Sixteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Environmental sustainability will not be reached unless more college bound people find their talents at educational institutions that improve critical, innovative problem solving in the real world. Most of us already know the solutions to environmental sustainably – renewable energy, reduced carbon footprints, stopping the loss of biodiversity, to name just a few – but what is missing sometimes is a roadmap to get there, especially for young people just entering college. When I was educated (in the prior century) in natural resource management and biology, courses rarely touched on conflict and reality much less real problem solving skills such as negotiation, facilitation, project management, or litigation. These skills, if ever acquired by graduates back then (and now), often came later in life after a bruised learning curve. This roadmap starts with a new way of teaching that emphasizes finding your talents and recognizing that text books don’t always have the answers. I speak to three life chapters of my own (sometimes humorous) in the western U.S., the arctic, and South America that touch on; (A) dealing with reality – not what you think it is, (B) recognizing setbacks as normal not necessarily failure, and (C) taking calculated risks however uncomfortable they may be. Most importantly, I argue that meaningful change does not occur without a philosophical cornerstone that often makes a person an outlier at the beginning of a process. In the end, it is about being “a unicorn in a world of donkeys.”