9/11: A sustainability story

这个故事最初发表于2011年9月12日。

On that sunny September Tuesday, as the planes hit their targets, I was sitting in a windowless conference room about 130 miles away, inside a Sheraton Hotel sandwiched between Terminals A and B at Bradley International Airport, just north of Hartford, Connecticut.

我是一个小团队的一员康涅狄格州清洁能源基金，该州立法机关一年前建立，以投资清洁能源资源。该练习的既定任务是“绘制投资机会空间，并建议哪些机会领域将在寻找符合社会和财务标准的企业中最富有成果的重点。”

我们被要求考虑短期和长期的广泛投资选择 - 农场废物的高科技生物反应器，生物计算膜技术，潮汐和河流流量，自组装太阳能电池 - 从平凡到异国情调。

我们于2001年9月11日上午开始练习。

这是一个有趣的团体，由我的朋友吉福德·皮乔特三世（Gifford Pinchot III）组装，他是一位长期的企业家，作家，保护主义者和班布里奇研究生学院（Bainbridge Institute）的创始人，现在是Presidio研究生院。Pinchot是我们七人组中的结缔组织，其中包括Janine Benyus，其1997年的著作《 Biomimicry》已成为绿色思想创新者中的阅读。落基山研究所的联合创始人和生活精神Amory Lovins，领先的能源效率思维（“和Do”）坦克；安妮塔·伯克（Anita Burke），当时是盎格鲁 必威体育2018- 荷兰石油公司壳牌国际（Shell International）的可持续发展高管，现在是Catalyst Institute的董事总经理；乔·罗姆（Joe Romm），前能源效率和可再生能源能源助理部长，现在是美国进步的高级研究员，也是有影响力的博客气候进步的作者；和本杰明·布兰特（Benjamin Brant），这是一位可再生能源和能源效率的企业家。

An hour or so into our conversation, Arnold Brandyberry, our lead client from the Clean Energy Fund, rushed into the room saying, in effect, "Come into the hallway. You have to see what is happening." We walked a short distance to the lobby, where the TV in the hotel bar had attracted a small crowd.

它站在那儿，双臂连接，我们看着塔楼掉下来。

我们走了一小段距离，到达大厅，酒店酒吧里的电视吸引了一小群人群。它站在那儿，双臂连接，我们看着塔楼掉下来。

Brandyberry and his team had the presence of mind to get us out of the hotel and away from the airport. Romm, the only East Coaster, split off to take the train back to Washington, D.C. The rest of us scrambled into two vehicles and were driven into Connecticut’s Farmington Valley, about 15 miles away, to the largely vacantSimsbury Inn— what Benyus quickly dubbed "our 5-star bunker" — where we spent the next five days trying to get home — to Montana, Colorado, Washington and California, all too far to drive or bus, or so it seemed at the time.

It was a rare opportunity for this normally peripatetic group of individuals to dial down, spend time digging deeper in conversations, both personal and professional, than is normally possible. It was an extraordinary experience for several reasons, not the least of which was being marooned with a group of renowned systems thinkers during a time of unprecedented, catastrophic systems failures.

像其他所有人一样，我们处于震惊状态。我们都认识一个在五角大楼或华尔街工作的人。我们中的一些人曾在前往纽约或华盛顿的途中。（洛文斯（Lovins）前往华盛顿；伯克（Burke）计划见到一个在一个世界贸易中心的坎托·菲茨杰拉德（Cantor Fitzgerald High）工作的朋友；我要在曼哈顿中城的一次清洁技术会议上讲话，定于12日开始。）我们试图开始。get in touch with friends, families and those we thought might have been in harm’s way. The communications technologies we take for granted today weren’t as evolved — no Facebook or Twitter; no reliable cell coverage; few news media websites, primarily TV and radio to keep us in the loop.

我们讨论了世界的状态。我们谈论了自己的个人旅程，以及它们可能如何改变。

通常，我们谈论了。我们每天就康涅狄格基金进行讨论，远远超过客户的讨价还价。我们讨论了世界的状态。我们谈论了自己的个人旅程，以及它们可能如何改变。“我们的对话涵盖了广阔的地面，” Pinchot上周提醒我。“我们个人可以做什么？正如我记得的那样，安妮塔建议捐献鲜血。我们花了很长时间讨论美国应该如何做出回应。攻击阿富汗不在名单上。弄清楚美国为使人们和对抗人和对抗的人所做的一切国际袭击背后的罪犯的追捕更接近总体心态。”

“吉福德保持了我们的精神，”伯克最近提醒我。“他说，在大厅的早晨，在我们的睡衣中，他说，'让我们继续前进。让我们弄清楚如何花这笔清洁能量的钱。这就是我们现在可以开始停止这种情况再次发生的方式。”我们清楚地知道，在所有的言辞之下，这是关于石油的：谁没有，谁没有，谁会得到剩下的东西。那天，钟声以恐惧，控制，压迫，仇恨和石油至上的至高无上的态度而遭受了收费。“油公司执行官的强烈言论。

There are many lingering memories, some too private to share.

There was Lovins, ever the scientist, ruminating out loud about the estimated damage to the Pentagon and proffering what-if scenarios about what could have been. (RMI had worked on the greening of both the White House and the Pentagon, so he had some visibility into the buildings’ integrity.)

“I remember Amory pointing to the sky and noting the lack of contrails," recalls Pinchot. "No jets were flying, so there were no vapor trails in the sky. He saw that fact as a grand experiment in the effect of contrails on temperature. He was right. Contrails are essentially clouds and do more to trap longwave radiation escaping the Earth than they do to block incoming solar radiation. We later learned that their contribution to global warming was documented during the jet-flight hiatus that followed 9/11."

There was Benyus, leading a nature walk. She's a gifted storyteller for whom every innocuous tree and plant yielded a tale of evolution or interdependency or design inspiration, and she turned a rather mediocre trail in a nearby county park into a beautiful, multitextured classroom.

There were late-night talks with Burke, hearing both the excitement and challenges of systems change inside a global energy company, pondering whether and how the company could make a difference.

她说：“在壳牌队，这是一个令人振奋的时刻。”“我们实际上认为这次我们将真正发生转变。条件是正确的。我们有一个坚强的首席执行官，他相信气候变化和可持续性。我们有一个勇敢而出色的团队。最后，一家主要的石油公司公司必威体育2018公开承认气候变化是由于人类活动造成的，并公开致力于重定向其投资组合并摆脱石油。”

It was a heady and exciting time at Shell. We actually believed that we were going to really make a shift this time.

In addition to reacting to what had just happened, we spent time discussing a plan Pinchot and his wife, Libba, had been working on to create a school of sustainable business. We considered curriculum, who should be involved, marketing and more. We discussed what courses to teach and what should be in those courses.

Those conversations, says Pinchot, contributed to the design and momentum of what became the Bainbridge Graduate Institute (later Pinchot University, now part of Presidio), the first school to offer an MBA in Sustainable Business and the first devoted entirely to sustainable business.

他说：“在9/11之后不到一年，我们欢迎我们的第一届MBA课程。”“由于9/11的大脑信任，我们继续成为该运动的领导者，将可持续性和社会正义带入商业教育和商业实践。”必威体育2018

到9月15日星期六，航空公司再次开始飞行。我们竞标Adieu，我们每个人都暂时而紧张地登上飞机朝家庭和家人登机，以及所有新版本的“正常”等待着我们所有人。

回顾过去，一切似乎仍然如此生动，同时如此超现实。我想，就像其他所有人的9/11故事一样。

Following our conversation last week, Pinchot sent me a copy of the final report he produced for the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, based on what had inadvertently turned into a five-day brainstorm session.

“It is interesting how much we got to," he noted. "And to what degree the opportunities are still relevant. And how, as a civilization, we need to move faster."

It was a poignant reminder of the challenges still ahead, the lessons still unlearned.