Your vote on the future of The Phoenix

July 01, 2022

Hi everyone,

We're coming up on the two-year anniversary of The Phoenix, and I am finally realizing that there's more work to do in this community than I can reliably do alone.

Unfortunately, that's meant burnout, long gaps in publishing, and not being able to do everything I've wanted to with the urgency and attention it deserves.

In the meantime, I've also been working full-time building Currently Weather Service, a growing network of weather and climate newsletters with a mandate for revolutionary change. Currently's advisors think both organizations — The Phoenix and Currently — would benefit if they joined forces.

There's more information in the form below, where I'm asking each of you to vote on the future of The Phoenix:

I'm going to remove myself completely from this decision, as much as I possibly can at least, and trust y'all to decide how you want your community to move forward. I'll also be available on email for any questions you might have.

In my very first post for The Phoenix in October 2020, I wrote these words:

After centuries of systemic racism and colonialism and extractive capitalism, our world is at a turning point. We have not done this to ourselves, we have been driven here by the actions of the greediest men who have ever lived, dropped here with a burning planet and a warped psyche longing for a world that no longer exists. What we need isn’t more stories about apocalypse; what we need is justice.

The old world isn’t coming back, and if we’re going to build a better world that works for everyone, WE are the ones who are going to have to do that work, together. We were born at exactly the right time to change everything.

After the recent Supreme Court decisions, it feels like I could have written those words today. There has never been a better time to stop doomscrolling and get to work, but how?

That's what The Phoenix is all about: crowdsourcing revolutionary change at the most important moment in history.

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey.

Eric