Relating The Environmental Crisis To Leading Community

Al Gore, former U.S. Vice President, Nobel Peace Prize winner and spokesperson/narrator for An Inconvenient Truth…as a prominent leader, he has commanded the attention of the global community about the environmental crisis we all face.

Never before has one single issue become the vested focus of the entire world.

Al Gore is speaking out again now. His message continues to be on the global environmental crisis, which in and of itself is really about bringing our global community together to solve our common challenges (since, as he points out, we already have the technology to do it). In addition, his message also contains several fascinating implications about leadership in community including, but also beyond, the environmental crisis.

The following video was recorded in March, 2008 (hot off the press !) and is 27:54 in length. Listen to the inspiring message Mr. Gore delivers…

I found the following comments of Mr. Gore fascinating as it impacts community and leadership:

• Solving the environmental crisis is not just about changing our behaviour to be more environmentally friendly (e.g., changing the types of light bulbs we use, etc.). While obviously important, we are also facing a democratic crisis, and we must change our citizenship and democratic behaviour.
  
  I agree, and to me, this is so pertinent to becoming more active in our communities. This means turning our generally passive roles in community to more active ones again…bringing the unique gifts that we each have and creatively delivering them to the various levels of community that we each belong to. This of course includes becoming more active in leadering our communities; role-modelling for others how to effectively contribute to community AND enrolling them to do so as well;
• Mr. Gore makes the point that we need to integrate the solutions to the environmental crisis into the solutions for other problems. It does not ultimately serve us if we solve a problem in one silo, only to transfer it or create a new problem in another silo. Our consciousness needs to be raised to a higher level, where we look at solving the environmental crisis and other challenges more holistically through community. It’s easy to become overwhelmed at the global level. Look locally first for solutions where the scale of the problem will likely feel more manageable and where your efforts will be more tangible.
  
  A few weeks ago, my six-year-old daughter and I spent a couple of hours together cleaning up litter on a public pathway that actually isn’t particularly close to where we live, but which was badly littered. Admittedly, picking up litter is a very small piece of the environmental crisis, and yet, what if we ALL tackled small pieces of the problem? Would it help solve the bigger challenge? Yes! And in addition, and perhaps even more importantly, was it a great opportunity to connect with my daughter in a new way…yes! Was I able to raise her awareness about the difference that she can (and needs to) make in her community and our planet…you bet! A small example to be sure, but an example nonetheless of what Mr. Gore is pointing to I think in terms of addressing mutliple objectives in tandem.
• He talks towards the end of the presentation about how we need

  “I think we ought to approach this challenge with a sense of profound joy and gratitude that we are the generation, about which a thousand years from now, philharmonic orchestras and poets and singers will celebrate by saying “They were the ones that found it within themselves to solve this crisis and lay the basis for a bright and optimistic future!”" ~ Al Gore

  another hero generation, like the generations that brought democracy to the world, ended slavery and gave women the right to vote (in the U.S. context in particular). He suggests that we need to reframe the common mindset that it is such a burden to have to face solving a problem of such huge magnitude [the environmental crisis]. He asks “How many generations in all of human history have had the opportunity to rise to a challenge that is worthy of our best efforts? A challenge that can pull from us more than we knew we could do?“. What a visionary and energizing perspective!
  
  And I would like to suggest the same perspective should be applied to re-engaging our connectedness to each other…re-discovering how we can find joy and solutions by being in healthy community and shedding our all-too-pervasive self-focus which comes at the expense of those in need around us.

Profound stuff to ponder.

Consider your own behaviour patterns as it relates to being in community:

• How could you make space for welcoming greater community into your own life?
• When trying to find solutions to a community challenge, is there a way that you could solve it while, at the same time, improving the environment in some way?
• When trying to find solutions to the environmental challenge, how could you go about doing it in a life-affirming, community-building way?

Tell us below about any a-ha’s this may raise for you, or other insights in general that you have!

Technorati Tags: behaviour, citizenship, community, connectedness, connection, consciousness, democracy, environment, leader