Aurora Sustainability Group

08/01/2026

Why are we all emotionally undone by monks who are… just walking?

Yes—there’s also Aloka, a rescued dog. Obviously. 🐾

Right now, Buddhist monks are walking 2,300 miles from Texas to Washington, D.C..

No protest signs.
No shouting.
No outrage.
No hot takes.

Just… walking.
For peace.

And yet—

People are lining the streets.
Tracking them online.
Crying in public.
Re-evaluating their lives mid-afternoon.

So what’s actually happening here?

Here’s the truth: We are
overstimulated,
overworked,
over-argued,
over-informed,
and profoundly under-rested.

And suddenly…
calm feels erotic.

Science backs this up, by the way.

Humans regulate better with:

simplicity

compassion

mindfulness

fewer notifications

Turns out your nervous system hates the news cycle.

And yes—when the rescue dog joined the pilgrimage, the attention doubled.
Aloka became the emotional support icon we didn’t know we needed.

Because this walk isn’t loud.
It isn’t clever.
It isn’t trying to convince you of anything.

It’s just embodied peace moving through a noisy world.

And your body recognizes that before your mind can explain it.

So maybe peace isn’t something we wait for.
Maybe it’s something we walk toward—
in small, unglamorous, everyday ways.

Peace can look like:
pausing before reacting
walking without your phone
choosing kindness over being right
breathing instead of spiraling
letting “simple” be enough

No robe required.

I always say this: You don’t wait for joy.
You place yourself on the path to it.

And yes—peace, pleasure, and prosperity are allowed to coexist.

And this is why the monks’ walk matters.

Not because it fixes the world overnight,
but because it regulates it.

Their steady steps slow people down.

Their silence gives permission to exhale.

Their presence reminds us—without preaching—that peace is a practice, not a performance.

For a moment, people feel safer in their own bodies.

Less alone in their overwhelm.

More willing to choose gentleness over urgency.

That’s the real impact.

They aren’t marching at anyone.

They’re walking with us—
showing, not telling, what calm looks like in motion.
You don’t wait for joy.

You place yourself on the path to it.
And yes—
peace, pleasure, and prosperity are allowed to coexist.

06/03/2025

💚Open your heart to the LAND OF ITALY.
Sign the Petition to save Italy and Tuscany from Speculation and send it to your friends and family 👇
openpetition.eu/!qwtrq

💚In Tuscany, and in many other Italian regions without specific legislation on areas suitable for renewable energy plants, an alarming phenomenon is emerging that requires immediate action. Companies specializing in mega-industrial plants are literally inundating the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security (MASE) with an unprecedented wave of requests for authorization. We are witnessing an incredible 220% increase in applications in just a few months, an extremely short period that leaves municipalities and communities in a position of extreme vulnerability.

💚This situation, paradoxically facilitated by a recent bureaucratic simplification, is opening the doors to potential large-scale speculation, seriously endangering our invaluable heritage of territory and culture. It is unacceptable that while Italian citizens must undergo rigorous checks even for simple financial transactions, these companies seem to enjoy preferential treatment, with no apparent anti-mafia checks or requests for sureties in the presentation of projects.

💚The Tuscany Region, together with all the other regions of Italy, is now facing a crucial crossroads that will determine the future of our beloved landscape. On the one hand, we have the opportunity to pass highly protective regional laws, based on the kilowatts actually needed per area, thus safeguarding our invaluable lands. On the other hand, the real risk is that the Tuscany Region will give in to speculative pressure, granting vast territories to indiscriminate industrialization, based on a metric of kilowatts per hectare that does not take into account the intrinsic value of our territory.

💚It is vital that future legislation clearly distinguishes between the necessary plants to be built exclusively on degraded or already industrialized lands and those that could threaten our precious natural, agricultural or mountain areas. Without adequate and timely regulation, the risk of irreversibly compromising the identity and integrity of the Italian territory is not only real, but imminent and potentially devastating.

💚"The TESS Coalition launches an urgent appeal to the Tuscany Region: "It is imperative that the regional law under discussion protects our countryside and mountains, symbols of Italy in the world. We cannot allow 'Mega-Renewable Energy Plants' to expose our territories to industrial colonization. Acting now is crucial to prevent irreparable damage to our extraordinary Tuscan ecosystem. Preserving our identity and our future is an essential necessity for future generations."

💚SIGN PLEASE! LET'S HELP PINOCCHIO REDEEM HIMSELF.

💚VISIT https://www.coalizionetess.com to know more 🙏

💚Apri il cuore alla TERRA D’ITALIA. Firma la Petizione per salvare l’Italia e la Toscana dalle Speculazioni ed inviala ai tuoi amici e familiari 👇

Ricordiamoci di confermare la mail sennò la firma non viene registrata
🌈🙏🐞

https://www.openpetition.eu/it/petition/online/sventiamo-gli-inganni-nel-disegno-di-legge-della-toscana-sulle-rinnovabili

💚In Toscana, e in molte altre regioni italiane prive di una legislazione specifica sulle aree idonee agli impianti di energia rinnovabile, si sta manifestando un fenomeno allarmante che richiede un'azione immediata. Le società specializzate in mega-impianti industriali stanno letteralmente sommergendo il Ministero dell'Ambiente e della Sicurezza Energetica (MASE) con un'ondata senza precedenti di richieste di autorizzazione. Stiamo assistendo a un incredibile aumento del 220% delle domande in soli pochi mesi, un periodo estremamente breve che lascia comuni e comunità in una posizione di estrema vulnerabilità.

💚Questa situazione, paradossalmente agevolata da una recente semplificazione burocratica, sta spalancando le porte a potenziali speculazioni su vasta scala, mettendo a serio rischio il nostro inestimabile patrimonio di territorio e cultura. È inaccettabile che mentre i cittadini italiani devono sottoporsi a rigorosi controlli anche per semplici transazioni finanziarie, queste aziende sembrano godere di un trattamento preferenziale, senza apparenti verifiche antimafia o richieste di fideiussioni nella presentazione dei progetti.

💚La Regione Toscana, insieme a tutte le altre regioni d'Italia, si trova ora di fronte a un bivio cruciale che determinerà il futuro del nostro amato paesaggio. Da un lato, abbiamo l'opportunità di varare leggi regionali fortemente protettive, basate sui kilowatt effettivamente necessari per area, salvaguardando così le nostre terre di inestimabile valore. Dall'altro, il rischio concreto è che la Regione Toscana ceda alla pressione speculativa, concedendo vasti territori all'industrializzazione indiscriminata, basandosi su una metrica di kilowatt per ettaro che non tiene conto del valore intrinseco del nostro territorio.

💚È di vitale importanza che la futura legislazione distingua chiaramente tra i necessari impianti da costruire esclusivamente su terreni degradati o già industrializzati e quelli che potrebbero minacciare le nostre preziose zone naturali, agricole o montane. Senza una regolamentazione adeguata e tempestiva, il rischio di compromettere irreversibilmente l'identità e l'integrità del territorio italiano non è solo concreto, ma imminente e potenzialmente devastante.

💚"La Coalizione TESS lancia un appello urgente alla Regione Toscana: "È imperativo che la legge regionale in discussione protegga le nostre campagne e montagne, simboli dell'Italia nel mondo. Non possiamo permettere che 'Mega-Impianti delle Rinnovabili' espongano i nostri territori a una colonizzazione industriale. Agire ora è cruciale per prevenire danni irreparabili al nostro straordinario ecosistema toscano. Preservare la nostra identità e il nostro futuro è una necessità imprescindibile per le generazioni future."

💚FIRMA ANCHE TU! AIUTIAMO PINOCCHIO A REDIMERSI.
Visita: https://www.coalizionetess.com

22/04/2022

We can do it! We can wake up.
In 2014, Lovelock wrote A Rough Ride to the Future suggesting that efforts to reduce carbon emissions were failing, that political solutions appeared impossible, and that “sustainable retreat” or “adaption” to a changing world would be necessary.
Lovelock struggled as much as any of us to arrive at a prescription for shifting industrial, consumer society toward an ecological society. Nevertheless, Gaia reframed the popular picture of Earth, as a single, living system, and helped launch the modern ecology movement.

Thank you James Lovelock, Gregory Bateson and Howard Odum for being the forebears of the path unfolding before our eyes 🌏🌎🌍

08/03/2022

Delighted to work with the Asia Scotland Institute at young female leadership poignant initiative.

Well, women day always makes me a bit sad. I’m almost half a century and never seen what female leadership acknowledgment and progress could look like, in my lifetime.
I’m not being pessimistic, I’m afraid. I wish I was. It’s just reality check.

Women leaders, most of the time, we just goofy mock male role models, competitive and driven. Other women I know, wanting to be mothers, they need to sacrifice so much, in order to pursue their dreams of contributing to society with their talents.

It’s time to rewrite this story, with the help of the male gender. I surely inherited the progress winnings of many powerful women before me… and I have also seen many of these achievements, somehow being eroded and undermined over time.

I am extremely grateful for those female forebearers.
Although, we still need unique female leadership roles to appreciate each female individuality, to shape the new regenerative world. Let’s navigate this uncharted territory towards the warm, cooperating and caring female leadership, that respect sovereignty, diversity and individuality.

We need it more than ever.
Please, let us know if you resonate with this bandwidth.

06/01/2022

Who is Ed Sheeran's sustainability advisor? They cleary have not read the writing on the wall about the value of tree planting as a carbon reductions priority. Reforesting is, obviously, awesome and we need lots of it. Ed, however, needs to find ways to reduce the pollution he emits and then plant his trees to "mop up" the last 5% on his road to a post-carbon world. If anyone knows Ed...we'de be happy to run some training and awareness sessions for him and his staff and come up with a list of other cool things he could fund. We call it "unsustainability offsetting". He seems like a nice young man. Maybe He'd be up for it.

‘My job is not a hugely sustainable job as I go and play in cities, but I am trying my best’

22/11/2021

An excellent interview with Jonathan Porritt, one of the best known sustainability practitioners in the whole game. Very sobering. When asked, at the end, what gives him hope, he laughs. Then he does deliver a couple of positive end notes.
https://www.thefuturescentre.org/the-changing-role-of-business-and-governments-and-the-powerhouse-that-is-youth-reflections-from-jonathon-porritt/

15/11/2021

As the disappointment of COP26 deciding against saving the planet sinks in, we have a new favourite phrase.

"Upward-scaling tipping cascades to meet climate goals."

It makes perfects sense.

10/11/2021

And the truth is...

In a withering condemnation of developed nations’ claims to be making headway against the climate crisis, scientists say the United Nations climate conference, COP 26, has “a massive credibility, action, and commitment gap,” after a week of promises and declarations left the world heading to a...

09/11/2021

Share the light. It will only get bigger. Today at She Changes Climate event at COP26 UN Climate Change Conference.

This is what it looks like when female leaders are stepping into their power, to protect the ‘ultimate mother’: our Earth.

Today, ‘she changes climate’ made female-waves rippling out to the Green and Blue Zone in Glasgow.

We heard that amongst the COP26 - UN Climate Change Conference selected climate champions only 2 over 10 are women.
At this most excluding COP26, the overall female presence amongst the delegates is only 1 woman every 6 man.

Yesterday, I was sitting in a round table with 15 men, talking about the Mother Ganga rejuvenation.
I was almost in tears ‘If the Ganga is a mother, why don’t we call mothers and young female leaders on the ground to rejuvenate it?’

To put the women’s equality into money talk: the women equality is not just community, nurturing and enlightening of the Earth and the human condition… but also revenue making.

Every 10% increase in gender diversity, earnings before interest and taxes rose by a glaring 3.5%. From this data, we can uncover that women leaders have a key measurable impact on an organisation’s bottom line.

When women become leaders, they provide a different set of skills, imaginative perspectives, and, importantly, structural and cultural differences that drive effective solutions. In bringing a creative standpoint, a new sense of awareness will also follow to unplug the finer details that may go unmissed from the naked eye.

I’m so gutted I couldn’t stay all day.
Great panel discussions from 8 in the morning with:
Emma Howard Boyd CBE, Chair UK Environment Agency (Chair)
Bianca Pitt, SHE Changes Climate
Esmeralda of Belgium, Journalist and activist
Jessica Sweidan, Synchronicity Earth
Julia Jackson, Grounded
Lana Weidgenant, This is Zero Hour
Adele Jones, Sustainable Food Trust (facilitator)
Arizona Muse, Foundation for the Regeneration of Earth
Adenike Oladosu, Fridays for Future, Nigeria
Bruce Lascelles Arcadis and President of the British Society of Soil Science
Rhian Sherrington (she/her) Successful Transitions Coach, Women in Sustainability (facilitator)
Julia Davies, We have the power
Chante Harris, Second Muse
Stephen Betts WIBF
Justin Winters One Earth, Daughters of the Earth
Carey Bohjanen, The Rallying Cry
Georgia Elliott-Smith, Element4 (facilitator)
Marinel Ubaldo, RSW, UN Filipino youth activist
Natalie Bennett Green Party Life Peer
Osprey Orielle Lake, WECAN
Farhana Yamin, Activist
Malini Mehra, Climate campaigner
Nachilala Nkombo, WWF Zambia





Bianca Pitt Antoinette Vermilye (she/her)

01/11/2021

We have arrived at COP26. Twenty six years ago, I attended the COP1 Counter Conference as part of a delegation from Glasgow. Tomorrow we deliver a contribution to the work being done around Net Zero. About time, don't you agree? After 26 years of meetings, it's about time the people with the political and economic power delivered.