Translator: Rhonda Jacobs Reviewer: Ellen Maloney
I am a plant invasion ecologist,
which means that I study the interaction between organisms and their environment
in the context of the removal of those species
that cause harm by their spread.
In other words, I study weeds.
Not weed, I know - Colorado.
(Laughter)
But no, I study invasive, noxious species.
But by studying these over the last 25 years,
I have learned principles that apply to human systems as well,
in the areas of leadership, political action, and even human health.
The species that has taught me so much is tamarix,
a Eurasian shrubby tree
that grows in miles-long thickets along our rivers here in the west
that elevate wildfire risk, and they poison the soil with salt,
and they lower ground-water levels, and generally create conditions
that are inhospitable to the plants and animals
that we historically associate with our western rivers.
So it's no surprise that western governments
have spent millions of dollars removing tamarix from our waterways.
But, in more cases than we would like,
nothing gets better.
In fact, sometimes we have new problems of even more water loss or evaporation,
and even less habitat for animals.
But why would this be?
The answer to this paradox can be found in part in the research that I've done
on the competitive ability of invasive tamarix when it's just a seedling.
As it turns out, to everybody's surprise, it is a terrible competitor,
meaning that it can't just waft in as a seed,
germinate, and then push everybody else out.
It actually needs there to be space there already, an empty niche.
It needs, more often than not,
for there to be a damage to that ecosystem already that has allowed it to spread.
When the ecosystem is doing well,
there's simply no room for this one species to cause havoc.
So the answer to our damaged ecosystems along rivers here in the west
has to do less with just identifying and removing this one noxious species,
and more to do with addressing overall ecosystem health.
Now, as it turns out, that's a principle
that has applied to my life in profound ways.
I'm going to tell you three stories.
The first has to do with the reason why I moved to Colorado in the first place.
It was to accept a position as the director of research
at Denver Botanic Gardens,
and like any new manager, I made a lot of mistakes,
including that when my team had problems with morale and productivity,
I identified the employee that was under-performing,
and when I couldn't get her to change her behavior,
I did what any good invasive species biologist would do,
and I weeded her out.
(Laughter)
But, to my dismay and surprise, nothing got better.
In fact, I now had this new problem that my staff were terrified of me.
The similarity between that situation and tamarix
caused me to take a hard and humble look
at whether my departmental ecosystem maybe had been damaged already.
And it was; I had stepped into this hierarchical situation
that I had made worse by being inaccessible and being opaque.
Fortunately, things that I could and did address.
Because I had a disproportionate capacity to affect that ecosystem,
that was the department, one could say that I was the keystone species,
not unlike the wolves in Yellowstone National Park
that have impacts on the entire ecosystem,
simply by their presence or absence.
But as it turns out, one does not have to be the keystone species
to have an impact on your ecosystem.
Because if you're being affected,
it means, by definition, you are a part of that ecosystem,
and therefore have the power to affect it.
I learned this principle in the context of my second story,
which has to do with political action.
See, when I was first hired here in Colorado,
I could've been fired just for being gay,
and unfortunately there are dozens of states where that's still true.
But fortunately, not only did that not happen,
but my employer offered my partner health care benefits, which was awesome,
except that because our relationship had no legal status,
I had to pay taxes on that benefit, as if it were additional income.
And it turned out there were myriads of other financial, plus legal,
and even emotional issues associated with not being able to legally marry.
In a situation like that, it is so tempting
to just focus on whomever or whatever you perceive to be the weed.
In our case, we perceived the weed to be the political leaders and the voters
who believed that we weren't entitled to equal treatment under the law.
But if we had just done that, nothing would've gotten better.
Instead, we joined the hundreds of thousands of other people
who bravely came out of the closet.
We joined others in testifying at the Capitol Building,
and made ourselves available to the media.
You know what happened?
That's us!
(Applause)
(Cheers)
All of us little non-keystone nobodies in the political ecosystem
facilitated a change in public opinion that this country has never seen before!
It's not unlike the effect that all the different, little kinds of bees have
by pollinating the flowers,
which allows them to make fruit, which allows them to spread the seed,
which has impact, not only on all of those plants,
but on every organism that interacts with those plants.
The answer wasn't in silencing our opponents;
the answer was in creating and supporting
a mutually respectful and understanding political ecosystem.
But,
even when you are the keystone species,
it can be difficult to still appreciate the power that you hold.
And I learned this in the context of being a victim of stalking.
For five years, a former student who believed that I had tried to kill him
did everything in his power to ruin me.
An experience that was isolating,
terrifying,
and shaming.
And yet, even after he was weeded out of my life,
when the district attorney's office got involved last year
and pressed formal charges, he was arrested, and stopped stalking me,
nothing got better.
I was still depressed.
And yet, I resisted my ecosystem analogy,
until I realized that the ecosystem in which I was experiencing the pain
was my own emotional ecosystem,
within which, I am the ultimate keystone species.
It is never the victim's fault,
but that doesn't mean that we aren't without real power.
In my case, that meant working with excellent therapists and my rabbi
to identify the ways in which my emotional ecosystem had long been damaged.
And once we had healed the parts of me that felt like I didn't deserve success,
that I was somehow broken and deserving of punishment,
I was able to create a lush, resilient emotional ecosystem,
like a forest so filled with trees and flowers
that there is no room for invasion.
If you are affected,
then by definition, you have the power to affect,
not so much by weeding out the bad,
but by supporting and cultivating the good.
Thank you.
(Applause)