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The Green Spotlight

Synchronizing Efforts to Solve the Climate Crisis

Green Success Stories shines the Green Spotlight on Megan Werpy of World Systems Solutions. Megan discusses the urgency of the climate crisis, and the work of WSS in developing systems and tools that unite the global community and synchronize efforts to combat the crisis. She highlights efforts to redesign education to contribute to global sustainability, and the necessity of collaborating. As she puts it, “we are all on this planet together and can greatly impact how the future looks for communities across the globe through the work we do together today.”

Tell us a bit about your sustainability journey.

My sustainability journey may be different from most. After working in spiritual coaching for several years, I started seeking ways to incorporate what I was learning on a larger scale. I researched “Peace Schools” to find institutions that could teach models of peace in the world with the depth to map to the “real world,”, business, and life as we know it. As synchronicity would have it, one mentor led to another, and I found myself volunteering for an incredible organization designing systems and tools to greatly reduce suffering in the world and help the world “help itself” through the climate crisis and other crises.

After being hired, I spent over three years in their rigorous leadership development program, focusing on the root causes of the climate crisis. We studied and implemented our transformational experiences as case studies, “turning over every stone’ when it comes to the psychology and social dynamics that lead to continued disunity, destruction of the ecosystem, and discord in our communities and the world.

I am forever grateful for how much this company poured into me, my life, and my capacities to show up to the world. My sustainability journey now involves continuing to learn from those around me and serving in any way I can to ensure that future generations have communities, ecosystems, and social systems that support their thriving in harmony with the world around them. It’s so important that their lives are not ones of great suffering due to resource depletion, ecosystem collapse and the down line impacts of our current societal limitations, especially given that we can choose right now to change this.

Our lives go by so quickly, and the damage being done to the earth is immense. Every single person has a part to play and accountability to the whole- each of us has power in the world and to connect with that reality can be life changing for you, your family and the many lives that will live on this planet after you’re gone.¶

Tell us a bit about the product or solution you offer.

At World Systems Solutions we develop systems and tools that unite the global community and synchronize efforts to solve the climate crisis. One of my personal main focuses at this time is on a grassroots program called EmpowerED. This program works with people across the globe to redesign education to contribute to global sustainability. If we are to empower tomorrow’s leaders to adapt to and wisely navigate in an environment characterized by climate crisis, technological disruption, evolving work landscapes, and eroding institutional trust, then it is vital to carefully craft the education we offer today. To create sustainable global systems, these leaders will need to be world builders–creative problem-solvers and entrepreneurs–operating in transdisciplinary and collaborative modes which prioritize ethics and equity while simultaneously wielding with discernment the technological tools available.¶

Share a green success story with us – how have you helped customers or other businesses in the fight against climate change?

There are so many successes that have come from this work already. With teachers, universities, curriculum developers, and students coming together globally- we start to see perspectives and understandings of how our education system can better support tomorrow’s leaders. The amount of capacity a leader must have to support a world that works for many generations to come is a capacity that must be developed at all levels of society.

What is most interesting to me is that you can have students doing great work in Africa and students here in the United States and hear from each other about the challenges we are facing with education. The US student may be concerned that AI will eliminate many jobs or that the education they are paying for will not be relevant with how quickly everything is changing. In Africa, they already feel the impacts of the climate crisis. Many folks are experiencing droughts, losing crops, or struggling to get fresh water. The direct challenges with women’s empowerment or modern slavery are great concerns. We all play a part in the local and global outcomes. We learn so much from each other, even if our experiences seem different. Collaborating together collapses a political or national divide and lets us realize we are all on this planet together and can greatly impact how the future looks for communities across the globe through the work we do together today. For example, UNICEF estimates that one in two children are at severe risk due to the climate crisis. What we do to solve the climate crisis impacts each and every child on this planet.¶

What would you do with $1 billion dollars?

With a billion dollars, I would immediately fund the PHOENIX, World Transformation Platform.

Many people look at solving problems as if they are puzzle pieces that do not fit together. We have homelessness, large inequalities, water pollution, air pollution, economic systems, political systems, etc. All of these issues and systems are one big puzzle, and how we have been operating has not resulted in resolving deep systemic issues. The PHOENIX is designed to bring out the best of humanity, to allow our creativity, technology, and understanding from cross-cultural and cross-industries inform solutions that can work for the long term. This system is aiming to turn around the “global Titanic” in the time available to do so.

You can also view the PHOENIX as a support system for all our current processes, allowing us to work more efficiently and collaboratively and transform our shortcomings into possibilities for future generations. This system is being designed to support collaborative solutions deployment, involving many stakeholders rather than prescribing change on communities.¶

What do you envision your industry looking like in ten years?

Every day, we face numerous choices in how we relate to each other and the planet. We are often so ingrained in ways of being that may perpetuate harm to each other and the environment that we don’t even recognize it; it’s “in the wallpaper,” so to speak.?

Let’s fast-forward five years, as we have less than that to drastically change our global processes and avoid the worst impacts of climate change, such as ecosystem collapse. During these five years, everyone interested in applying their care, unique skills, time, or resources to help solve the climate crisis can have a place to support this endeavor.

How will we know we are succeeding in solving the climate crisis? We will know when we are all collaborating toward solutions and the regeneration of ecosystems. During World War II, we came together quickly to redesign and develop society in a way that supported the entire nation. With continued and rapid funding, we can greatly redesign future outcomes to support governments, non-profits, educational institutions, corporations, experts, and grassroots society, all working together efficiently and in a well-organized manner. We will easily see how our choices make downstream impacts that either support or impair future generations. Instead of coming together out of fear, we can choose to unite through creativity, community, and care for many. We just need to make this option available on the “global menu” and I’m grateful to be a part of this work and you too, can join it!

 

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