By: Catherine Saar

Many of you know the name Seth Godin, the prolific writer, speaker, and thinker. It is impressive and inspiring to witness how he is leveraging the power of a volunteer network to create change in the world. Most of us acknowledge that climate change is having a global impact that could span generations. Perhaps you are a climate activist, or maybe you have found other means to work toward a solution. Even so, perhaps there are days when you feel so overwhelmed by the daunting task at hand, that the best you can offer is worry. What more can we do?

Godin is demonstrating how the power of collaboration can be harnessed for change; enabling all of us to accomplish something extraordinary in the face of overwhelming challenge. Using his platform, he has attracted a bounty of volunteer contributors worldwide, self-organizing to tell the story of climate change in a publication called The Carbon Almanac (due out in June), focuses on what is known, what has come before, and what might happen next. Godin describes his vision and purpose for this project like this: “Our planet is in trouble, and no one concerned group, corporation, country, or hemisphere can address this on its own. Self-interest only increases the problem. We are in this together. And it’s not too late for concerted, collective action for change.”

This once-in-a-lifetime collaboration between hundreds of writers, researchers, thinkers, and illustrators is already number one on Amazon and available for preorder.

A few Integrated Work team members are volunteer contributors to the creation of the Almanac. Here’s what they say about how the experience has impacted them so far:

According to Kate Shervais, “One of the things that is most valuable is seeing how people learn in real-time to collaborate without knowing much about each other, coming from different countries, cultures, and work backgrounds. Most work is coordinated asynchronously via notion and discourse, and provides a live case study on meaningful, aligned, streamlined collaboration.”

The thing that teammate Dianne Dickerson finds most energizing about the project is seeing the contributions from people all over the world and watching them evolve into a book in just a few months. Dianne also finds the Almanac tagline “It’s not too late” to be “super-inspiring.”

We hope you are inspired as well. Collaboration on a grand scale can be a productive way to move toward collective impact, even on the most difficult challenges we face.

Drawing on over 1,000 data points, the book uses cartoons, quotes, illustrations, tables, histories, and articles to lay out carbon’s impact on our food system, ocean acidity, agriculture, energy, biodiversity, extreme weather events, the economy, human health, and best and worst-case scenarios. Visually engaging and built to share, The Carbon Almanac is the definitive source for facts and the basis for a global movement to fight climate change.

You can read more about it here and find the pre-order link on Amazon.