Looking to the Future

"Ride your horse along the edge of a sword; hide yourself in the middle of flames...." Zen saying

Its black friday. The day after thanksgiving. I am in the city. Snowstorm yesterday went thru the night and stopped late this afternoon clearing you could see the moon over the mountains clear in midtown than downtown at townsquare gauzy white clouds people drinking cups of cocoa and children singing carols at the tree lighting ceremony in the damp cool air with everyone gathered in winter jackets and the lights draped over the trees bright in the night.

I don't have the patience to be cliche and write a list of things that I am thankful for. We all need to find flow. The hardest thing in the world to do is to be yourself. I don't believe in painting a picture on here that is not real or authentic. At this moment the world seems beautiful and broken, natural and fake...

Climate activists all over the world have been clamoring for an international pact at Copenhagen to reduce CO2 emissions. Obama will attend on his way to receive the Nobel Prize in Oslo, Norway. U.S. Leadership is lauded as the missing link...

Our day to day lives are far away from all that here in Alaska, our sense of interconnectedness is frayed if not severed. Sure the interrelated issues of Energy, Climate, Food Security hit us hard here (Weak Levels of King Salmon Hurt Alaska Fisherman)... but mainstream people are slow to accept the connections between implementing practical local solutions and a treaty in Copenhagen. I remember all my 350 presentations and I look at the 'leaders' of the climate movement and I am disenchanted. Local non profits are not trying hard enough to improve and collaborate, the state is run largely by politicians not public servants... both are bogged down with bureaucracy and are failing to reach people in need. The system needs to be reinvented on so many levels, from capitalism to healthcare to education to energy to sustainable development. I can do better myself and need to work harder at building a team to achieve our evolving set of goals. We need young and inspired people to set themselves on fire and rekindle grassroots hope in their communities. Communities need to look for and embrace people who come bringing solutions, people with energy and vision.

After my trips down the Yukon the past two falls I had a missionary-like believer sensation of floating, detached but wholly present... Time spent alone will give you that unreasonable confidence, that clarity of mind. In this work you have to believe that there will be a way thru the closed door to the dream. You have to believe that you will find a way to intuitively connect with your vision. Its about spirit.

I learn more every day and honestly am becoming more and more confident in the potential to overcome lots of these challenges in Alaska. I still think my potential lies in not what I am going to accomplish as a person but in my ability to inspire and unlock talent in other people (Paraphrased from a quote from Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Subject of political documentary Street Fight which Filmmaker Marshall Curry just donated to our Yukon River Media Project). I haven't realized the potential of reaching out thru film yet myself, have done lots of amateurish editing with imovie re footage from canoe trips the last two falls... but have not released anything yet (remember I am learning as I go...). I know I can do better on this, I also know I can do much better in terms of using these "climate expeditions" to catalyze our projects. I have plans for a spring adventure that will conclude in Juneau during the Alaska Legislature session... more details soon.

I see the Last Frontier Eco Alliance potentially evolving into an Incubator for local Social Entrepreneurship projects with regional co-working spaces in Alaska that naturally attract local visionaries and provide them with support and mentorship expertise, exposure/ connections, crowd sourced funds, and other shared assets etc. On one level this will enable me to stop trying to do everything myself... but instead to create a healthy space for innovative solutions to be birthed and implemented, a place for teams to be built and for idealistic inspiration to find its foundation in business skills and partnerships (Contact if Interested in Investing becoming involved). I am becoming more and more interested in the potential of exploring the intersection between developing web technologies and social change in the Arctic, have been fascinated w/ potential of innovative startups like Vittana (which brings microfinance principles to education) and Enzi Futures which helps eliminate the financial barrier to education through people to people social investing.

One definite part of the immediate strategic plan (There is a lot more going on than this, will update details later) is to launch a pilot Youth Film Making Program in four remote villages along the Yukon River fall 2010 around September 11th. I am looking for four sets of photo/media/film professionals to collaborate with me on this. The idea of working with pairs of people is better on all accounts. The truth is some of the larger communities like Galena or Fort Yukon already offer some sort of basic film class. This is a phenomenal opportunity that will be an awesome service and cultural experience, truly expand the mind and body-of-work for those that choose to rise to the challenge. Think of a meaningful getaway vacation for 1-2 weeks to the last wild place in the world... Contact me if interested A top-shelf resume item, and an experience that you will remember your whole life...

In addition I will distribute copies of the films donated to all communities as planned. We can build from this start. I want to raise funds or find four generous people/ organizations to sponsor us with four digital video camera donations so the cameras will stay in the schools for youth to use during the school year after the project(and have web presence for youth to post work). On an individual level I am still learning to navigate funding structures for all of this. I have met some true heroes working in the schools in the villages as principals and teachers, and I am excited to connect them with other bright and talented social change agents for this project. I believe it will catalyze grassroots education transformation, heal lives, restore balance to communities, fight the inequality and erosion of opportunity that is occurring in some of these wilderness outposts (NYT Alaska's Rural Schools Fight Off Extinction http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/us/26alaska.html)

The Anchorage International Film Festival begins in a few weeks. I attended it for the first time last year and Anchorage art and culture truly shined. There are good opportunities here to make connections for the Yukon River Media Project. In one year the project is a world more mature and focused and I will be doing my best to inspire some new partnerships.

A friend is working hard to organize a local 'carrotmob' campaign the begining of 2010 and I completely support her vision, and we hope to link this work with efforts around a green employer council which will be connecting local youth from established empowerment programs with 90 day Paid-On-The-Job-Internships at local socially responsible/ green businesses for the summer of 2010 tourist season.

Alaska recieved funds for Green Job Training recently: Cook Inlet Tribal Council will receive more than $67,000 and the state employment agency will get $800,000 ... if you followed our blog you will remember Gloria O'Neil CITC President was one of the main speakers at our Green Jobs Forum last spring... she is a dynamic leader and I am glad to see CITC follow thru on this. I am less optimistic about the states handling of federal funds from the Recovery Act.

The Somalian-Canadian Rapper K'naan posted on his twitter stream today "happy belated native land robbery day." There is truth there... A very controversial case with regard to Point Hope, Alaska Caribou Hunters has been storming across headlines for months, was a topic at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention this fall. Please take the time to watch this moving spoken word presentation (http://aitc.org/?q=node/215) by one of the relatives of the accused. Regardless of how it plays out it brings forward many important questions about education, opportunity and justice in Alaska... questions that deserve further exploration in the context of how we will consciously choose to develop our future.