"That Will Never Work"
A story not about "Earth Day"
Several years ago, I was attending a big-deal tech conference for a project I was working on.
At one point, I found myself engaged with a self-important, much older gentleman who someone introduced me to as a “sustainability expert.”
After we exchanged the usual pleasantries, he asked me what I did.
I explained to him my business model of a local food buying club that I had founded from nothing and grown exponentially to serve dozens of farms, thousands of families, and to a brag-worthy revenue level.
“That will never work,” he blurted out before I’d even finished telling him about the business.
I looked at him a moment, and then clarified, “But it is working. This is my model that I’ve used for years and replicated it.”
He insisted, “No, that will never work,” and began telling me why it wouldn’t work and how I should follow his advice and do what he suggested.
I silently thought about Inigo’s famous phrase in The Princess Bride “I do not think that word means what you think it means” when Vizzini kept saying “inconceivable” to things that were clearly happening.
My “conversation” with the gentleman didn’t last much longer, as I politely excused myself from his enlightened instruction.
I wondered how this guy who wouldn’t even listen to me could be so confident that I was wrong and he was right.
To this day, I don’t know what he meant by “That will never work.”
Did he mean that he thought it could never scale to a publicly traded company? (Not my goal.)
Or that it couldn’t employ a Walmart-sized army of mistreated, underpaid workers? (Also not my goal.)
Or that he didn’t see how it was environmentally sustainable? (Well, if he would’ve listened…)
I’ll never know what he meant.
But that brings me to Earth Day™️
Our culture has one targeted day each year to celebrate the earth and all it does for us.
Is it just me, or does it seem like Earth Day™️ now has its own branding?
Sure, go outside and plant a tree. Pick up a few plastic bags off a beach. Get old tires out of the river.
But don’t these corporately-branded photo ops pale in comparison to the escalating ecosystem destruction we are witnessing?
The use of cherished lands and waterways to host horribly polluting mines.
The continued syphoning of water from land (especially food-producing farms) that needs the water to high-population desert areas and their ostentatious displays of wealth and waste. (I’m definitely not talking about Vegas. ) 🙄
The seizure of farmland to build water-guzzling data centers, solar “farms,” and the electrical infrastructure to run them.
Overfishing, deforestation, and land “development” are a few more of the ongoing assaults on our earth while investors and policy-makers dismiss sincere and working solutions with flippant claims of “that will never work.”
So here we find ourselves, once again celebrating another Earth Day™️ and every time I see a business, brand, influencer, journalist, or corporate goon using this to their advantage, I once again go back to thinking “I do not think that word phrase means what you think it means.”
But where does that leave you and me?
All I can say to that is that we’ve got to keep going. We’ve got to keep doing the small things that matter, that make a difference 365 days a year. Ignore the branding and the cameras and the greenwashed glam. Pick up your own shovels and gloves—or your tools of choice—and do what works.
Then do it again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.
It’s our earth. Every day.
Eat for health, know your neighbor, and grow small farms.