The Environmental Resilience Institute helps midwestern communities understand and prepare for environmental change. There’s something powerful about understanding how a global trend impacts your local community. For example, it’s one thing to hear about world hunger. It’s another to hear about hunger in your state. But there’s a different feeling when you realize that there’s a hungry kid in your neighborhood. As Tip O’Neill said, “All politics is local.” It’s the same thing with climate change. You’ve probably heard about the global climate crisis. And, when your state is mentioned, you might pay attention. But, when you notice the impact on the health and wellbeing of your local community, well,…

If you could invent a post-pandemic world, what world would you create? I hear people talking about the desire to return to “normal.” However, normal was unsustainable. Before the pandemic, there was another crisis, an environmental crisis. A crisis in our food systems, our energy systems, our clean water systems, and our unequal economic systems. Coronavirus did not break our systems. It revealed how broken our systems already are. There is a saying, “Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” That is why, when faced with intractable problems like COVID-19 or the climate crisis, I like to talk to thought leaders. On the other…