Gil Friend’s Blog

COP27 There's lots being written and spoken about the very mixed bag that was COP27. On one hand, the "loss and damage" agreement, pledging to provide funding to climate-vulnerable countries. On the other hand, weasel words about fossil fuels, and apparent abandonment...

REFLECTIONS The “panic now, it’s all melting down” tribe and “lol nothing’s happening, chill” tribes are in a mutual gaslighting equilibrium. Me, I’m above these simplistic either/or things, I’m in a complex superposition of chilling and panicking. — Venkatesh Rao...

"WE ARE EARTHLINGS, NOT HUMANS" We lost an intellectual, creative, and moral giant this week, when Bruno Latour, philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist, died at 75. He was author of We Have Never Been Modern (which I have not yet read), Down to Earth: Politics in...

Please join me at noon (PDT) tomorrow (Wednesday, September 21) for our monthly exploration (our 22nd!) of the challenges of "Living Between Worlds—with grace, dignity, and power." Register here. (And before joining, be sure you've updated your Zoom client. Here's...

THE ESG BATTLE RAGES ON I've written before about the fierce debates over ESG from within the community. But it's pretty fierce outside too. Florida governor Ron DeSantis (whom the despicable Alex Jones calls "better than Trump") and his state Board of Administration...

One of the things most on my mind this week is the climate bill that just passed the Congress (in a week full of legislative accomplishments emerging from the deadlock)—officially the Inflation Reduction Act, with elements addressing health care and taxes as well, but...

50 YEARS AGO THIS MONTH… …my life pivoted in profound and powerful ways. While most of my friends ran off to the Rockies for the first Rainbow Family Gathering (a sort of proto-BurningMan!), I ensconced myself in the libraries and campus of Southern Illinois...

DEMOCRACY Winston Churchill's painfully accurate observation that "democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried" comes to mind often these days. It's not just that I am engrossed in the brilliant Danish political...

CHANGE IS HARD In our 18th monthly session of "Living Between Worlds…with Grace, Dignity, and Power," we explored the mystery of change. A Natural Logic client—CSO of a "sustainability leader" that hired us to help "reset" their already impressive strategy—reported...