I’m Transitioning My Career to Climate Studies, Here’s Why.
I moved to San Francisco in 2015 with two suitcases, a blog, and the dream of becoming a writer at an impact-driven organization. A month into this new chapter, I was fortunate to land a job as a Staff Writer at think tank and global learning community, Singularity University (SU).
It was a dream job and I worked there for years learning from, and writing about, brilliant thinkers like Ray Kurzweil, Peter Diamandis, Jody Medich, Ramez Naam and many others. At SU we were constantly exploring exponential technologies and what they meant for the future of society. It was a stimulating and purposeful organization, and it swept me off my feet at the age of 27.
But after a few years in said dream job, it felt like life was beginning to move too fast and that I was becoming too engrossed in Silicon Valley’s bubble.
I left the job in 2018 and moved to South America, with just 1 suitcase this time.
In my year abroad I wrote a poetry manuscript celebrating nature, started a Silicon Valley ghostwriting practice, danced Samba, Salsa, Kizomba, and Forró for hours in blissed-out elation, and learned to truly slow down to enjoy the pleasures of life.
It was an amazing time — but my career hunger never resurfaced like I thought it would.
Once I moved back to San Francisco I felt a constant tension between wanting to live a slower life close to nature and the societal pull to “succeed.”
But everywhere I looked, nothing activated that fire I felt when I first joined Singularity University, where I was able to attach to a moonshot mission.
When doors keep closing on you it often means you were never meant to walk through them.
I learned this concept from the writings of Parker J. Palmer, but experiencing it repeatedly made it hard to live this truth, but I stuck with it.
I stuck with the questioning of why my career hunger had left me.
After a long period of trying to walk through many wrong doors, having aha moments that fizzled as quickly as they appeared, months of deep inquiry, and help from a professional coach, I finally landed on my next why. My next career horizon.
Since this lightning strike moment in September 2020, it’s been a journey of following a series of breadcrumbs that continue infusing me with hellbent determination to shift my career into working on climate solutions.
Since I was a little girl, I’ve had a deep love and respect for the natural world.
I remember my first solo in nature. I was 14 and an Outward Bound instructor plopped me alone in the Three Sisters Mountain Range for 4-days, with 1 bag of peanuts, no watch, and no toilet paper. Those four days taught me a lot, including learning to sit with myself with zero distractions — and of course how to make toilet paper out of snowballs.
I remember my days finding bliss as a snowboard instructor on Colorado’s snowy slopes, and the countless times I’ve gone into nature throughout my life just to sit and listen.
Nature has always been the place where I come in closest contact with a level of truth and knowing that makes me confident, we’re all interconnected. I’m reminded of the tremendous wisdom of our planet every time I watch another cycle of the moon and the many problems that nature has already found solutions for.
Which is all why it’s no surprise, that when I read The Future We Choose by Christiana Figueres this past November, I had a brutal realization that I was doing nothing at scale to protect the very thing I cherished most. I had to make a change.
We say that exponential growth starts off deceptive and slow, until it suddenly takes off. I like to think that right now, I’m at the early slower part of the curve in redirecting my career.
What’s funny is that when you discover a global challenge to dedicate yourself to, there isn’t anyone standing there with a silver platter of opportunity. You have to create that.
Climate Curious is my sandbox as I journey to understand the complex landscape of climate solutions, ranging from technology innovations, to climate science, and practices such as regenerative agriculture.
I hope that in my own process breaking down complex ideas here, it also helps makes climate studies and awareness more accessible to all.
The moment I landed on wanting to marry my career with environmental studies my coach asked me, “Ali, is there anything more important than this [the environment]?”
Family and loved ones aside (whose lives depend on a stable climate), I knew the answer was No, nothing was more important than this.
Nietzsche writes,
“(S)He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
Working in climate solutions is my why. Climate Curious is the beginning of my how.
With admiration of all strangers,
— Ali
