First, and most importantly - To those who have lost loved ones, jobs, income, safety, companionship, schooling, graduations, opportunities, arts, sports, and/or peace of mind to the current world-changing pandemic, our hearts and thoughts are very much with you.
Unfortunately - Climate change hasn’t stopped, pandemic or not. So I’d like to assure you that we at Ice911 are hard at work to grow our team and our impact, in order to accelerate our progress as rapidly as possible without infecting others, each other, or ourselves. Fortunately for our work, your donations are still coming in (thank you!), and are especially appreciated in the challenging times we find ourselves in now. Your ever-growing support allows us to continue and in many ways to accelerate our work to save the climate and the future. It’s very challenging to work under these current conditions - but no one has ever claimed that what we do here at Ice911 is easy, anyway.
Action at a Distance is my new operating principle. We’re rapidly undertaking and accelerating what work we can do from our home bases, as well as building all the collaborations we can, at a safe distance. Letting everyone stay close to their own homes, so as not to risk spreading the pandemic any further. So far - so good - is another useful principle. Our own internal meetings are via phone or Zoom now, and there are many of them, while we adopt new ways to reach out to work together.
And, we’re increasingly reaching out to collaborate at a distance with people who live in the locations where ice restoration, including safety testing, field testing, and modeling, can be studied. This means more collaboration across state and national boundaries, including increased co-development with the indigenous people who live in the Arctic regions that are of utmost importance in our ice restoration work.
In this global reset, I’m finding some unexpected blessings as well. For example:
1. We just may develop new ways to work that will be better now AND in the longer-term for the planet’s ecosystems, reducing the unwanted impacts of quite so much travel to quite so many places.
2. On a purely personal note, I’m much less exhausted than I’ve been for a very long time. I’m still working very hard, but I’ve had a chance to catch my breath, instead of catching that next plane, and the one after that.
I’m also considering the pandemic from the lens of a long-term vs short-term happiness question -- something I’ve been thinking about for a while with respect to climate change. In the same light as we explore the complexities of climate change’s impact on our planet, social distancing in these uncertain times is keeping the ecosystems a bit healthier for our own and future generations’ well-being, vs the shorter-term gains of exploiting fossil fuels and ignoring the risks and realities of climate change.
If you’re technical, you know that gravitational and electromagnetic fields work through action at a distance. As our team works through how to get our important work done in these challenging times of sheltering in place so as not to spread the risk of infection, I’ve realized that this field, this Leslie Field, and our team, can work by using action at a distance as well.
Stay safe, stay well, and I hope that you can enjoy any unexpected blessings and perspectives that may come your way from the current situation.
- Dr. Leslie Field, Founder and CTO