Book launch day has come and gone, and with lots of help from all of you, Sustainable Content became an Amazon #1 bestseller. I am stunned and humbled. Thank you for your support.

Also, I highly recommend writing a book if you want to reconnect with people you've lost touch with. It was great to hear from everyone.

Most of the launch-adjacent conversations came around to the same basic theme: Given the future of the U.S. government and the expected rollback of a variety of regulations, what happens now?

Short answer: I don't know.

Longer answer: Speculation is rampant. We are deep in the speculation phase of everything right now — economy, climate, education, health — and we won't have actual answers until things unfold. We've seen from the election that punditry is often questionable, at best. Frankly, we don't know the full scope of what we're facing.

We do know that the proposed head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to "roll back regulations" that limit businesses, and that he's an advocate for fossil fuels. We know that the new administration has said that they plan to expand their previous plans to increase domestic production of oil and gas, and withdraw as-yet-unspent funds from the Inflation Reduction Act.

But what will that look like in terms of ripple effects, both small and large? I don't know. We don't yet know if these directional changes will slow, stop, or reverse existing momentum for sustainable business. It's going to take time to understand the impacts.

I'm trying not to focus on things that are beyond my control. As I've said before, I'm going to use my leverage at work to influence what I can. I can design and develop content that is simultaneously lighter-weight (sustainable) and faster to download (accessible). It makes more of a difference than any changes that I can make in my personal life. And I will continue spreading the word on that to make as much difference as I can.

As for the rest... time will tell.

"We will not give up. We will not roll over. And we will remain fearless in advocating for science, dreams of a better future, and the heroes changing the world," says Jonathan Foley, PhD, executive director of Project Drawdown.

​Washington state voters upheld a landmark climate bill. "In 2023, the first year the law was fully in effect, the state of Washington repurposed $2.2 billion from its heaviest polluters toward investments in public health and its energy transition—10 times as much per capita as California’s similar climate law."

Developing nations need a shocking $1 billion per day to keep pace with the impacts of extreme weather. They're getting closer to $75 million per day. A report from the U.N. says that climate finance needs to step up to meet the demand for funding climate adaptation efforts.

"The unfettered growth of data-driven technologies and AI is harming already marginalized communities.... Because it’s difficult for people to contest these harms, the ongoing use of these systems — by the government, employers, landlords, and other entities — is worsening the imbalance of power in society."

Right-to-repair advocates believe that the ability to fix your stuff is a bipartisan issue that will still continue under the new administration. We can hope that it will become easier to replace your phone's battery rather than replacing the whole phone.

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Consulting

​Reduce your Scope 3 emissions​

Alisa Bonsignore

Founder, Strategist, and Author