Across the world this week, thousands of young people, for at least a moment, reckoned with the same existential terror. That is, how will we survive as the planet burns? Climate anxiety is a natural response to the nebulous, far-reaching implications of our damaged global ecosystem. But we must manage it.

Personally, I medicate my climate anxiety with effort and focus on solving the problem. I suspect this is a common response, and probably the best kind of response. Thousands of talented, driven people are looking for an opportunity to face the monster. This multitude, banded together, would be an unstoppable force. 

However, we are not taking full advantage of this opportunity. We see strong activism and advocacy campaigns to bend the system into alignment with our goals. We see professionals flocking towards value-focused organizations and sustainability roles, building and implementing sustainable solutions. However, these processes are slow, and time is of the essence. In addition, many of us still despair, even after 40+ hours a week developing clean energy systems or representing at every climate rally in a 200-mile radius. There is always more to do, and there are so many who want to do more.

What more can we do? The systemic changes in policy and governance, and the technology and business evolution that corrects the rules, is a decade(s)-long game. We need things to happen now, or at least next year. So we need to bend the rules. Energy facilities, carbon capture, circular material flow, or any project that can reinvent a corner of our economy to work for the earth, all need to pencil out according to the rules. To succeed, it must be profitable, or at least amass donations or have financial backing from a local government. If a project does not promise to break even and deliver an acceptable return, it will not happen. No matter how close.

Labor costs are a significant factor in any complex project. This includes the skilled tradespeople and other boots on the ground, but also hundreds of white collar hours. Lawyers, engineers, accountants, project managers, etc. For example, a DOE study estimated that about 7% of capital costs for a typical pumped storage hydropower facility is engineering and design alone, not including the white collar costs baked into equipment or civil works. ¹ Some more turnkey project types, like a solar farm, may not require such a large percentage of white collar costs. But even 2-3% is significant for something that costs $1M or greater.

What if some of these projects, close but not quite to viability, could drop white collar costs and become viable? I suspect this is possible. There is a huge overlap between the white collar expertise that breaks project budgets, and the multitude who are aching to do more. This is not a coincidence: many of us chased these careers in order to make a difference in the first place.² With the right coordination, focused volunteer groups could resuscitate critical climate projects which our current economics would have left for dead.

This coordination is critical to the success of such a system. Nobody (or very few people) can work full time for free. However, a team of 5-10 focused professionals with the right collaborative mindset could build something real with each person volunteering only 1-2 hours per week. Most volunteering I’ve seen seems to depend on one or two skilled coordinators working long hours to corral a crew of unspecialized hands for a one-off or short series of events. A self-organized team could have many multiples of impact comparatively, if they operate with a consistent language and mission.

My proposal for you is Restoration Hall, a community of climate service dedicated to breaking economics in service of delivering pro-climate projects against the odds. Restoration Hall is a working name, and the whole concept is still emergent, so I am really hoping for some ideas and feedback from you! (Take the survey or comment on this article to do so!) In particular, if something like this already exists, I want to hear about it and join it. As it is, most of the opportunities I see are one-off efforts in activism (e.g., attend a protest), advocacy (e.g., write a congressman), or conservation (e.g., pick up trash). All of these are important contributions to our long game. But our short game, that is, building whatever we can to reduce emissions next year, needs work.³ And we need a stronger community to support each other and magnify our impact further, which is better done in teams that last more than a day.

As an energy engineer, my mind often goes to infrastructure projects, but really this community could take on any helpful project. The main qualifications are a reasonable expectation that the project will reduce emissions (backed with some rough life cycle assessment), and verification of additionality (backed with a rough financial analysis showing the project is not viable without the help). We could develop community-owned EV charging stations. We could coordinate logistics for protests. We could implement recycling programs. There are many opportunities for these “special ops” teams of pro-bono professionals, to fill in where for-profits are ignoring, and where governments and non-profits are understaffed.⁴ Engineers Without Borders offers a great model, and I’m sure there are others like it. The power here is an interdisciplinary team not limited to any specific project type.

The working name “Restoration Hall” is inspired by the Polish halls of Grand Rapids, Michigan, a few of which I visited earlier this year when visiting a relative. For a low recurring fee and a few hours of community service, members have access to a well-lit social space with dirt-cheap drinks, snacks, classic bar games, and lots of space to breathe and talk. They struck me as a specific kind of quiet but well-loved venue which either doesn’t exist in Washington, DC, or requires being seriously affluent or in-the-know to access.⁵ Service-oriented organizations with community spaces like Lions Club or Rotary Club exist, but I had never understood their appeal until trying to imagine the kind of climate action community I’d like to have.

The specific community identity was, for me, a key distinction from existing large service organizations. And while the identity of the Polish halls is based on love of some ancestral homeland, I imagine love of our planet and desire to save it could be the foundation of an even stronger (and more diverse) community. After all, we already have a common mission. We know what needs to happen. We think and worry about it every week, in fact, and we have the skills to do it. Perhaps all we need to do now is work together in a new way, and redefine what is possible.

This reasoning is built on some assumptions, and I’m still not sure how realistic or novel this idea is. Therefore, your participation is critical to help confirm or correct! Please contribute by filling out the survey or commenting on this article, or both!

1. FAST Commissioning Technical Analysis (pg 70) ↩︎
2. This is true for more than just white collar workers. Skilled tradespeople and anyone who is willing to donate their time and talents should be part of this community. However, I focus on white collar workers since that’s who I understand best, and since we generally have more room to put actions behind our words (due to our propensities for words). ↩︎
3. There are definitely other climate and equity issues besides climate change which could benefit from our attention! Climate change is merely the most prominent, clear example, although even this could be my bias as an energy professional whose focus is largely on emissions reduction. ↩︎
4. Restoration Hall should probably just work on projects led by non-profit and government organizations, to avoid giving an unfair leg up to any for-profit organizations. Definitely open to discussion on this, however! ↩︎
5. They might actually exist, and I just don’t know because I don’t get out much. ↩︎