Things are going poorly for you? That’s too bad, because I’m having a grand ol’ time.
Welcome to Climate Workers Anonymous, where those who work in climate are able to share the feelings and experiences they want to share but aren’t sure they want attached to their name.
They might want that anonymity because they’ve got some biting satirical take their corporate employer would frown upon. Maybe it’s someone trying to scale their company’s impact but is dubious that all of the levels of governance in carbon dioxide removal do as much good as is claimed. Or maybe they want anonymity because their company is doing well when many of their peers are not. That can be its own form of loneliness.
As I was recording this and trying to describe this feeling, I got stuck onto “the ghost at the feast” that people associate so strongly with Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
MACBETH I do forget. Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends, I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing To those that know me. Come, love and health to all; Then I'll sit down. Give me some wine; fill full. I drink to the general joy o' the whole table, And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss; Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst, And all to all. LORDS Our duties, and the pledge. [Re-enter GHOST OF BANQUO] MACBETH Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which thou dost glare with! LADY MACBETH Think of this, good peers, But as a thing of custom: 'tis no other; Only it spoils the pleasure of the time. MACBETH What man dare, I dare: Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, 100 The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger; Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves Shall never tremble: or be alive again, And dare me to the desert with thy sword; If trembling I inhabit then, protest me The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow! Unreal mockery, hence! [GHOST OF BANQUO vanishes] Why, so: being gone, I am a man again. Pray you, sit still. LADY MACBETH You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting, With most admired disorder.
But that’s not quite right. In the play, Banquo’s ghost shows up, Macbeth is the only character who can see him, and it causes Macbeth to act very erratically, ruining the feast for the guests and especially Lady Macbeth.
For this submission, it’s more like the submitter is a vigorous person who somehow wandered into a “meal” for ghosts. The submitter’s contentment, health, and ability to sate their hunger can’t help but cause the ghosts envy and grief by merely existing in their presence.
This type of inequality—even if earned entirely through meritocratic means (though it’s for me to know where such a thing could exist in the world such as it is)—can make us uncomfortable. As I read the submission, the submitter is proud of their strategy and ability to execute and good read of macro conditions and wants to promenade their success without necessarily wishing any else will or a lack of success.
I do wonder in a case like this, if it would be less satisfying to the submitter if everyone received the same success. Would it diminish their value or their foresight? How much of our desire to work is driven by a need to distinguish ourselves as individuals, and to feel our status grow in the eyes of ourselves and others?
Who can say what is in the submitter’s heart, when even our own can be so mysterious? But if we take them at face value, it’s also an encouragement to fight yourself back to health. Don’t give up. It’s not too late. Get back in the game and catch up to your peer so you can celebrate alongside.
Submissions
N.B. The submissions in Climate Workers Anonymous are anonymous and unverified.
We’re actually fine. Times are tough, no doubt, but we keep growing from a large base, and have some really exciting milestones ahead of us. In some ways, I wish I saw more fighting spirit from our industry. Some large incumbents aren’t getting the funding to take them to the scale they expected, but somehow they’ve decided to just do nothing instead. Complete silence, at least in public, which also makes the bad buyer & investor sentiment a self-fulfilling prophecy to some extent. Surely it’d be better to at least keep building & learning publicly at a smaller scale like we used to? Meanwhile, we feel vindicated in the strategic choices we made that allow us to keep scaling, but it feels like there’s nobody to celebrate with if the whole industry is hurting.
I enjoy these short and sweet episodes. I’d welcome your thoughts. Please like and share this post out if you enjoyed it, and and subscribe if you aren’t already. Below is the info to submit your tales, feelings, thoughts to Climate Workers Anonymous for publication on the podcast and in written form as in this edition.
Thanks so much for your support.
Sincerely,
Ross Kenyon
Curator of Climate Workers Anonymous
Thank you for listening to and reading Climate Workers Anonymous. Subscribe to Substack below, and be sure to subscribe in whichever podcast app you use. An amazing rating and review on those podcast apps does a world of good. Would you please do that for me now? Here’s Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
If you’d like submit your anonymous hopes, fears, or experiences to Climate Workers Anonymous, you can use this Tally survey or email climateworkersanonymous[at]protonmail.com, though I believe the Tally survey is more secure. Do not communicate anything you wouldn’t want a hacker to have access to, including an email address that could be linked to you if you email the account on Protonmail.
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hello, this is Ross Kenyon. I’m the curator of Climate Workers Anonymous. I’ve been working in climate for about a decade. Seen a lot, been through a lot. You may already know a lot, especially if you’ve listened to the other show that I make called Reversing Climate Change. A lot of lessons about life and work along the way.
Climate Workers Anonymous is a collective art project that features unverified and anonymous submissions. If you work in climate—and maybe even if you don’t—and you have something that you’d like to say and don’t necessarily want it attributed to you personally, you can submit it. There’s a link to the Tally survey in the show notes. You can also email me directly at the Protonmail address you can also find in the show notes. If you look on Substack, there’s links to all of these things. You can also easily find them in the podcast notes if that’s how you’re hearing me.
These takes are also unverified. I’m not chasing down leads trying to make sure that what people submit are true. And in fact, if I do receive submissions that strike me as irresponsible or feeding the rumor mill in a way that could potentially be targeted or abused in some way, I’ll either anonymize it such that it doesn’t do that by my judgment, or just not publish that one if I think it can’t be done ethically.
Today I have one that cuts a different kind of direction, which is: if the climate space and carbon dioxide removal as a whole are feeling the bumps and bruises of the current moment, there are still companies that are doing okay. And saying that out loud presents its own kind of need for anonymity. And it might feel braggadocious. What’s the metaphor I’m trying to do? Instead of the ghost at the feast in Macbeth, it’s almost like there’s a feast for ghosts, and then an alive person shows up and makes everyone else feel bad about it. There’s a reason why I think Shakespeare did not go for the inversion of that.
But it’s hard if things are going well and things are not going well for others. You still might want to say that, celebrate it. Maybe just be happy that you’re among the elect at this particular moment, and to count your blessings. And that carries with it its own freight.
I’ve actually been enjoying doing these episodes that have fewer submissions. I think it’s nice to get people in and out quickly without having to do some huge podcasting experience. I often think, for content, it’s either super short or you want something that’s very, very long and involved. Something about those middle ground types of formats that are just—they’re just harder to make work. So another shorty for you today, one submission, and here it is.
Ross reads the submission in full at this point. It is the text of the post above, from “We’re actually fine. Times are tough, no doubt” to “it feels like there’s nobody to celebrate with if the whole industry is hurting.”
End of submission. The corporeal man at the feast for ghosts. Such a tricky line to walk. I’m glad things are going well for you.
If you’re listening to this and this is also how you feel, you should submit your own submission, because this isn’t meant to be only a place where people can say critical things and let it rip in that kind of way. It’s really meant for all sorts of different takes and experiences that are difficult to share.
I’m always trying to encourage people by saying the naively optimistic. If you have some beautiful thought that is a little bit cringe that you want to share—I really don’t like framing it that way, but that’s how our culture tends to view those things. Or even just things are going well for you, but you’re finding it hard to have fellow feeling with others because maybe it’s not going as well for them. Feel free to submit.
You can follow this podcast on Substack. You can read the submission for yourself. There’s usually commentary with every episode. You’ll find links to submit your own experience there, ways of getting in touch. And if you wouldn’t mind subscribing to this show, either in your podcast app or especially on Substack where I’m trying to grow this show, it would be so appreciated by me. The link to Substack and those other things are in the show notes right now. Thanks for listening. I’m looking forward to sharing more stories soon.
