Change takes time, persistence, commitment, care, collective action. How does this fit with academic pressures to produce journal publication after journal publication and busy teaching commitments?
If you're into social and environmental change, there's a tension, a challenge with coming at change from an academic perspective where your contributions to wider society and the environment might not be valued. For me, the reward, is a feeling - not money, not promotion - but a sense that day-by-day a different world is crafted when our work is shaped by outside influences and we are ourselves open to change.