Peter Walks for Democracy

In the coming weeks and months, Peter Walks for Democracy will have an intentional focus. From this post through December 31, 2025, I will focus my efforts on creating a just and convivial world of mindful ecological citizens. I’ll share stories of my own and invite others to contribute. Through those stories, I will show how solidarity and conviviality matter. Along the way, we will dive into concepts, find places and people to love, and walk through the interconnected risks of confronting and coping with climate change in a flailing democracy. We will be neither pessimistic nor optimistic. We will show up with love for the world.

The exploration will unearth principles, personal and collective practices, and policies. Our quest for understanding and our intentions should seek to free us from undue suffering and foster individual freedom realized in ecological interdependence. We should speak truthfully, act justly especially in the face of great odds, and live rightly. These things will require mindfulness and concentration. If you see the Eightfold Path in this list, you are correct. Principles are no good if they are not put into actions, so I’ll dig into what actions matter for individual people, congregations, sanghas, and community and national organizations that help people find purpose. 

I will dig into the world of policy. As readers already know, I have held elected and appointed offices where I have drafted policies, co-created programs, and instigated and driven projects. These include net zero resolutions, stormwater ordinances, solar zoning, writing a Sustainability Planner job description, writing Owner Project Requirements, as playing a part facilities master plans, capital improvement plans, climate action and adaptation plans, and the million other things school boards and municipal officials learn, deliberate, and decide about. I’ve also served on numerous non-profit and professional organization boards from right here in central PA to national organizations.

Over the last 15 years, I have been teaching in the world of sustainability leadership. I’ve designed classes and taught courses including Philosophy of Education, The Sound of the Anthropocene, Sustainability in American Education, Energy Entrepreneurship, and Foundations of Leadership in Sustainability. My day job at Penn State develops the climate workforce through applied education and internships and builds technical capacity in Pennsylvania’s township, borough, city, county, and state government. This last bit will probably be the wonkiest by getting into science, renewable energy markets, climate planning, policy windows, and who knows what else.

An important feature will be a trope called Climate Change Is. I’ve found myself starting sentences with “Climate change is” and following it with:

…a hyperthreat,
…affecting almost everything you care about,
…not just the weather,
…driving migration,
…tattooed on my arms,
…an object on the horizon,
…always happening and has never happened,

…and so much more.

Why am I doing this now? I am called to. 

Yesterday, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) 29^th Conference of Parties (COP 29) wrapped up in Baku, Azerbaijan. Quite a few of my colleagues from Penn State, some NGOs, and my intern were there. It came at an auspicious time for our world. 2024 is slated to be the hottest year on record because humans have dialed up the temperature and created a more violent climate. Tropical and bomb cyclones, wildfires, droughts, and heatwaves have devastated human and land-based ecosystems across the world while rising water temperatures stress and killed countless creatures in our oceans. Geopolitics is in chaos from wars and the confluence of inflation, bad-faith corporate, nationalistic, and reactionary actors, and artificial intelligence influence and distort media, social media, and politics. 

Meanwhile, the ability and will to act on climate change, the potential for people to create regenerative infrastructure, and the heartfelt aspiration of billions to be free has never been higher. We have the intelligence and interest to finance, deploy, and maintain highly efficient buildings, zero-carbon solar and wind energy, smart grids and buildings, and create connected and resilient rural and urban centers. Through smart and coordinated planning with private and public partners across all sectors that use land and protect it, we can be in right relationship with the living Earth that keeps us alive. As citizens of the world’s oldest democracy, we know in our hearts the good that comes from equally involving people in the decisions that affect their lives and doing our best to treat each person fairly so that all people can thrive.

Our wisdom traditions and practices provide us with the tools to do right. The Talmud says, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now.” But what does it take to do that? I have imperfect answers that are far healthier than most.

Finally, as a person in recovery, I want to feed my strengths. Over the last few months, events in my life and the life of my community have been upsetting. I don’t know what I will share from all of that. Some part of this is coping and therapy.

May I be wise as the mountain,
accepting as the lake,
changing as the river,
and open as the sky.

Here’s my pledge. I will write at least once a week but aspire to write more. I will be open and honest, learn deeply, and be willing to change my perspective. I will value the journey and its path. Because writing is a craft, I will do my best to write clearly and use vivid examples. If people enjoy these pages, that will be a gift. I suspect that a goal—a particular output like a book—will emerge but I don’t know what it is yet. The process will reveal it.