About
The Origin Story
A few months ago a friend asked Andrew, “you know what the climate movement is missing? A song.” He had recently asked a historian for a moment when a society had decided to act against their perceived immediate interests for the long-term good, and was given the book Bury The Chains about England's 17-1800's anti-slavery movement. Apparently, the book focused on the driving power of culture in the movement, especially the song Amazing Grace. Written by a slave trader who repented in the waters of a shipwreck and vowed to God to commit his life to abolition, it was such an emotionally compelling, constructive vision of a better world than short-sighted interests that we still sing it. My friend continued, “The climate movement has been brilliant on data and science, but where is the great anthem, or visual art, or story which captures our broader public emotions enough to shift the culture? Where is a massive Christo installation along highway 90 showing the future coast of Louisiana if we don’t take action now? Or maybe it needs to come from children; what if we had a songwriting contest in schools across the state, or across the country, hell, across the world?” I gathered a number of experts in climate and the arts, who together researched and brainstormed the ideas that we present here.
Andrew Doss
Andrew was in his first law school class when the levees broke and flooded his hometown of New Orleans with the 2005 Katrina flooding disaster. Since then, he has served at various levels of government and non-profit organizations to connect local communities with global systems to prevent, respond to, and recover from catastrophe. An internationalist focused on equity and the intersection of culture and governance, he brings people together to problem-solve the most complex challenges of our time.
Andrew is an award-winning attorney and writer, and brings an interdisciplinary perspective to systems innovation. He holds graduate degrees in American law (J.D., Georgetown University Law Center), public international law (LLM, Leiden University), and ritual & theology (M.Div., Yale University, where he taught “International Challenges of the 21st Century” in the Political Science Department). He has served as a criminal prosecutor, policy advisor for the Mayor of New Orleans and Governor of Louisiana, and Director of the Resilient Louisiana Commission to guide the economy through the first year of COVID-19. He has worked extensively in the nonprofit sector, especially focused on long-term, inclusive economic planning. He has lived four years outside of the US in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Colombia. Along with serving as a part-time hospital chaplain, Andrew is a playwright, liturgist, and Mardi Gras enthusiast.