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Triumph, tragedy, and climate change: ‘The Island President’ by Eban Goodstein

By Director Eban Goodstein

“A cross between paradise and paradise.” This is how Mohammed Nasheed of the Maldives describes his nation in Jon Shenk’s powerful new film, The Island President.

Shenk follows President Nasheed over a one-year period, leading up to the Copenhagen climate summit, in a beautiful, courageous, and strangely hopeful story. The film resonates all the more deeply following last month’s coup in the Maldives. The story’s ending — perhaps tragic, perhaps a powerful continuation — is today unfolding in real time.

The Maldives is a string of 2,000 islands off the coast of India, home to about 300,000 people. The highest point in the country is only a few feet above sea level. Until 2008, the islands had been under dictatorial rule for decades.

After returning home from college in Britain, in the late ’80s, Nasheed became an activist for democratic reform. He was imprisoned 12 times, and tortured, enduring 18 months of solitary confinement. In 2008, he led the nation to free and fair elections, winning the presidency.

Shenk, with unprecedented access to a head of state, films a year-long journey of this charismatic, newly elected president. With climate change a clear and present threat to the very existence of his nation, Nasheed begins speaking out globally, and passionately, for all those on the front line of climate change. Finally, he arrives in Copenhagen to play a pivotal role in crafting a global climate deal in 2009.

This is the best film dealing with global warming in years. It is a story of classical proportion: of true heroism, courage and nobility, of eloquent soliloquy, of intimate moments, and of political intrigue, compromise, and betrayal.

The film is also visually stunning. The vast blue ocean is both a serene paradise, and a powerful, threatening force, driving Nasheed’s political urgency. The Maldives capital, Malé, looks like an oasis of buildings rising out of the ocean. When asked by a reporter what was his plan B, should there be no action to slow global warming, Nasheed responds, “We will die.”

Shenk follows Nasheed in strategy sessions with his cabinet as the team seeks to leverage their moral argument as the first victims of climate change, canaries in the coal mine. Nasheed gives speeches, and makes his case with heads of states and ministers at the U.K. Parliament, at the U.N. General Assembly, in India, and finally — during the dark, crushing days of Copenhagen.

I won’t spoil the ending, though it does surprise. I will say that this is a movie for a post-Copenhagen world. Copenhagen put a brutal end to a naïve view that the leaders of the world, pushed forward by a moral imperative, would overcome petty domestic politics and sign an enforceable deal to cut global emissions by 80 percent over the next 40 years. Instead, the meeting advanced a new framework of what could be a race to the top, anchored by national commitments, and driven by domestic political organizing, in the U.S., China, India, Europe, and Brazil.

This approach will be insufficient to save the people of the Maldives. But it is a start, and we are not done yet.

Last month, just after I screened the movie, President Nasheed was forced at gunpoint to resign from his office. Political opponents seized on the economic crisis and fundamentalists objections to Nasheed’s modernizing Islam. At clear and ongoing risk to his life, Nasheed decided to remain in the country, writing, speaking, leading marches, and fighting for democracy.

And this is the enduring lesson from the movie. President Nasheed and thousands of others in the Maldives understand that their land and lives are threatened both by the rising seas, and by the corrupt politics of business as usual. They continue to fight for both democracy and climate justice, in the face of imprisonment, beating, torture, and murder.

Back here in the U.S., there is no outside force stopping any one of us from declaring our candidacy to run as a clean energy/clean money candidate, for mayor, or city council, or the state legislature or Congress. There is nothing stopping us from starting a green team in our business or workplace, and driving sustainability changes there from the ground up.

And maybe, like this island president, we don’t win the first time, and maybe our victories are followed by setbacks. Nevertheless, action at this scale, sustained, by all of us, is what must happen to change the future.

New York City, says Nasheed, is no higher than the Maldives. A cross between paradise and paradise: this is where each of us lives, and that we all must defend.

Check out the screening schedule to find out if The Island President is coming to your town soon and watch the trailer here.

Some Good Reading Material

Over the course of the Sustainable Business Series, we got the chance to engage some great speakers about all kinds of sustainable business topics.  Throughout the SBS, there were quite a few book recommendations put forth by our panelists.  From books that inspired them to get into the field of sustainable business, to books that they wrote, to books that they have recently found to be interesting or insightful.  So, while the Sustainable Business Series is over for now, here are some great books for you to check out to keep your mind churning:

“Ecology of Commerce” by Paul Hawken

“Soft Energy Paths” by Amory Lovins

“Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility” by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus

“Natural Capitalism” Amory & Hunter Lovins, Paul Hawken

“Limits of Growth” by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III

“Intrapreneuring in Action: A Handbook for Business Innovation” by Gifford Pinchot

“Leading Change” by John P. Kotter

“The sustainability advantage: seven business case benefits of a triple bottom line” By Bob Willard

“The Way Out” Hunter Lovins new book

“Good Value: Reflections on Money, Morality and an Uncertain World” by Stephen Green

“Conversations with Wall Street: The Inside Story of the Financial Armageddon & How to Prevent the Next One” by Peter Ressler and Monika Mitchell

What are your most inspiring or education book recommendations on sustainability?  Leave them in the comments section for others to enjoy!

Happy reading!!

New York Times features Bard MBA in Sustainability

The New York Times featured the Bard MBA in Sustainability on the Green Blog in January. New York Times writer Jim Witkin highlighted the growing demand for sustainability-focused MBA programs and illustrated how the Bard MBA in Sustainability will be one of the first programs on the East Coast to meet that demand. The post includes an insightful conversation with Director Eban Goodstein.

The article is reproduced here:

For Entrepreneurial ‘Change Agents,’ a Green M.B.A.

By JIM WITKIN

As we noted in a post in August about a new survey, an increasing number of colleges are beginning to offer courses or entire programs devoted to green business practices in response to growing demand.

Such programs teach students how to manage a business’s social and environmental impact in addition to focusing on profits. The latest school to add its name to this list is Bard, the liberal arts college 90 miles north of New York City, which this month announced that it would begin offering an M.B.A. program centering on sustainability.

The two-year program will be based in New York City, and classes are to begin next fall. Eban Goodstein, the program’s director, said in an interview that the new M.B.A. would integrate sustainable business principles into the entire curriculum in a way that parallels programs offered by the Presidio Graduate School and the Bainbridge Graduate Institute on the West Coast.

In this format, classes meet over long weekend residencies once a month, five times a semester. During the semester, students are required to take part in online instruction between the residencies.

Requiring students in the program to meet in person just once a month should attract applicants, visiting faculty members and experts in sustainability from a wider geographic area, Dr. Goodstein hopes. That format should also support the program’s sustainability-themed curriculum, he said.

“We are taking advantage of the weekend structure to integrate classes around particular themes,” Dr. Goodstein said, “For example, classes on leadership, economics, accounting and sustainability will coalesce on different weekends around themes like ‘the new information landscape’ or ‘stakeholders and communication.’ ”

To gain real-world business experience, first-year students in the program will also participate in the NYCLab, a yearlong internship-style consultancy that involves working on projects with area businesses, government agencies and nonprofits.

Dr. Goodstein anticipates that many graduates will start their own green-minded businesses and that others will work for established companies as “intrapreneurs,” blending sustainability initiatives into every function of a business, including operations, marketing, finance and strategy.

Dr. Goodstein, who also teaches within the Bard Center for Environmental Policy, said he was motivated to start the M.B.A. program because some people embarking on a business career really do see themselves as “change agents” — individuals who “come to get an education so they can have an impact on the world.”

At the same time, solving environmental problems “has become more than just a policy issue,” he said. “Business is now a critical component of the solution.”