Jewish Climate Trust — Interview With Nigel Savage

Following Morning Minyan, Rabbi Lizzi sat down with Nigel Savage to discuss Jewish Climate Trust, a new initiative to organize the resources of the Jewish community toward meeting the moment on climate change.

Nigel is the founding CEO of Jewish Climate Trust, a “think-and-do tank” working to catalyze the Jewish community’s response to the climate crisis; he was previously the founder of Hazon (now Adamah) which under his leadership became the largest environmental organization in the Jewish community. He has twice been named a member of the Forward 50 and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Jewish Theological Seminary.

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Transcript

Transcript

00:00:36:01 - 00:00:57:04
Unknown
for anybody who knows me as a person and a rabbi, you know that among all of the various issues facing the Jewish people facing our country, facing the globe, the one that most readily makes me cry like the one that I am saddest about, right on the surface is the climate crisis.

00:00:57:06 - 00:01:20:20
Unknown
That's it's just that's how I'm built. And I, like most of us, generally ignore it. And I just go about my day and I try to do my part and I compost, and I don't eat a lot of meat, and I just mostly try not to think about it as I do my job as a rabbi, as a parent, as an American.

00:01:20:22 - 00:01:44:21
Unknown
And yet through all of that, every single day, I feel some amount of despair because I'm aware that the forces every single day contributing to climate change grow more powerful, and the forces that could be mobilizing against that, you just don't hear as much about them. I mean, maybe they're out there. I want to I want to believe that.

00:01:44:22 - 00:02:31:15
Unknown
And I'm aware that even millions of average citizens like me doing our part pale in comparison to the need for massive, coordinated corporate governmental cooperation and action on climate change. If we're going to make the planet livable for future generations. And so, you know, in the Jewish community, kind of funneling down from the the way out here to the Jewish community, we have tremendous intellectual and financial resources that oftentimes, and especially right now, are mobilized to advance what I think, you know, the funders think of as advancing Jewish interests, fighting anti-Semitism, Israel advocacy and support, also supporting summer camps and day schools and gap year programs.

00:02:31:15 - 00:03:00:13
Unknown
And Mishkan, as a spiritual community, has been on the receiving end of of some incredible philanthropy, you know, thank you so much to all of our institutional funders and the amount of resource that it would take to move the needle on the climate crisis. I just I have to wonder if we do not have a livable planet, how does any of the stuff that we're doing internally in our little community manor?

00:03:00:13 - 00:03:25:07
Unknown
And, you know, I wonder regularly, what if our job as Jews is to marshal the incredible resources that we have of capital and intellect and access to influence government, whatever? What if it is to leverage that to be a force of good, to turn the tide in a different direction? On environmental destruction at what if what if there were a person who was thinking about that as their full time job?

00:03:25:09 - 00:03:59:10
Unknown
And so that's my transition here into Nigel Savage, who is here, who I have known for the past two decades. He's older than that and so am I. But I think we've I've known you since the Hazen food conferences. Check it out. I found my own t shirt from back in the day. So I think I got to know you that in the early aughts and the early 2000, and we'll talk about, you know, this journey in a moment.

00:03:59:10 - 00:04:38:04
Unknown
But right now, the thing that you are doing right now is the Jewish Climate Trust, and you're trying to catalyze change in the Jewish philanthropic world and beyond to address the climate crisis. You are the CEO and founder of the Jewish Climate Trust, and you're going to tell us about that in a moment. You've been named on the forward 50 list twice, and you've gotten an honorary doctorate from the Jewish Theological Seminary in honor of your work, trying to draw attention and visibility to and move the needle on issues that matter to all of us and are really, truly existential for all of us.

00:04:38:06 - 00:04:55:03
Unknown
And so I'm just so happy that you're here, and I'm happy for our community to get to know you. Sorry we're getting started a little late, but because you were here for it, I feel like you get it. And that was very meaningful. But first of all, hello. Welcome.

00:04:55:04 - 00:05:16:21
Unknown
Hi, Rabbi Lizzie, I am so happy and honored to be here. It's really, genuinely a pleasure. I want to say, like, I feel like a country member of Michigan and have been around Michigan a teeny weeny bit over the years and sort of remember the early days of it. And I really, really even just getting a little bit of, of the minyan this morning was such a pleasure.

00:05:16:21 - 00:05:45:07
Unknown
I want to say, Felicia Savage Friedman, if you're still here, are you still here? I'm totally into sphere at Oma. I love what you just did, and I love that we're both savages. I met an amazing, amazing way to start. And I and I propose. And when you got teary at the end, I want to say that there was a great rabbi years ago no longer alive, who I once said, say I bless you, that you should overflow your vessels.

00:05:45:12 - 00:06:00:18
Unknown
And I just want to say that we are all blessed that you got to overflow your vessels a little bit this morning. Thank you. Nigel. Thank you, I appreciate you.

00:06:00:20 - 00:06:24:18
Unknown
What else? All right, so, Nigel, will you tell me, will you tell all of us? First of all, how does a person. I mean, we can all hear that you've got an accent. So that is different from ours. I guess we have an accent. You know where you come from. But give us a little sense of your journey, your locational journey, and your journey into the world of, you know, first Jewish food.

00:06:24:19 - 00:06:42:16
Unknown
Maybe, maybe Jewish food wasn't first. But, you know, when I got to know you, you were talking and thinking a lot about Jewish food and the impact on the land and us and kashrut and, you know, but now you're you're, you know, you've created the Jewish Climate Trust. So what's the kind of background history? How did you get into these issues.

00:06:42:18 - 00:07:02:02
Unknown
So it's a it's a it's a great question. And it's a funny question because I'm a pretty unlikely person to be doing what I'm doing. It's true. I want to say that I'm from the Bronx and took elocution lessons, but you wouldn't believe me. I'm originally from Manchester, which is kind of like Pittsburgh on a rainy day, unless anybody here is from Pittsburgh.

00:07:02:02 - 00:07:36:04
Unknown
But it's sort of northern. We actually, Martin and Felicia are literally from Pittsburgh. Nigel, you can't make it up. See, I knew, I knew we were soul sisters, soul siblings. So I grew up in a sort of like as a sort of chubby, nerdy, urban, semi intellectual Jewish kid with zero relationship to planet Earth and, and had a first career in finance in England and took a year off to learn at parties, which is a liberal coed in Jerusalem.

00:07:36:06 - 00:08:01:12
Unknown
And some people go to parties and have a transformative experience of Torah. And I was from quite a strong Jewish background, and in that way it didn't necessarily have a huge impact on me. But but it was a hugely impactful year. And what happened was that a friend of mine, Marc Barnett, is still a dear friend of mine, asked me one day if I wanted to go on a sea to sea hike, a yam hike from on the Mediterranean Sea to the Sea of Galilee.

00:08:01:14 - 00:08:32:02
Unknown
And I said yes without really thinking about it. It was five guys. It was in six weeks time, and six weeks later I was like, Nige, what were you thinking? It was five guys. I was the oldest guy. I was wearing a pack that seemed to wear 300 pounds. It was absolutely pouring down with rain. I had totally inappropriate footwear and I was like, oh Lord, and it sounds funny now, but I was really scared and we went into this hike.

00:08:32:02 - 00:09:11:20
Unknown
It's a 3 or 4 day hike and I loved it. I not only survived it, I loved it, and I saw at first hand A that it is good to be outdoors and push oneself, be that it is amazing to be in relationship with the physical land. And also it was significant that this was happening in Israel. We don't normally think of ourselves like this if we grew up in Chicago or Menstrual Pittsburgh, but the Jewish people entered human history as an indigenous people and like all indigenous peoples, have a relationship to land, language, life cycle, climate.

00:09:11:21 - 00:09:52:06
Unknown
And the Torah is a record of that. Right? We've traveled through all of these countries, all of these languages, all of these centuries. It is the same Torah on Shabbat morning. It's going to be the same to either shovel. What in the most extreme ultra orthodox synagogue in the most liberal Reform or Renewal community, and it is a record of a centering human history as an indigenous people and somehow or other, all of this hit me very forcibly in this 3 or 4 day hike, and I started doing a lot of outdoor stuff, and I ended up hiking a bunch with North Carolina Outward Bound in Pisco National Forest, out of out of North Carolina,

00:09:52:06 - 00:10:14:04
Unknown
and was leading one of these trips and one of the people who was there, a Guggenheim, who you are some people on this call may know she's a great Jewish artist. A dear friend of mine. We were in the middle of nowhere, and Shana starts telling me that on some occasions she had ridden her bike across America for housing for humanity, and she said that to me.

00:10:14:05 - 00:10:39:08
Unknown
I was like, oh my gosh, we need to do a Jewish bike ride across America to raise environmental awareness in the Jewish community. And that was how chasm began. And I ended up founding this organization, the shirt of which Lizzie is now wearing. What year was that? What year was that? 2000. Okay. And it's also it's also interesting, a little bit sad relative to some things that have happened.

00:10:39:10 - 00:11:01:00
Unknown
This was the year before nine over 11. Right. And one of the word Hasan means vision. And one of the reasons I called it was I felt then a little bit of my critique of the leadership of the Jewish community, that we were constantly united by what we were against, and we were against anti-Semitism, and we were against attacks on Israel.

00:11:01:00 - 00:11:20:13
Unknown
And I was like, fine, so am I. But like, it's not what are we against? It's what are we for? It's not where we've come from. Where are we going? What is our vision? And it is a slight sadness to me that some of the things that I thought we were over obsessed by 25 years ago, where, you know, have become larger problems today than they were then.

00:11:20:13 - 00:11:38:15
Unknown
But that, for me is how it began, and that's how it is that I'm, in some ways an unlikely environmentalist and outdoor person. And yet, at the same time, I believe in this stuff very deeply.

00:11:38:17 - 00:11:44:13
Unknown
Okay. Yeah.

00:11:44:15 - 00:12:05:10
Unknown
Your your take. Take a minute. No it's okay. Your zoom camera because of the settings, are following you as you, you know, move around your screen coffins. Are you okay? You take say I'm take your time from a little bit of asthma. And if I start wheezing, it's not because I'm smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. I'm just.

00:12:05:14 - 00:12:29:19
Unknown
It is what it is. And it's not just the atmosphere. I miss pollen count or, you know, fire debris or whatever it is that causes us all to cough during the middle of the summer. Yeah. So, okay, so Hazen was 25 years ago. And what has led to the creation of the Jewish Climate Trust? What is it? Yeah, yeah.

00:12:30:01 - 00:12:38:04
Unknown
Even say a word just before we get to climate trust. So.

00:12:38:06 - 00:12:54:02
Unknown
Because it weirdly goes back to Omer, I love all the sevens in tradition. And we have Shabbat. Seven days to Omer. Seven weeks.

00:12:54:04 - 00:13:31:14
Unknown
Really? Sorry. And then we actually have seven years, which is the cycle. Six years should be normal work, and one year the land should rest. And I got very, very into this when I was at Hasan. And we did a lot of work on it. And halakhic in a Jewish religious sense, there is nothing that you have to do about it if you're living in New York, which was where I was living, and it was coming up to the Schmidt here in 20 1415, and I was trying to figure out how I was going to remember that it was this meeting, and I somewhat randomly decided that I was not going to buy any books

00:13:31:15 - 00:14:04:11
Unknown
or bottles of Scotch for the whole year. And this was such a shocking idea that starting about six months before the Schmidt year, I started going around my apartment and taking books off the shelf. Either that I hadn't read or I had read and wanted to read again and wrapped them in newspaper, unmarked, because the notion of not buying a book for a year was so stressful that I wanted it to be the case, that if it all got too much, I could take one of these things and rip it open and be like, oh, I always wanted to read this book.

00:14:04:12 - 00:14:12:22
Unknown
Can I can I just double click on that for a second while maybe you catch your breath also?

00:14:13:00 - 00:14:31:23
Unknown
You know, we don't know each other that well, but my understanding is you chose books and scotch because those were two things that felt to you, like you couldn't live without them. And right, like the most essential things, without which if I don't have new ones in a year, you know, I won't even be myself. And the whole point is like, yes, you will.

00:14:31:23 - 00:14:55:04
Unknown
Let's teach. Teach yourself how to actually exist. Not with new things, but with but with what you have. Like a real. There was just an article about this, or just an op ed in last week's New York Times putting the word satisfying and sufficed together, satisfied, right? Right. Like satisficing. And just like being satisfied with what you already have, it suffices.

00:14:55:04 - 00:15:18:01
Unknown
That's the year. But like, how do you experience that if you're not a literal farmer on the land of Israel, letting your land lay fallow and not farming the land 1,000%? And I want to add, by the way, before I say even more about that, that the tradition, I think, invites us anytime we're engaging with one of these sevens to have a trace echo memory of the other ones.

00:15:18:01 - 00:15:38:10
Unknown
So when we counselor at Omer, we're thinking about this. When we celebrate Shabbat, we're actually thinking about this, right? Shabbat is a taste of sufficiency, right? So, yeah, absolutely. I didn't imagine I could do this. A to my astonishment, I went through the whole year without buying a single book. Of course, I had enough to read. Plus the New York Times and the Guardian and God knows what.

00:15:38:14 - 00:15:59:14
Unknown
The Scotch thing was even funnier because I started the year with a certain amount of scotch, and then my scotch was going down and bring so much scotch. But I'm English. If you came over, I would offer you a little scotch and then buy a meter version of the Hanukkah miracle. In the middle of the year, four different people randomly brought me gifts of Scotch, and my Scotch survived the entire year.

00:15:59:14 - 00:16:20:03
Unknown
So got at the end of the year. And somebody said to me, Nige, what are you going to do next time? And the next one was 20, 21, 22, which was the sci fi future. And with zero thought, I said, oh, the next year I want to be in Israel before Russia and not get on a plane for a year.

00:16:20:03 - 00:16:44:09
Unknown
For the whole year. Who could imagine such a crazy thing? So I said that in 2015. In September 15th, very randomly, 16, 17, 18, 19. And then it gets to the end of 2019. And for the first time, I was like, oh, this is like starting to come up. And then February of 2020 was Covid and we sort of went into the rabbit hole.

00:16:44:09 - 00:17:09:15
Unknown
And that was very intense. And it took until about the summer of 2020 for things to calm down again. And at that point, it hit me very forcibly that either I could be CEO of Kazan and not spend the year in Israel, but I could spend the year in Israel and not be CEO of Carson. And at that point, I gave my board a year's notice and said, I want to step down in August of 2021 because I want to spend this meteor in Israel.

00:17:09:19 - 00:17:36:17
Unknown
I want to add what I've just said is bizarre. It should be the case that if you founded and led a nonprofit for 20 years, the big decision is are you going to step down? And then a secondary decision is, what are you going to do after you step down? But it really did happen that way around. So much so that had this meteor not been coming up, I think I would still be CEO of Kazan, which would have actually been a mistake for me and the organization right there was due process.

00:17:36:18 - 00:18:00:17
Unknown
Yakir Minella became the CEO, merged it with Pearlstein. It's now it's a great organization. We actually we had on we had on Yakir, I don't know, four years ago maybe, maybe right after. I mean, it was during Covid that we had him on. So 2020, would that have been like during the process of merging and, and, you know, melding the organizations?

00:18:00:18 - 00:18:24:18
Unknown
It would have been it was really 21. That would have been it might have been an inkling in somebody I at that point. But he's been a friend and colleague for many years and he's a great guy. But that was how it was that I ended up coming to Israel. And then what's also kind of wild is that I've had friends who've made Aliyah, who've moved to Israel at almost every point in my life.

00:18:24:18 - 00:18:40:04
Unknown
I spent quite a lot of time here. Never once had it occurred to me to make Aliya. It's not like I thought about it and decided not to. It never occurred to me. It never, ever occurred to me. And after I'd stepped down from cousin and asked her, I'd said I was going to come and spend this meet here in Israel.

00:18:40:04 - 00:18:58:05
Unknown
I then realized, actually, no, I don't want to come here for the year. I want to be here. And then made Aliyah. And so it was announced that I was leaving in August of 2021, and people who only knew me as the Hazan guy, in a tone of some considerable concern, were like, Nige, what are you going to do next?

00:18:58:08 - 00:19:12:21
Unknown
And I was like, I've got no idea. I'm going to be off the grid for six months. What will be, will be. And I didn't think that I was retired. I wanted to do stuff, but I didn't know what it was going to be.

00:19:12:23 - 00:19:42:15
Unknown
The God that I don't literally believe in smiled on me. And I ended up being busy with all sorts of interesting things and teaching and coaching and consulting. But the most interesting thing that happened was that Steven Bronfman came to me. Stevens, a third generation Canadian Jewish billionaire, and his father founded Birthright Tag League, and he came and said, my dad founded birthright when he was 65, and that's his legacy project, and I'm going to be 60 next year.

00:19:42:15 - 00:20:14:09
Unknown
And I'm trying to figure out what my legacy project is. Maybe it is something to do with environment, climate, Jewish Israel. Help me figure that out. And I would add that Steven, wearing one hat, has been involved in Jewish leadership all of his life and wearing a different hat is really serious about the environmental issues and lives in a gold lead house and has an organic farm, has been on the board of one of the largest and most progressive environmental organizations in Canada for 30 years, and that was great fun for me and a great challenge.

00:20:14:09 - 00:20:44:09
Unknown
And I went and spoke to a bunch of people. And what gradually became clear is that there are lots of different individual organizations and people and companies doing different things. But going back to what you said earlier on about climate and the scale of the climate crisis facing all of us, that there was no single enterprise working at scale, trying to work at scale to help drive positive, systemic change for the Jewish people in the state of Israel over the next 20 years.

00:20:44:09 - 00:21:00:21
Unknown
And at some point, I said to Steven, we could or should create a new think and do tank, maybe we'll call it Jewish Climate Trust to try and do that work. And he said, I'll put in some money if you can raise some more, and we raise some more. And that's how it is, that sort of by accident.

00:21:00:21 - 00:21:27:23
Unknown
I am now the founding CEO of Jewish Climate Trust. So what's the plan to reclaim the planet and have the Jews be the good guys, you know, driving positive climate reclamation, sustainability, what's what? Nigel, tell us how this ends. In a good way. What's the vision?

00:21:28:01 - 00:22:03:10
Unknown
I think one of the places that's really important to start is not with the positive vision, but with the the feeling that I think so many and maybe all of us have, which is a sense of disempowerment and being a bit overwhelmed. Right. We're in May 2026. It is a complicated time for the Jewish people that Israel, for the United States, for Europe, like it's been, you know, Covid and October, the seventh and war and AI and dislocation.

00:22:03:10 - 00:22:32:11
Unknown
And so many of us are feeling overwhelmed at so many different levels. And I think, first of all, it's just important to name that and notice it for everybody and to just sort of accept it and to have some compassion for ourselves and some compassion for each other. And I want to add, it is why I think that a community like Michigan is so important and so profound, because there is this sort of naked individual or the nuclear, nuclear family at one level.

00:22:32:12 - 00:22:54:01
Unknown
And then there is like the state and the whole world at this level, and it is the intermediate levels of connection that I think are really, really important and profound. And it's vital for us to lean into those because it is in something that is a little bit bigger than me in my nuclear family, but a little bit smaller than everything.

00:22:54:03 - 00:23:16:23
Unknown
That is the place that we get to breathe and be in relationship. And for there to be times that we can give and times that we need to receive and and so on and so forth. And it is a weaving together of, of ritual, of Jewish calendar, of a tent that's open on all four sides of, of things that nourish ourselves and stuff that make the world better.

00:23:17:00 - 00:23:45:23
Unknown
That's really at the heart of Jewishness. And I think it's never been more important than today. And so that's the first thing. Second thing is that I think it's worth saying how I conceive of the broader frame within which Jewish Climate Trust is trying to act, which is that climate is beyond everybody's pay grade. It's beyond the pay grade of the United States or China.

00:23:46:00 - 00:24:07:04
Unknown
Bill gates can't fix that. Barack Obama couldn't fix it. And so for this thing that is so overwhelming on the one hand, but where we actually have to try and make a difference, on the other hand, first of all, I think Jewish tradition comes alive. There are 2000 year old words in pick it up. You're not required to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it, right?

00:24:07:05 - 00:24:26:16
Unknown
Some of us grew up with that line as a cliche, but it turns out that on the climate crisis, we're not required to complete the task, but neither are we free to desist from it. And the way that I think of it is that everybody, every enterprise, has to do the best that they can do. The United States has to be the best that it can be.

00:24:26:17 - 00:24:54:01
Unknown
Every country, every city, every organization, every synagogue, every Hillel, every law firm and every faith community and every people. And so it is not the job that the Jewish people by ourselves can make a difference on this. We can't. But I think for many of us, there is a core sense that to be Jewish is to be is to want to be on the right side of the big issues in history and to try and punch above our weight.

00:24:54:02 - 00:25:15:04
Unknown
And in a broad sense, that's actually what Jewish Climate Trust, therefore, is trying to do within that larger context. So to to bring it down, what does that all mean in practice? So I'll say a couple of things in principle and then a couple of examples. We said, okay, if we want to improve the performance of the Jewish people on climate, what does that mean?

00:25:15:05 - 00:25:37:04
Unknown
We said it means three things. Number one is directly improving our own performance in terms of mitigation and adaptation. Whatever we put in the atmosphere and how we're preparing for change, that's coming down the way. Secondly, we said we'll only ever do things that are going to have a positive impact on climate, but wherever we can, we're also interested in co-benefits.

00:25:37:05 - 00:26:02:13
Unknown
Can we do things that will also strengthen the Jewish community or the Jewish community in its neighbors, or Israel, diaspora relations, or any of those things? And thirdly, if you've got the Jewish people to net zero tomorrow, we're only 0.2% of planet Earth won't change the trajectory for the planet. So if there are things that we can scale impact, let's try and do that.

00:26:02:15 - 00:26:26:02
Unknown
So I'll give you a couple of examples of those things in practice. But great. Well I've got I've got questions already and I'm sure and I'm sure some of the folks who are, who are here listening to as well. But if you've got a couple examples, that's great. And I think maybe I'll just I'll, I'll chime in my it's, it's, it's, it's a little bit of a challenge to what you just said.

00:26:26:03 - 00:26:49:21
Unknown
You know, even if the Jewish people are able to change, you know, we're just like a tiny little fraction of global population. So what is our, you know, success if we do this right, really look like. And I just want to challenge the idea that the Jewish people, when they put their mind to a task, cannot change the literal world, not in a conspiracy theory, sort of a way.

00:26:49:22 - 00:27:13:15
Unknown
Like, you know, it's behind closed doors, but more like leverage relationships, leverage allyship, leverage. You know, the influence we have with whether it's governments, corporate, you know, all of the different places in ways that we, you know, can try to make a difference. We have and we and we and we've we've made major differences and swayed, swayed opinion on all manner of things.

00:27:13:16 - 00:27:38:13
Unknown
We can't we can't control and change everything exactly the way we might want to thank God. I mean, it's good nobody should be able to do that. But I do want to challenge that. Like, oh, even if we do our part and we're successful, it'll just be a drop in the bucket. I think, like we've shown that we actually can lead in a really positive, transformational way and build relationships around that, that leverage that vision.

00:27:38:13 - 00:28:05:21
Unknown
So maybe we're saying the same thing. So I agree. So I agree with that. And I want to I want to actually give a couple of examples. Beautiful. So first of all in the States we've ended up supporting Adama in really catalyzing a Jewish climate leadership coalition. And there are now more than 500 Jewish organizations who have joined that and committed to working on their own climate impact and integrating it educationally and so on.

00:28:05:22 - 00:28:29:16
Unknown
We've helped launch a Jewish green business network. Anybody here who's involved professionally in that space, you should just look at it and join it. It's kind of amazing. We're going to try to fund some interfaith work in that space. All of that's happening, and given the last two years, we didn't want to be defined by Israel and the Palestinians, but we also wanted to lean into that if we could.

00:28:29:18 - 00:29:01:16
Unknown
One of the most phenomenal organizations out there is the Arab Institute for Environmental Studies. They've been around for 25 years. They have a master's program in environmental leadership that brings together Israeli Jews, Palestinians, Palestinians and Americans. Mazing program. In 2014, they started bringing their alumni together, and there were alumni fanning out into leadership all over the place and created a center for applied environmental diplomacy to support cross-border environmental projects.

00:29:01:21 - 00:29:28:08
Unknown
Kind of remarkably, those relationships survived the last two years, including they actually launched a project called jumpstarting Hope in Gaza, which was the first Israeli project that was actually directly helping Palestinians in Gaza, even even through what has happened here, by the way, is an Israeli nonprofit whose executive director is Doctor Tariq Abdul Hamid, who is a religious Muslim Palestinian from East Jerusalem.

00:29:28:09 - 00:29:39:15
Unknown
So they're an amazing organization. And lo and behold, their largest funder for that, center for Applied Environmental Diplomacy as a 15 months ago was USAID.

00:29:39:17 - 00:30:04:02
Unknown
And so as of 15 months ago, they were looking at pulling off a cliff at the end of 2025. And so we felt that that was really important. And we really leaned in to underwrite that project for the next three years, and both putting money and raised money for it. And that also to us, is an example of ways that you can have an impact on, on climate directly and also build relationships in concentric circles.

00:30:04:04 - 00:30:15:10
Unknown
The biggest example of what you said just now is something that we're engaged in right now that's crazily, crazily.

00:30:15:12 - 00:30:46:11
Unknown
What a cliffhanger. He looks that way. Can you repeat what you just said? You froze for just a second. You said crazily. Crazily. Significance. Significant, significant and exciting. So both October the 7th, which has nothing to do with climate and the Palisades fires in L.A. last year, are both failures of catastrophe planning. If you think about it, of risk management, the question should have been what is the chance of a thousand people pouring over the border to commit mayhem?

00:30:46:13 - 00:31:11:10
Unknown
And even if the answer was only 0.1%, one should then have said, what do we do to make sure that doesn't happen? You cannot control the spark of fire or the sensor and it wins. But you can't control how much water you've got and backup firefighters and all kinds of stuff. And so one of the things that is clear is that the world is heating up, the Middle East is heating up by more extreme weather events are increasing even more.

00:31:11:13 - 00:31:35:19
Unknown
And it seemed to us maybe Israel isn't ready for this. So in December, we hired a really senior professional environmental leader in this country full time as a consultant for ten months and said, go and speak to everybody. Government departments, local authorities, cities, nonprofits, universities, the private sector and just find out what are they doing in terms of future climate planning and what needs to happen.

00:31:35:21 - 00:32:09:20
Unknown
He is now had more than 60 conversations and it has come back loud and clear, almost unanimously. Almost every institution has said, look, we're doing this or we're doing that way. More is needed. We need to catalyze the field. We need data. We need more coordination, we need more planning. And we're in the early stages now. We think of potentially developing an Israel Climate Security network or Israel Climate Security Center or something or other that will help to drive change on this over the next 20 years in Israel.

00:32:09:20 - 00:32:44:05
Unknown
And going back specifically to your point, meantime, we've started to work on this. Think about Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the Palestinians in Egypt, right. Israel's neighbors, they have the same weather as Israel. They have the same climate, many hundreds of millions of people. And in every case, they actually have fewer resources that Israel does. And so, although it's not our job directly to fix them from almost day one, we will try and increase the velocity of best practice, and we will try and find neutral parties to actually share what we're doing on this with neighboring countries.

00:32:44:05 - 00:33:10:11
Unknown
And then on top of that, there are other billion or 2 billion people in countries around the world who are going to be facing these issues. And so this project to try to help prepare Israel for this will end up actually having global significance. I would add, by the way, it was one last thing. Sure, cargo in 1995 had a heat wave that the city was not ready for, and 700 people died in 1995.

00:33:10:12 - 00:33:52:14
Unknown
Chicago had 2.6 million people in 1995. Israel is going to have 16 million people 15 years from now. I was in New York two months ago when it was 71°F, and the normal high is 40 degrees, right? Well, the normal high here in the summer is 89 and 31 degrees higher than that is 120°F. If you have it be five days running 120°F in Israel 15 years from now, and the power grid holds, many people are going to die if the power grid goes down because everybody's got the recognition on or God forbid, at that point, a drone hits a power station, tens of thousands of people could die from heat exhaustion.

00:33:52:16 - 00:34:17:03
Unknown
And so the work that we're doing here is both profound in human terms, but is also going to be potentially significant around the world. And I want to say one last thing. This was today. The headline this morning in the Guardian in England was UK, quote, built for climate that no longer exists, unquote. And these urgent changes to survive global heating report ones.

00:34:17:04 - 00:34:44:20
Unknown
And you know, I grew up in, in Britain that was known for being sort of cloudy and rainy, and they've published a report saying the whole country is going to need air conditioning by 2050 because it's going to be that hot in Britain. Nigel, thank. Thank you. I mean, I think that's beginning to paint a picture of the the work that Jewish Climate Trust is focusing on.

00:34:44:22 - 00:35:06:02
Unknown
And I mean, for everybody who's here, you should know, like, Nigel and I were just sort of like, we're just going to see where the conversation takes us. And so if you have questions, I hope you'll drop them in the chat or or just chime in. Here's something that I do wonder about relative to the work you're doing in Israel.

00:35:06:03 - 00:35:38:08
Unknown
You know, trying to have the Israel be climate ready. And every country in the world obviously wants and needs to be climate ready. And the fact of the matter is, the places that are not will have climate refugees, probably by the millions or tens of millions walking to places that are climate ready, you know, so the, you know, the Torah has, you know, stories of basically climate refugees, you know, running from famine in the land of Israel, down to Egypt, down in Egypt.

00:35:38:08 - 00:36:02:20
Unknown
They were prepared and, you know, had food ready, had rations, had a plan. And and, you know, amazingly, it was a Jewish guy who masterminded that, not for the benefit of the Jewish people, per say. It was for the benefit of the Egyptian economy, because that's where he worked. But his family, his literal family and all of his descendants benefited from that preparation.

00:36:02:20 - 00:36:38:23
Unknown
And so I feel like the, the, the illusion of borders around this, you know, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Israel, they all share the same climate. They share the same air, water resources, heat. And if Israel is prepared in those countries around are not, people will want to come to places where they can live, breathe, you know, be inside air conditioning access, food, water is there just, you know, it's just the interconnectedness of the people on planet Earth and this climate in theory, in theory, to bring us together to solve.

00:36:39:01 - 00:37:12:16
Unknown
But it still sounds like there is a kind of silo of, you know, people thinking through like, well, what works for this little sliver of land, Israel. And can we share best practices? I hope so, yes. That'd be great. America. You know, as you said, and I think, you know, it's true. But it's like if you don't have the United States of America leading on, you know, how it hopes, how we hope to mitigate climate disaster, let alone be funding and supporting these projects around the world.

00:37:12:18 - 00:37:36:16
Unknown
And it doesn't bode well for those projects around the world. And, yeah, I mean, how how are you thinking about how is Jewish Climate Trust thinking about all of that kind of interconnectedness? Yeah, I want to I want to, if I may bring it down in a few different ways, because I think it's so happens, I think, that you and I are alike in thinking in these terms, and many people do.

00:37:36:22 - 00:38:01:12
Unknown
And I actually think it's really important to bring it down. And I want to bring it down in 2 or 3 different ways. The first one is to every person. I want to restate how important I think it is not to be overwhelmed by the scale of these things, because I actually don't think it's helpful if one then says that the first thing is actually then just to think about oneself, to think about Michigan and one's own community.

00:38:01:14 - 00:38:37:21
Unknown
And here I just think there are so many things that are doable that are just interesting and worthwhile and fun. And I think it's totally legitimate to try and align, seeking to have change in impact, on the one hand, with things that are actually meaningful and they can community in that sense. And so I think the notion of saying, let's either as a community or with a neighboring church or mosque or whomever it may be, let's get involved in a clean up in Chicago, or let's decide that next year on two, we're not just going to do like a to say to for kids, but let's actually think about urban tree regeneration and figuring out

00:38:37:21 - 00:39:03:23
Unknown
if we want to put down some urban trees in a part of town where that cover and shade is going to be need. Or let's find 1 or 2 local nonprofits who are doing good work and lean in to them, like the scale of physically doing stuff together that I think is meaningful. I think if you want to think about things that are larger scale at whatever time, you know, elections are coming up, I don't mean presidential elections, but like city council elections and stuff like that.

00:39:03:23 - 00:39:31:11
Unknown
The notion of of again, with some other communities inviting some of the candidates over and say, we want to have a candidate night just to talk about environmental and climate issues in Chicago, in Illinois, in the United States, and in the world, because we as a Jewish community care about those issues. Right. And I just think that that's a really important thing to do, and it's a way of helping we ourselves and other people to understand, as it were, the breadth of of what it means to be Jewish.

00:39:31:16 - 00:39:57:15
Unknown
The third thing that I want to say is about Israel. This has been an amazingly stressful time, but only for Israel in its neighbors, but for the American Jewish community in terms of relationship to Israel. And I want to say lean into the relationship with Israel. Again, I think that the highest level conversations about two state solutions and one state solutions and all of those sorts of things, like there is a place for them.

00:39:57:15 - 00:40:22:18
Unknown
But at this level down here, there are Israelis, Israelis of all stripes. And as it happens, Israelis and Palestinians who are working on this stuff, and they are a inspiring and it is be worth meeting them, learning about them and leaning in to help and support them. And instead of being depressed at this level, to feel that we, each of us, can make a difference at this level if I forget.

00:40:22:18 - 00:40:42:06
Unknown
But after this call, let me put you in touch with Tariq Abdul Hamid, and the next time that he's going to be in the States, they come to Chicago. And we'd love to invite you to come and speak to Michigan. And we're going to invite our neighbors and tell us about the institute, and tell us about what you guys are doing, and tell us about how we as a community can be part of the solution and not a problem.

00:40:42:06 - 00:41:04:06
Unknown
And I think that if in every case, one starts to begin not with the largest macro I, but the, the, the base of of who are we and are there ways that we can seek not only to make a difference, but to do so in ways that are proportionate to how much time and money and energy I or we have.

00:41:04:07 - 00:41:31:23
Unknown
I as a person, or we as an institution that I think is the place to actually have impact. And Jewish Climate trust, in a sense, is trying to amplify that in, you know, a whole bunch of places and communities. Thank you. And just for anybody who's listening now or later on the podcast, you should know Mishkan composts everything we have, like compostable bowls and plates and spoons and forks and knives.

00:41:31:23 - 00:41:49:16
Unknown
And we pay a whole bunch of money not to just, like, put our food trash in the garbage, but to have a composting company pick it up, you know, every other week, whether we're at CJS or in our office, you know, certain certain venues we go to can't have the bin. And so we can't, you know, but it's like to do that is an expense.

00:41:49:16 - 00:42:14:10
Unknown
And it's one that we're happy to incur because we want to believe we're doing our little part. We don't have a building, and so we don't have our own footprint of, you know, whatever, our own energy footprint, because we're really, you know, we're just sort of part of the ecosystem of other buildings in Chicago. But that actually feels significant because it means we're sharing resources with whether it's a church or the theater.

00:42:14:12 - 00:42:59:16
Unknown
And, you know, and I also want to just like shout out a couple farmers we have on this call, Lexi and Acacia and maybe others that I don't know about, but really trying to restore the Jewish relationship of just relationship to the land and cycles of time seasons here in the here in the United States and also be in relationship with local peoples, indigenous peoples that have been stewarding this land and try and, you know, do a little bit of what Martin and Felicia did earlier of kind of just amplifying the relationship of similarity and also difference, but, you know, shared priorities of caring for land.

00:42:59:18 - 00:43:10:21
Unknown
I wonder if the folks who are on this call, Erwin, I know you have like, experience as an urban planner, just how this conversation is striking you, what questions you might have.

00:43:10:23 - 00:43:20:12
Unknown
Or observations.

00:43:20:13 - 00:43:49:14
Unknown
By the way, anything that anybody wants to ask me or say just far away. Erwin. Go ahead. Yeah. Nigel. Thank you. Good to meet you. You know, you've you've alluded to the the reality that the climate crisis actually part of a whole series of interconnected crises, which makes the the issue all that much more complex and complicated.

00:43:49:16 - 00:44:20:10
Unknown
What do you think you've talked about? What can be done at the personal scale and the institutional scale? How far up in scale do you think is the right scale for deep change? And then I will try and answer that. I want to ask you what you think the answer to that is.

00:44:20:12 - 00:44:54:00
Unknown
I think the problem is one of the heart, not one of them mind. I think it's about how we see ourselves, how we see our relationships with others. That's one of the reasons why I think Judaism has a lot to say about the climate crisis and the poly crisis. The one other parenthetical thing I wanted to say is I just recently read an article about how change happens.

00:44:54:01 - 00:45:40:01
Unknown
I don't know if this number is accurate, but hopefully it's it's close to accurate, and it suggests that the tipping point of change actually comes can can come as low as 3.5% of a population adopting change. So, you know, I just wanted to put that in context of the 2/10 of a percent of Jewish population. If if we did get, you know, Michigan got, you know, another a couple of percent of people in Chicago or the Jewish Climate Trust got a couple other percent of people in the country surrounding Israel.

00:45:40:02 - 00:46:08:23
Unknown
There actually could be a tipping point where there could be significant change. Agree with everything you said. What I'm struck by and over the years and going around and talking to people is that you can take 20 different people who will legitimately have 20 different understandings of what is most important to do on climate or environment. And somebody will say, it's really most important that we're engaged in advocacy, and somebody will say, it's about food and somebody will say it's pilot and so on and so on.

00:46:08:23 - 00:46:27:05
Unknown
And what I've learned is, you know, the Torah famously says, Torah 70 faces of the Torah. And I think in this, the challenges for each one of us to try and be the best person that we can be and to go on a journey and to learn and to push ourselves. And then gradually we just spread out and make impact.

00:46:27:05 - 00:46:53:02
Unknown
And I it is both emotional and rational and it's practical and existential and and all of that stuff. I'll give you one other example, though, one other thing to think about, as well as the things that we're trying to do as an organization. I, like other people, get on and off an airplane. We have our own carbon footprint, and on the one hand, we did go to the trouble of trying to calculate what our carbon footprint was.

00:46:53:03 - 00:47:12:16
Unknown
And one can do that. And there are calculators online and there is some value to that, but most people aren't that interested. But what we decided to do for ourselves, and we're going to say to other folks, and I'm happy to say to you now, is as a person or as a family or as a business, I think it's an interesting thing to say.

00:47:12:16 - 00:47:48:03
Unknown
How much did we as a family spend on travel last year? How much did we spend on flights? And then let's just pick a number 2%, 5%, right where there is a family, we spent $1000 or $10,000 or as a company, we spent $100,000. Let's just say, okay, I'm going to put 5% of what I put on, spent on travel, effectively spent on putting carbon in the atmosphere, and let me give 5% of that to organizations that are Ace, equestrian carbon and that are seeking to do good in the world.

00:47:48:03 - 00:48:11:00
Unknown
So we as an organization gave many grants to Shamsher, which is an organization working in unrecognized Bedouin communities in the south of Israel and putting up solar panels there. These are some of the poorest communities in Israel, and putting up solar panels there is not only good for the planet, but it's also it's having solar in place of diesel and things that are just bad for the kids.

00:48:11:00 - 00:48:38:11
Unknown
We gave some money to them. We gave some money to Good Energy Initiative, which is doing regenerative agriculture in Israel. There is an amazing organization called But, which is an American Israeli nonprofit that's doing regenerative agriculture projects in Africa. Also in scale. We gave some money to them. And so I want to say that that again, it's not just the Arab, but Miss Can could invite speakers from one or more of these organizations.

00:48:38:12 - 00:48:57:01
Unknown
Anybody like by yourself could say, okay, like it won't change the world, but I will get to do something that I feel gets to ameliorate some of the damage that I'm doing in the world, and I get to look myself in the mirror and feel like I'm I'm trying to be a good person in a way that is proportionate to me.

00:48:57:01 - 00:49:10:05
Unknown
And then, by the way, having done that, then I'm going to mention it to friends or other communities. And that, I think, is also part of how we gradually affect change.

00:49:10:07 - 00:49:19:14
Unknown
Yeah, you are mute. Good answer. Also, Lexi said in the chat that.

00:49:19:15 - 00:50:02:19
Unknown
The fact that we're a mobile congregation is an advantage. I would just add that Michigan has multiple communities that we can have an impact on. Because of that, multiple neighborhoods and multiple systems. Yeah, I think that's true. I think that's true. And, you know, I mean, Nigel, I appreciate you just the insistence on rooting us back down into the realm of what we can do something about, because this is one of these things that the center of gravity feels way far away.

00:50:02:21 - 00:50:27:13
Unknown
You know, the people making choices that have large scale climate impacts, you know, the wind farms that were, you know, Biden was contributing to invest in and now Trump is disinvested in and actually renewable energy, incentivizing solar and wind. And like I hear that and I, I am angry, I'm mad about it. And I have gone to my local I've gone to my local solar panel.

00:50:27:14 - 00:50:50:02
Unknown
You know, in the state of Illinois, you can get a, you know, some kind of a tax break for putting solar on your house. Sadly, my roof is tilted at an angle that, you know, they basically said solar panels would be irrelevant on your house. Don't bother. And so, you know, that was one particular area where, you know, I tried to do like my one little part and my roof is tilted the wrong way.

00:50:50:04 - 00:51:12:03
Unknown
So it goes. But I do think that the sort of insistence, as frustrating as it might be, because we like to feel righteously indignant and and despair because then it's sort of like, if I'm despairing, then there's nothing I need to do. I can just feel my big feelings. But actually there is something that we can all do.

00:51:12:03 - 00:51:35:01
Unknown
And the part of my brain, I think this is important because like the part of each one of our brains that says, yeah, but it doesn't make a difference relative to the scale of the crisis, is actually just it's like a daily demon. We need to wrestle knowing that there are actually people in organizations doing the scaling that I'm not personally able to do.

00:51:35:01 - 00:52:03:06
Unknown
So you've mentioned a few of them, temple and the RV Institute. So part of the work is actually figuring out if my heart is attracted to solar and renewable energy. Great. There are organizations helping make solar and renewable energy, whether it across America, whether in Africa, whether in Israel or Bedouin communities. And part of my part of my activism can actually be giving them the support they need.

00:52:03:08 - 00:52:35:00
Unknown
And and that's not like failing to do my part. That is doing my part in the way that I can, knowing that they are doing what they can and they're just is an ecosystem of people working on this scale. I think what's interesting about speaking with you and knowing that, like part of the genesis of Jewish Climate Trust is actually Steve Bronfman wanting to continue the legacy of his family in making a global impact, one person at a time.

00:52:35:01 - 00:52:59:09
Unknown
I mean, like the theory of birthright is a really it's like a one person at a time kind of theory. It is like an immense investment in one person at a time who's whose impact is, you know, we hope we believe, you know, will be would be at massive scale. Is that basically the theory of Jewish climate trust, you know, or so.

00:52:59:09 - 00:53:17:06
Unknown
So yes. And it certainly my theory and I think if I may, I want to I think I want to say a couple of like last things and then hand back to you and that you have. Yeah. And we can close up. Everybody's got a day to go live. Yeah. The, the the last word. But I want to say two things.

00:53:17:07 - 00:53:20:03
Unknown
One is.

00:53:20:05 - 00:53:45:10
Unknown
Not just every person, but I also want to say to everybody, Rabbi Lizzie Heidemann had absolutely no idea that I'm about to say what I'm about to say, but I want to say that that one piece of this isn't even about climate. It really is about loving and supporting each other, and in particular, actually loving and supporting leaders and especially rabbis.

00:53:45:12 - 00:54:05:22
Unknown
And I want to say that that that it has never been harder, I think, to be a leader in the world right now or in the United States or in Jewish communities, than it is right now with the range of things that get thrown at leaders and get thrown at rabbis, and the number of different people who have strong views on everything.

00:54:05:22 - 00:54:26:13
Unknown
And it is my broad sense that Mishkan is actually a pretty healthy community, and that you actually do love and treasure your rabbis. But I just want to say these things are not separate. There is actually a relationship between, like so much of of what is driving negative change in the United States and in the world right now.

00:54:26:16 - 00:54:58:16
Unknown
Plus or minus is to do with fear. People are so afraid of so many different things that so many different levels. And part of the antidote to fear is actually creating healthy communities by loving and supporting each other, and in particular, loving and supporting leaders because communities to be healthy need that. So the first thing that I want to say is, as well as everything else, if you want to make a difference on climate, love and support your rabbis, your chairs, your executive directors and each other, right?

00:54:58:17 - 00:55:25:01
Unknown
That's actually how we create the kind of communities that can make a difference. And the second thing I want to say is I want to say about sefirot, Omer. And what? Right. It's shovel. What? Tomorrow night. And forgive me for going back very briefly, but as kids, we think poem is like home and testing and fancy dress and pessoas say do night and mazza and Shavuot is something to do with cheesecake, but not quite sure what.

00:55:25:03 - 00:55:50:15
Unknown
But actually this whole period is deeply connected. In the center of it is Satan Night and say tonight is the night that we go free, that we leave try and we leave the narrow places. Question is, how do you get there? And it starts with Purim is when we get drunk and we put on costumes, and we do that to try and challenge the question of who am I really?

00:55:50:16 - 00:56:17:05
Unknown
Because the day after Purim, we have to start to get rid of our mates. We have to get rid of the superfluous stuff, not just breadcrumbs. That stops us being free and properly understood. I think you spend four weeks getting ready for Seder by figuring out what are the things that stop us being free. Going back to what we said earlier on about books and scotch, what is all the stuff that we have but we don't need and start to let it go so that, say the night we can be free, but say the night isn't the end, it's still the beginning.

00:56:17:05 - 00:56:36:23
Unknown
Because so tonight is freedom from its freedom from oppression. It's from one, it's from slavery. Those negative freedoms are important because there are people in the world right now who are enslaved. We shouldn't take it for granted, but freedom from is only part of it. Then we go on this journey, right? First of all, we've left. Eat it.

00:56:37:00 - 00:56:58:01
Unknown
We're in the desert. We're in the wilderness. For 40 years, the Torah has not been given. There are no rules. We're living with radical freedom. And that's true of how we're living today. We are living with radical freedom. Today, few people in human history have had as much freedom as we have today around everything, around clothes and identity and names and like anything we want.

00:56:58:01 - 00:57:26:12
Unknown
And it turns out that radical freedom isn't always totally helpful. And so, sefirot Omer is this 49 day reflection, as well as everything else on the nature of freedom. Until finally we get tomorrow night. The 50th night which is receiving the Torah is freedom to freedom to self. Limit ourselves. Freedom to say not everything that I can do should I do not everything I can eat, should I eat.

00:57:26:14 - 00:57:53:02
Unknown
Maybe I shouldn't have my phone on 24 over seven. And so I want to say that that one way to pull all of this together is to really be able to go into Shavuot tomorrow evening. Every person on this call and as a whole community and actually thinking about the ways that receiving the Torah in a positive sense, represents a choice to limit our freedoms.

00:57:53:02 - 00:58:23:20
Unknown
What are the things that we want to be free to do that are healthy and good for we, ourselves and our families? And one of the things that may not be so, so, so helpful or healthy. And what would it mean in receiving the Torah to say, you know what, I'm not going to do this. And I want to offer that in a sense as a, as a, as a, as a thank you for this conversation and as a sort of gift from Jewish tradition for all of us at this particular moment.

00:58:23:22 - 00:59:02:02
Unknown
Well, I think that's a beautiful place to end, and that's a beautiful teaching. And I saw heads nodding, and I'm really, really grateful for the wide ranging ness and also the specificity and the insistence on making this personal and the bringing it back to Torah and where we are right now in our calendar, and not just resisting, not just being free from, but also choosing, like what we want to do with this freedom and how we want to limit, not because somebody is telling us we have to, but because we know what's good for us and what's good for our people and what's good for our planet.

00:59:02:04 - 00:59:28:03
Unknown
And that's part of the Jewish consciousness we are trying to tap into. And thank you for bringing all of that to us this morning. Thank you. Thanks, Amir, haggis and Mark, as folks are as folks are jumping off. You're welcome to unmute. And, you know, say anything you want. Say thank you. Yeah great. Thank you, thank you. Thanks.

00:59:28:05 - 00:59:42:09
Unknown
Thanks, Nigel. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. All right. Thank you. Felicia. Thank you. That's a love. All right. Nigel. Sleep well. Oh. Nigel's gone. All right. Bye, everybody.