Tools for Transitions: Navigating the Paradoxes, Polarities and Paradigms in Climate Coaching

Tools for Transitions

Navigating the Paradoxes, Polarities and Paradigms in Climate Coaching

The Climate Coaching Alliance Global Festival starts this Thursday with a KEYNOTE Festival (8 speakers from 3/2 to 3/5) followed by a FRINGE Festival (with over 50 presentations from the Climate Coaching Alliance community from 3/06 to 3/31).

I would like to invite you to join me and the Climate Coaching Alliance community for this one-of-a-kind free festival of coaching. I am not presenting this year - I did last year.

There is a plethora of interesting presentations on the themes that are close to my heart: indigenous wisdom, nature practices, poetry, climate feminism, regenerative leadership, and many more.

The intention for this festival is to build coaches’ confidence and competence, knowledge, capacity, mobilisation and empowerment for climate coaching and action through:

• Giving knowledge for guidance, best practice, inspiration, information, awareness and engagement

• Empowering/developing coaches through, skills, tools support, engagement, eco cycle

• Providing space for community and collaboration, partnerships, exploration and reflective conversations

I hope to see you there. All details on the Climate Coaching Alliance website.

My Electrification Project

With the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passing the senate this past week-end, there will be many opportunities and new incentives for us to electrify our homes. In this newsletter, I want to share my experience of installing a heat pump to replace an aging, -actually ancient, central furnace. Even though this is a departure from my usual writing about life and climate coaching, I am hoping that you will find it of use and interest.

About a year ago, I embarked in this project of replacing our 1950s natural gas guzzling heater that was at best 60% efficient, extremely noisy and expensive to run, just to keep the house barely warm. This was an item on my personal climate punch list to reduce my personal carbon footprint (read more about climate actions and climate punch lists in my blog post of January 2022).

Living in San Francisco Bay Area (California), I started my journey with a call to the Bay Area Regional Energy Network (BayREN). BayREN is a coalition of the Bay Area’s nine counties — a network of local governments partnering to promote resource efficiency at the regional level, focusing on energy, water and greenhouse gas reduction. I had heard about the coalition on climate podcast and collective My Climate Journey. On BayREN’s website I found extensive resources on how to be more energy savvy, and I got in touch with an energy advisor who guided me on my options for replacing our furnace. BayREN also provides a list of participating energy professionals who know about the rebates. I selected three contractors in my county from that list to start scoping the project.

Retrofitting an older house with a new, more energy efficient HVAC system is not as simple as it may seem. There are many options to review and consider to size the system properly: one system or multi mini-split systems, heating only or heating and cooling, whole house fan or A/C, etc... And once you think you have selected what you want at a cost you can afford, you may be faced with the need to remove asbestos, upgrade your electric panel and either insulate or replace ductwork. Some of these upgrades are rebate eligible, some are not.

I was lucky in selecting an amazing contractor (whose name I am happy to share if you email me): the work was flawlessly completed in two weeks, last May. Working with BayREN and this contractor was instrumental in getting an all-electrical system that now heats and cools the house silently and efficiently, and which renders the house so much more comfortable. But it took 10 months from start to finish, and was expensive despite the rebates.

With the Inflation Reduction Act, it’s likely that more incentives in the form of rebates will be available. I am hopeful that as a result, more of us will take advantage of these to electrify our homes whether for a cooktop, a water heater or central heating. All these efforts will collectively reduce our green house gas emissions which is critical on this warming planet. In my house, we are still using natural gas for heating water and for cooking: electrifying these will be top of list for my next climate actions list. In the mean time, by replacing our central heating system with a heat pump, we are not only reducing our fossil fuel consumption, but we are also gaining the extra comfort of having a cooling system which may prove necessary as the planet continues to heat up. I am looking forward to comparing our year-to-year energy costs in May 2023.

Whether or not you live in San Francisco Bay Area, my recommendation is to look for organizations like BayREN that can guide you in your electrification project. You also need to make sure your electricity is clean. Ours is provided by Peninsula Clean Energy, (a Community Choice Aggregator (CCA) and the official electricity provider for San Mateo County) who is on an agressive path to provide 100% renewable energy 24/7 by 2025. (Read how they plan to do that in this fascinating whitepaper).

If you want to know more about my journey to electrification or if you would like to share yours, please email me.

Every Job Is a Climate Job

To change everything, we need everyone.
~Ayana Elizabeth Johnson & Katherine K. Wilkinson (All We Can Save)

After seeing the powerful engagement generated and the actions that resulted from my 10-week All We Can Save-Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis book circle (Jan-April 2021) and following the lead of All We Can Save project and Drawdown labs who have partnered to expand the AWCS circles to the workplace, I am happy to announce that I am offering my coaching services (probono or by donations) to support YOU in leading such a circle in the workplace. If you are wanting to take climate conversations to your workplace and need support to do so, click the button below to get started.

from All We Can Save project

Climate Action Lists from the book Regeneration by Paul Hawken

The following text is extracted from the book by Paul Hawken titled Regeneration- Ending the Climate Crisis in one Generation- p 249

1. CLIMATE CHECK LIST

Where to Start

A climate checklist is informed by straightforward principles. They help you guide your endeavors, from farms to finance, cities to clothing, groceries to grasslands, and are applicable to every level of activity: people, homes, groups, companies, communities, cities -and countries too. The guidelines are yes or no questions. Every action either moves toward a desired outcome or heads away from it. The number one guideline is the fundamental principle of regeneration. The remaining are outcomes of that principle.

1. Does the action create more life or reduce it?

2. Does it heal the future or steal the future?

3. Does it enhance human well-being or diminish it?

4. Does it prevent disease or profit from it?

5. Does it create livelihoods or eliminate them?

6. Does it restore land or degrade it?

7. Does it increase global warming or decrease it?

8. Does it serve human needs or manufacture human wants?

9. Does it reduce poverty or expand it?

10. Does it promote fundamental human rights or deny them?

11. Does it provide workers with dignity or demean them?

12. In short, is the activity regenerative or extractive?

How you apply, score, or evaluate these principles is up to you. Most of what we do does not tick all the boxes. However, like a compass, it shows us the direction and where to go. By employing these guidelines, you pivot and begin, action by action, bit by bit, step by step to create regeneration in one’s life. What am I eating? Why? How am I feeling? What is happening in my community? What am I wearing? What am I buying? What am I making? Etc.

2. CLIMATE PUNCH LIST

A punch list is a personal, group, or institutional checklist. Because of the differences among people, cultures, incomes, and knowledge, there is no one common or correct checklist. The top “ten” solutions to reverse global warming are an abstraction. The true top solutions are what you can, want, and will do. The value of a punch list is that when you commit to something, things can happen. A punch list can be for an individual, family, community, company, or city. It is the list of actions you or your group will undertake and accomplish over a predetermined span of time -one month, one year, five years, or more. You can make different lists for different time periods -this week and this year, for example. If you go to www.regeneration.org/punchlist you will find a kit, a worksheet, and more sample punch lists.

A sample punch list from an individual:

1. Phase out single use plastics by use case, starting with food and beverage purchases outside the home and moving on to kitchen, bathroom, and lifestyle goods

2. Purchase renewable energy credits for the energy use in my apartment.

3. Set a clothing budget for the year of no more than ten new garments, at least 8 of which from vintage stores or smaller sustainable brands.

4. Engage with a citizen’s climate action group, such as the Citizen’s Climate Lobby, to pressure my state and federal representatives to support climate policy and set ambitious emissions reduction targets.

5. Support First Nations landback movements with recurring donations or by paying a land tax to the nations whose traditional lands I inhabit.

6. Engage with my city council and other community groups to advocate for urban green space as well as the protection of open space preserves and local wildlife sanctuaries and/or corridors.

7. Start or join a monthly climate and environmental justice reading group with friends and family to keep us all learning and in discussion about ways to joyfully hold one another accountable to Just Transition efforts.

If you need help creating your punch list, contact me. I’ll be glad to help.