Mike Simpson, One Sky

Mike Simpson works on international environmental projects with partners in West Africa and Latin America. He is the executive director of One Sky -- The Canadian Institute of Sustainable Living in the rural, northern town of Smithers, British Columbia.

I made it. Had to ditch some brochures and move heavy stuff into my check-in baggage ... but I made it.

I have my doubts about my entries making it to Grist by email. Everything here in Sierra Leone is difficult. There are only three servers in the entire country, constant power outages, a war-ravaged telephone system, and a current fuel shortage for generators. Maybe it will work. We will see. The best chance is to send at night. The local One Sky staff are constantly battling with email.

Several years ago, I realized I was writing without courage, with a desired outcome instead of straightforward honesty. It is hard to write exactly what I am really thinking. The "Dear Me" forum encourages some straight talk.

So what am I thinking? Honestly? What would I really write in a "Dear Me" entry after four days of travel and a full day of meetings? I think today I would write about being sick of this business, tired of being an executive director, and fed up with this world of crazy human beings on what seems like a doomed planet.

It has to do with the size of the problem. The issues here are so serious, but it's the small issues, particularly internal organizational issues, that seem to wear me out. It seems we are fighting a huge battle against time, which is particularly acute here in Africa, where one can add war, extreme poverty, and health issues to the growing list of things to deal with. I am convinced this is an apocalyptic mentality of the environmental movement that grew out of the anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s. It does not need the additional burden of complicated group dynamics. We have enough worst-case, end-of-the-world scenarios such as climate change and species loss and pollution to keep us busy.

I sometimes wonder if I am stuck in a fearful psychological rut since I often seem so convinced that our species is whupped. There are so few people working on environmental protection. I think there is a misconception that there are a lot of environmentalists solving the world's problems. Not here. Most people are just trying to solve the problem of how to survive the week. In fact, it seems like we North American environmentalists live in a restricted world with its assumed vocabulary that is so foreign to the rest of the world's reality. It feels like the rest of the world could use a lot more help while every second thing I read in Canada has the phrase sustainable development in it. I know part of this personal feeling is that despite our successes, the setbacks seem to keep mounting.

We have been working here for three years and we just had a staff review of our work to date. Opinions are mixed with some people thinking we are getting somewhere, others willing to throw in the towel and move on to something else, some patient with current standards, others wanting to raise the bar. Many of the issues are common to organizational health. Many of the opinions change by the hour. Power dynamics, communication issues, lack of policies on this or that are all accentuated by working in a difficult country where everything seems to take more time and more effort.

Just sending this email might take me an hour or so. First of all, there is a fuel shortage, so a lot of people have turned their generators off. They have generators because the power system rarely works. This house has no telephone line, so I need to go to the Friends of the Earth Sierra Leone office where hopefully the phone line will actually work. Hopefully the server will be functioning. Luckily we installed a solar photovoltaic system so we can power the computer systems with backup electricity that does not rely on fuel. All this to "fire off" an email that you can only send from the capital city.

At the end of the day these are only small challenges, logistics of working in the developing world. What pulls down my day are the exponential personal issues that seem to mount up in any group dynamic. I know this is common to so many people who work on social justice and the environment. We seem to be able to conjure up "issues" no matter how well things are going.

My thought for anyone working in this movement is to keep cheering people on despite all the so-called issues. The situation might be pretty desperate and we might need a lot more people, but we have such good people that maybe things will work out. It is what I think most about working with people here. They work under incredible pressure and deserve kudos at every opportunity. What is an accomplishment in Canada is a superhuman effort here.

Funny how I can start out this email a mite discouraged by the world and our predicament and then end up feeling good about the people I work with on a planet not quite devoid of hope. Dedicated social activists and environmentalists are like that for me -- they seem infectiously optimistic. It makes my earlier discouraging pause of doubt seem like a luxury none of us can afford. Maybe I should write "Dear Me" entries more often.