14 Days In ReFi — My 3 Biggest Takeaways as a Newcomer
Intentionality and Care
I logged into our morning Spirals Standup and saw Doug — hair uncombed, bags under eyes — looking tired and yet inspired. We began the meeting.
The best way to describe the ReFi community is that they care — about climate change and each other. From a dance party in my first meeting to getting tweeted about by a ReFi legend (Thanks TMO!), I felt immediately welcomed into the community. Everyone has come together because they care deeply about the climate crisis and see web3 as being part of the solution. These actors are all powerful alone, but it’s the way the community comes together that’s truly magical.
“I went to bed at 4 am.” Doug announced.
Doug had spent the night tirelessly helping Redemption DAO — a grassroots team of climate stewards trying to stop the sale of protected rainforest in the Congo to oil companies.
This auctioned land is a big deal. 27 million hectares of protected rainforest and peatland are being auctioned to oil companies to extract resources from the area. This land is home to thousands of species of plants and animals and acts as a huge carbon store.
Within just 72 hours, 200 ReFi-ers joined the DAO and began working to organize with stakeholders in the Congo, flood social media with information, and build a platform to crowdfund money to try to purchase some of the auctioned land.
So often social causes take the backseat to profit and business operations. I was so pleasantly surprised to see the ReFi community come together, put their businesses on hold, and rally around the mission they’re so passionately working towards. This is a really special community.
Jumping onto a moving train
I’ve been exploring climate for the last six years. Yet, coming into the ReFi space has proven incredibly challenging. While I joined Spirals two weeks ago, I’ve been watching the space from the outside for the last five months. Getting up to speed has been hard.
It seems every meeting another climate x crypto company, reporting measure, or accreditation platform is mentioned. It’s been a lot and I’ve often felt like an imposter trying to seem competent in meetings. But the level of support the Spirals and ReFi communities have given me has been enormous. This has kept me motivated but there are concrete steps we could take as a community to make the process easier.
I think a list of key terminology and summaries of different organizations in the space would be incredibly helpful for bringing newcomers up to speed. Helena did a great early version of this with her Climate Crypto Landscape on Figma that mapped out the space. Building upon this with short summaries of each company would make the process so much more efficient. I’m super curious how other ReFi teams bring newcomers into the space. What’s your go-to resource?
I definitely think foundational pieces like Doughnut Economics, Sacred Economics, or The Ministry For The Future are great works to get someone fired up. But ReFi moves so fast. As Daryl said in the MRV ReFi circle this week, “I’ve known him since November, which in ReFi, means we’ve known each other for forever.” How can people coming into the space get caught up to speed? How can we support newcomers in quickly becoming active contributors? These are questions I’m wrestling with going through this process. And questions I think it will be vital for us to answer as we strive for this movement to grow.
I’m so happy to be here
I used to jump out of bed every morning and race to get to my high school. I know, hard to believe. I went to this really radical school that was all about self directed learning, community impact, and following one’s passions. As a high schooler, I got to explore my interests in climate and engineering and invent real scientific instruments that were used around the world to collect accurate environmental data. I loved it.
Then I went to college. Suddenly, my excitement around my education diminished. I went from making real world impact through leaning into my passions and curiosities to doing uninteresting assignments that were simply graded and thrown away. This was a really hard change for me. After awhile, I no longer raced to start studying but resented the idea. I no longer jumped out of bed in the morning but hit snooze. My curiosity about the world shrank, and I began to fear I had lost my love of learning.
This is why I decided to join Spirals. I see my time in ReFi as an alternative form of education akin to my high school. I get the autonomy to lead my own projects with our KPIs situated around maximizing impact on the climate crisis. This is exactly what I think education should be.
In the last two weeks, my curiosity about the world has returned, and I’ve rediscovered my love of learning. The snooze button doesn’t even cross my mind as I’m waking up. Instead, I wake up before the alarm to get to work. ReFi is giving me so much excitement, joy, and fulfillment. I can’t wait to get even more immersed in this space.
Joyfully,
Aaron
