As a way for readers / future Community Members to get to know more about our work we’re going to start featuring the Chairs and committee members involved in Planet Positive 2030.  To start, we’d like to give a huge shout out and thank you to the amazing Colleen Kirtland, co-chair of our Farmlands and Grasslands, Mountains and Peatlands Committee.  We’ll be adding descriptions of all committees in the next few weeks as we move towards May 2023 when we release the Request for Input (RFI) version of Strong Sustainability by Design to the public for their insights.

Want to join a committee?  Email John at: [email protected] after checkout out our Committees here.  We’ll introduce you to the Chair(s) of the Committee(s) you’re interested in joining as a next step.  Meetings / calls vary for each committee, but a majority of them meet 2-3 times a month on 60-90 minute zoom or virtual calls.  Work done on each chapter / section happens during and inbetween calls.

Thanks again to our amazing Chairs, Committees, and Planet Positive 2030 community.

Collen Kirtland, Co-Chair

Please list your name, title, and global region.  

Colleen Kirtland, Organizational Agility practitioner, California USA.

How long have you been an IEEE member or volunteer? 

This is my first time to volunteer.

Why did you want to join Planet Positive 2030? 

I didn’t want to spend my time in despair feeling helpless about climate change and have been joining groups where we can learn from each other and create more dialogue.

How would you define “sustainability?” In general, in your work, and in your life? 

That which breeds health, mutuality, and sharing between living beings.

How do you think technology can best help the planet? 

In a broader definition of technology as “that which has the potential to improve conditions,” we would be best served by including the study of how living organisms naturally innovate through adjacent learning, evolving at a natural rate of change. If we think technology only includes digitization and machines, I would be highly disappointed.

What is your dream regarding Planet Positive 2030 and the Earth in general?  

I’d have to rely on the help of someone much smarter than I to help out! In his book Re-inventing the Sacred, Stuart Kauffman challenges us to “break the Galilean spell.” This doesn’t mean that the laws of Physics no longer apply. It simply means that the biosphere cannot be explained with classical Physics. ” (Biological) agency is emergent and real, but not reducible to Physics. The biosphere is laden with agency, value and meaning.”