March 16, 2024

by Dr. Plastic Picker

Good Saturday morning dear blog readers!!! I know I’ve neglected the blog readership quite a bit. I promise I’ve mostly been working (doing clinical care because I’m still a full time physician) and trying to address the climate crisis. I have to email a lot these days and actually text and Instagram message quite a bit these days, just to pull the disparate parts of our society together to collaborate on projects. I’ve ridden the waves of emotions from elation to annoyance to exhaustion, and thank you to those who actually know me for hearing me chatter on and on about climate and mostly chatter on about my teen daughter.

I think about leadership a lot. I sometimes wonder why I am in the place and space I am in. I get exhausted sometimes, but mostly I know I am at the right place and where I need to be. I think about the future still, even though I try to be present in most moments. I have written this before, but I will remind myself. The greatest gift climate work has given me, is that is has blessedly slowed down time. In the almost two years since I left middle management, I have been living in a slower time sequence. I have been able to enjoy my daughter being 15.

I’m sitting next to her right now. She’s in a virtual meeting with like-minded girls from Bangladesh and Central Asia, and doing an “Impact Challenge” as part of the Harvard Youth Leadership Summit. It was a virtual conference that I think was competitive that is run by the Harvard College Program for Asia and International Relations (HPAIR). It’s really interesting sitting next to her and watching how these four girls work together. They are so collaborative! Animated! Shared space! Inspiring! This definitely gives me hope and gives me goals on how to better work in groups as well.

Leadership. What does it mean? It mostly means showing up. I was reminding my daughter that the time you invest/spend on something is important. Showing up and committed to something. She was so committed to this conference. She was worried about being late for it virtually yesterday. She was eager to get up this morning to meet with her group. This is a completely optional conference, and I’m so grateful that it ended up being a useful activity for her. She’s learning. She’s connecting.

And this weekend? I’ll continue to lead and learn alongside her. Lots of climate projects in the works. We have the vegetable sticker project which is mostly on indigenous food systems and we have an invested new premedical student. SB1137 kick off and rally is next weekend, and I need to be ready to speak and advertise to our group. Still organizing PHAC OC/LA and recruiting new members for our council. H3SD 2024 planning is going really well. There was some internal change over of some positions, so I need to email a new person and cc an old person to make sure we have funding. In the end, our family can fund it but it’s a big chunk of change and we funded a bit portion last year (which we were happy to do since it needed to be done!). So lots of wonderful things this weekend, and meaningful projects.

I’m honestly mostly happy our teen is home. She was on a school trip to Argentina. I didn’t want to post too much about it because of the carbon emissions, but she went and it was the truth and it was worth it for our family. We try not to fly too much. We are driving up to her state speech tournament which is Fresno. And our son will be home next weekend and I’m going to give him a big hug.

Thank you for letting me type nonsense and detail my thoughts, as I try to be part of this existential fight to address decarbonization and global heating. Hope everyone has a sustainable weekend.