When you spend over a decade combining military logistics training with small business development, you develop an eye for how systems really work. More importantly, you learn to recognize when systems are being intentionally manipulated. My journey from Army psyops specialist to community-focused entrepreneur taught me to spot patterns in how information and resources flow – or don’t flow – through organizations.
By 2014, I’d spent years applying coalition-building strategies to local business development, learning how to navigate bureaucracies and build community support networks. I thought I understood how our systems worked. Then I read an article that changed everything: our mayor was publicly wondering why we couldn’t get a grocery store in downtown Reno.
For someone with my background in both military logistics and retail operations, this wasn’t just a curious question – it was a red flag. The “why” was obvious to anyone who understood basic market dynamics. The real question was: why were our institutional leaders pretending not to know the answer?
Like many entrepreneurs facing a clear market failure, I assumed the solution was simple: start a nonprofit, present the obvious fixes, and help implement them. My military and business background had taught me to solve problems directly. Surely that experience would translate into the nonprofit world, where everyone was supposedly working toward the same community-serving goals.
What I discovered instead would fundamentally change my understanding of how institutional power maintains itself.
What followed was years of increasingly bewildering encounters with what I now recognize as institutional narrative management. Each time I presented a workable solution – whether it was a system for rescuing excess produce from private property or a proven model for sustainable grocery stores in underserved areas – I hit walls that made no logical sense. But these weren’t just bureaucratic barriers. They were carefully managed checkpoints designed to filter out actual solutions while maintaining the appearance of progress.
It took me far too long to recognize the pattern, even with my background in influence operations. That’s the insidious genius of the system – it operates through trusted institutions and respected community leaders. Every rejection came with perfectly reasonable-sounding explanations. Every roadblock appeared to be just another unfortunate circumstance.
The most chilling aspect of this system isn’t the direct opposition – it’s what happens to those who persist after the initial barriers fail. I’ve watched colleagues transformed from respected community members into pariahs for simply continuing to advocate for proven solutions. The pattern is as sophisticated as it is effective:
First comes the quiet warning, often delivered with seemingly genuine concern: “This might not be the best use of your energy.” Then, if you persist, subtle rumors begin circulating. Your credibility gets questioned in closed-door meetings. Former allies start avoiding association. Eventually, you find yourself effectively quarantined – your ideas dismissed not on their merits, but because you’ve been branded as “difficult” or “uncooperative.”
I’ve watched carefully crafted smear campaigns follow me across state lines and sectors. What started as local opposition to a food rescue initiative in Nevada somehow morphed into whispered warnings among Colorado farmers years later – a coordination that reveals the true sophistication of these suppression systems.
Like a mycelial network operating in reverse, these control systems don’t distribute nutrients – they spread information-suppressing toxins specifically designed for each host community. Climate activists get pushed toward endless policy battles and street protests, because that keeps them safely away from practical implementation. Urban planners focus on vehicle emissions while massive methane-generating food waste – a larger opportunity for climate impact than the entire airline industry – gets ignored through carefully managed blind spots.
But it’s in the smear campaigns where you see the true craftwork of narrative manipulation. Each attack is precision-engineered for its audience:
– To nonprofits, I’m secretly plotting to undermine the food bank system
– To farmers, I’m an untrustworthy businessman with a sketchy past
– To academics, I’m an untrained outsider pushing unproven solutions
– To policy makers, I’m a disruptive force threatening established programs
The tailoring of these narratives reveals their coordinated nature. Each plays on the specific fears and priorities of its target audience, creating just enough doubt to prevent meaningful collaboration. It’s like watching a masterclass in psychological operations – except it’s being deployed against anyone trying to create actual change.
Scientists might recognize this pattern. How many carefully researched solutions have disappeared into institutional black holes? How many obvious implementations have been redirected into endless studies and committees? How many clear findings have been filtered through layers of “trusted partners” until they lose all practical impact?
So here’s my message to climate scientists wrestling with questions of activism and neutrality: You’re already activists. Your data is already being used. The only question is whether you’ll let it continue being weaponized through “trusted partners” or start building direct implementation pathways.
Your research isn’t sitting quietly on shelves – it’s being actively filtered, reframed, and used to maintain the very systems you’re trying to change. That professional distance you’ve been convinced to maintain? It’s not protecting your objectivity – it’s ensuring you can’t interfere while others manipulate your findings.
The system isn’t broken. It’s not failing to implement solutions. It’s working exactly as designed – to create the appearance of action while preventing actual change. And it’s counting on your professional identity, your commitment to “neutrality,” to keep you from recognizing your role in this machinery.
Like a regenerative farmer understanding that soil health requires breaking up hardpan to allow proper nutrient flow, we need to break through these artificial barriers that prevent your research from creating real impact. The regenerative community isn’t working in a vacuum – they’re trying to implement the very solutions your research validates. But the same system that filters your findings is blocking their efforts.
You don’t have to choose between being a scientist and fighting for change. But you do have to choose between watching your work being used to maintain the status quo or helping ensure it creates actual impact.
The patterns are clear. The coordination is obvious. The window for effective climate action is closing. We can’t afford to let institutional gatekeepers continue filtering away our solutions.
The only question remaining is: Now that you can see it, what are you going to do about it?
