaten, so here we are competing with the gophers again.
Insightful and wise. Thank you Raman, grateful to be in your orbit.
Thanks Rebecca, I look forward to getting to know you better and perhaps hosting you for a visit up at Camp Earnest.
Raman! Great piece; thanks for sharing.
"The findings were conclusive. About 90% of people when given a big economic boost, become less pro-social, less compassionate. But about 10% of us become MORE pro-social, more caring. Almost nobody remains unchanged." Interesting and memorable stat; off the top of my head I wouldn't have guessed the divide was so large! Would love a link to the study in case you have it handy :)
Thanks Ethan. Good to see you on the call the other day. I amended the piece here on Substack to unpack why I didn't link to this person's meta-analysis. I believe he was coming from his heart and confessing, because his life was at the epicenter of American greed as virtue culture. I've been timid for a long time to share what he said, but decided the statute of limitations on this confidentiality had expired.
Thank you for speaking up Raman. I feel your pain and that despite all the warning signs, education and more information than we know what to do with for many decades now, we appear to be unable to change our behavior, and the wealth disparity and lack of voice in the system is a big problem. It’s beyond frustrating and I did not attend SF Climate week this year due to what I feel is lack of perspective and inclusion in the conversations, such as inclusion of our future generations – hardly any events appeared to be open to teens or pre-teens or children to mention one limitation. In fact, I rarely witness or experience the type of dialogue that David Bohm calls for in his book on Dialogue and what people share seems most of the time scripted (perhaps I am too), and so many people are not part of this conversation – I miss this!!! I’ve found myself spending more time in my garden, learning about growing food, or pruning my fruit trees, and ask myself the question, how can we lead a movement to create a new dream, such as growing food forests. So, since the retreat in 2024 at Camp Earnest learning Regen Economics and feeling a powerful sense of community and voice, followed by a course with John Fullerton, I focus my energy more on designing the life that I want than thinking or expecting that it will appear or that anyone understands. Very few have the time or attention span to participate or really listen, but perhaps in a small way, larger changes happen by the way we live. I’ve been encouraged in seeing local economy trends and your work reinforces my vision: this environment and the company I keep is more powerful than just my pure will power. So more of these conversations, dinners and events are fuel for my resilience and dare I say optimism. I keep reflecting on what you said during the Regen Economics discussion in 2024, that there are 1000 ways to solve a problem. That there, gives me hope that I cannot see all the positive changes that may solve our problems and all the people who truly care. If you look at the Whole Seed Catalog of 2026 (532 pages), that diversity in what we can grow is beyond anything that I could have imagined – same thing. Our children need to know this! What possibilities! And, “Heartwood: The Wisdom of Healing Kinship of Trees” by Lindsay Branham, has uncovered yet another layer of my understanding of the world we live in that reinforces my relational and wholistic thinking – that was not part of my training or might I say got lost in the rat race, LOL. Finally, I’ve been following Geoship’s work on home design resilience. That is close to my heart due to my personal experience in seeing how chemicals in building materials in the homes we work so hard to buy and or build harms our health. I have lots to say but will leave it here for now.
Thank you for leading by example and sharing your hands on learnings Raman. The distinction between harm reduction and systems redesign is so clarifying — we’ve essentially been building increasingly sophisticated bucket brigades while the house keeps catching fire - by design.
Also, much of the intellectual architecture for your proposed R&D already exists (though silo’s). Daniel Christian Wahl has spent years mapping what regenerative cultures actually look like in practice — his work makes the case that we don’t lack vision, we lack the institutional will and capital to operationalize it at scale.
Janine Benyus and the biomimicry framework offer perhaps the most compelling argument for your point: nature has already solved 3.8 billion years worth of design problems, and yet our economic systems treat ecosystems as externalities rather than as the master engineers they are.
And Tony Cho’s work in regenerative real estate and community development shows that these aren’t just theoretical constructs — place-based economies rooted in equity and ecology can be built, right now, at the neighborhood level.
The missing piece your article identifies so well is the connective tissue: a funded, coordinated effort to synthesize these learnings, run minimum viable experiments, and scale what works.
The DARPA analogy is apt. We funded moonshots in defense and technology — why not a social and ecological moonshot that draws explicitly on what Wahl, Benyus, Cho and others have already built?
The 80/20 proposal for redirecting impact capital isn’t radical, it’s just rational. Thank you for naming it so plainly. Appreciate your voice in the world.
Thanks for these reflections Yarrow! We are both on the same team and that Third Horizon comes more clearly into view every day.
Totally agree with the call to experiment with new models of philanthropy and investing toward a different paradigm. Harm reduction matters, especially with how fast climate impacts are accelerating, but if most capital stays there, we’re mostly managing symptoms. What feels missing is real investment in imagining and actually testing what a better system could look like, work like Abundance points in that direction. We’re good at naming what’s broken, but not as good at resourcing bold, regenerative alternatives, and even a small shift there could open up very different possibilities.
And thank you for bringing together people actually doing the work, there’s so much we can learn from one another and a real opportunity to build on what already exists instead of constantly reinventing the wheel!
I think you're awake, sincere, formidably competent and beautifully positioned to work on legitimate resourced implementation pilots, including I hope some that don't just reduce harm, but get to the "generator function" that recursively produces such harm.
Just as high levels of crime strongly correlate to porous and failed social safety nets, lack of education and wages that amount to debt peonage, so our ecological crises reflect our worship of GDP and refusal to embrace a culture of having enough. Jeremy Lent calls this "Wendigo Inc.." Insatiable desire and hoarding complexes have no place in our collective future. Belonging, having all foundational needs met as a birthright, security, kindness and care, access to education and the ability to explore and manifest our potential, regardless of how our birth lottery played out; that's the future we need.
John Rawls "just society" thought experiment should be required of all school children in the classroom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice
I also highly recommend Raoul Martinez' more timely Creating Freedom.
https://creatingfreedom.info