Response to Rockefeller Foundation

After watching the interview about the Rockefeller Foundation, I think their goals are far too large. The terms they continually threw around--sustainability & resilience—are so vague and huge that it was difficult to comprehend what the panelists were discussing. I don’t question the value of building more sustainable systems to combat future climate change, but I question how they wish to go about this. The entire interview lacked details on what exactly they want to do. Half the time was spent locked into comparing sustainability in the U.S. to that of developing countries. While they made interesting points (‘how do we protect our comfort?’ versus ‘how do we survive?’), the whole thing still wasn’t feasible to me.

This systems-based philanthropy is right up Bill Gates’ alley, but there’s a clear difference between the two. Listening to Bill Gates invigorated me. I felt there was something real, something focused and tangible, about the Gates Foundation. The Rockefeller speakers discussed big concepts and plans: short term focuses on security, economic, and environmental issues by business that cause long-term repercussions, a need to be more proactive in preventing future weather issues, humanizing these big concepts, etc. They spoke in terms of building systems (like Gates), but lacked the human element that made their work real. Their case statement hardly exists—the viewer is left wondering what they’ve been asked to support. There were too many factors with too little detail to really wrap your head around what the Rockefeller Foundation sets out to accomplish.