Inspiring Insight

As multidisciplinary practitioners, we know that sometimes, the greatest inspiration can come from a perspective that differs from our own. In this case, we turn to a glaciologist, an Emmy Award-nominee, a grassroots activist, a conservation psychologist, a figure skater-turned-influencer, and the leader of the world’s leading resource for climate solutions. On the surface, you may not think they have that much in common, but each, in their own way, is actively addressing the intertwining issues of climate change, biodiversity loss, and human health and well-being. Here, and on the Rhizome blog, they not only offer us inspiring insight and encouragement; they also share compelling counter-narratives to the doom-dominated spaces on news outlets and within our own minds.

Do you have any words of encouragement to share with Leaf Litter readers?

It has never been a more important time to be good at what they do. The combination of craft and science that is in this community is tremendous and has never been more valuable. I hope people are feeling the urgency and the encouragement to keep doing the great work that they’re doing.

While it can be depressing to look at the national or international politics of some of these things, I would encourage people not to get too distracted by that. Yes, it matters, but it only matters so much. What you do matters too. What happens in every town and every city, county, and state around the country and around the world is actually more important than what happens in Washington. Don’t get too distracted by the politicians and media outlets that are trying to distract and divide us. People are making billions of dollars of scaring and polarizing us right now, whether it’s cable news, social media, or our political leaders or activist. They want us to have all of our eyes glued to the TV or our phones, worrying about the Beltway nonsense going on today. We definitely need to pay attention to that but… go for a walk. Go get your hands dirty. Let’s go actually do something in the real world. That’s a good antidote to all the crazy stuff we see on our phones.

When we think of all the levers that change the world, whoever thought that the White House or the U.S. House of Representatives was ever going to save us anyway? If you really ever betted on the UN, the White House, or Congress to save your ass, you were probably being a little foolish to begin with. Even with the best elected leaders, why abdicate that power or responsibility to a bunch of politicians anyway? Even in the best of times, that seems like it is probably not the best bet. But I would bet on our neighbors, our communities, and our tremendously innovative thinkers in this country and beyond, to be the real leaders of the world. That’s what keeps me hopeful. I see a lot of wonderful activity happening out there, and I believe we are making some tremendous progress. Don’t lose sight of that.

Where do you find the hope and courage to keep doing what you do?

Rebecca Solnit wrote a book years ago called Hope in the Dark, and I think it is very relevant today. She is a brilliant writer and thinker, and she reminds us in that book that hope is a verb, not a noun. It isn’t a passive thing that you just have or turn on and off; it’s an act. It’s something you must do.

People with hope aren’t just people with blind optimism. Optimists are people who just believe somehow it’ll magically turn out okay. The invisible hands of the market or technology will take care of it. Hope is your hands, people with dirt under their fingernails. People who get up every day and try to get something done, knowing that they may actually fail, but not giving up. Hope is an act of love, of compassion, of belief in the possibility of a better future. That’s what has changed the world every single time: people acting through love and hope.

Check out our complete interview with Jonathan Foley on Biohabitats’ blog, Rhizome.

Antarctic ice core expeditions sound so exciting but also incredibly challenging. The logistics alone sound overwhelming, and conducting field work in such remote, rugged locations with such unpredictable conditions seems like it could be scary, lonely, and even depressing. Where do you find the hope and the courage to keep doing this work?

A huge challenge of doing polar or Alpine field work is that you have to separate yourself from your normal life. I have a wife, a daughter, and a dog, and it’s very hard to not be there for them during the months that I’m away. But when I’m in the field, my collaborators become my field family, and we have this very intense experience together. I mean, we call it “deploying” to Antarctica. Everybody puts their best foot forward and contributes their entire self to the work. Antarctica is a place of incredible international coordination. On the ship, for example, if there is a medical incident anywhere in that region of the South Pacific Ocean, you, as the best equipped vessel in the region, need to respond. The community and international spirit of Antarctic operations keeps me hopeful that we, as a global society, will eventually get on top of the issue of the continued warming caused by our emissions of greenhouse gases.

It’s really hard to sift through the noise of this crazy world we live in, but I think at the base level we, as humans, are all really trying to do our best. We all want to be lifted up. My work in Antarctica gives me a sense of just how much you can do when you actually put your mind to something and everybody does away with the noise and just steps up.

Learn more about the fascinating field of ice core paleoclimatology by reading our complete interview with Dr. Peter Neff on Biohabitats’ blog, Rhizome.

Are there any new or emerging treatment approaches geared specifically toward overcoming or managing climate anxiety?

It’s very early on in the development of research, but there is some evidence that some of the strategies that are useful for anyone to cope with anxiety are useful here, like monitoring your emotions, recognizing when you’re becoming overwhelmed, and then stepping back from the source of your anxiety. Stop looking at the news, go for a walk, engage in mindful breathing, or do other kinds of de-stressing activities.

More specific to climate anxiety is connecting to other people who feel the same way. We have quite a lot of evidence that social support is important for maintaining mental health. Social connections not only help you feel like you’re not alone; they may help you feel like you have more agency. There is pretty good evidence that getting involved and trying to do something about the problem helps you cope with your climate anxiety and keep it from reaching overwhelming levels. Instead of being a passive victim, you become an active agent. Even if you’re still pessimistic about the outcome, there are positive emotions associated with connecting with other people and acting on your values that can be very validating and help people to feel a sense of meaning and purpose.

Is psychology providing any insight into ways that people can find courage to act?

One of the ways would be to connect with others and form groups. The groups might start as simply a way to share emotions, but then develop a more action-oriented ben, because having other people support you does give courage. We need more messaging about possibilities. Some people talk about the media bias towards doom and gloom. That’s true in many domains. But there are some podcasts, social media platforms, and other forms of communication that are focused on hopeful messages. Whether they are sharing news about a new technology, a new policy being proposed, or something great that one group or individual did, those kinds of messages can inspire courage because they increase the sense of possibility and help people realize that if others are working on this, they can, too.

How about you? Where do you find hope and courage to do the work that you’re doing?

I find hope through my connections with other people in a variety of ways. My involvement in the IPCC was so inspiring because it involved hundreds of people from around the world coming together and putting in a lot of work. It is voluntary, and these people would not be doing that work if they thought there was no point. They’re doing that in the hopes that there can be a message that will have an impact. At the meetings, people weren’t just full of gloom and depression; they were very inspiring.

I think that’s true in other groups of environmental scientists as well, that there’s really inspiration from just recognizing that other people are working on this. Also, particularly when I talk to young activists. I run into a lot of young activists (not so much at rallies; more like panel discussions) and they are putting in a lot of effort. That gives me hope for what can be accomplished.

There’s a third strand, which is kind of almost a negative influence. Sometimes I do feel kind of tempted to say, “Things are too terrible. We’re doomed. I’ll just give up.” But then I think about people who are dealing with other kinds of problems—like poverty and racism. I often hear from people in minoritized groups that they don’t like referring to climate change as this existential crisis, as if it’s new, and everything was fine before climate change. Because everything wasn’t fine, and some places still are in terrible conditions. Women in Afghanistan… people in Ukraine… all kinds of people face really, really difficult problems, and they haven’t given up because they don’t have the luxury of saying, “Oh, this is too much for me.” They keep fighting, so who am I to say, “Oh, no, I can’t deal with the uncertainty and anxiety around climate change?”

What is known about eco-anxiety, and how is the field of psychology advance climate action? Read more in our complete interview with Dr. Clayton on our blog, Rhizome.

Where do you find the hope, courage, and motivation to do what you do?

I find it in a couple of different places. The first is in the people we are constantly meeting, whether they are people we are profiling or people who help us tell the stories. Not to be trite, but it does take a village to make these pieces, and all of the people who collaborate on this work say, “This satisfies me so much.” We buoy each other. Not only do we get to hear their stories, we get to be in the field with them and listen to the sound of an elephant together. That gives you a lot of …  it just fills your well. These people are of all ages, races, and backgrounds.

All over the planet, people are making shit happen.

We have done almost 47 of these stories so far, and we’re already starting to look ahead to season four and planning another dozen. And for each one we put on, there are 10-20 more stories we’ve considered that haven’t yet made it onto the screen. When you start tapping into that, you realize that if you look for it, you find it, and that really buoys you.

The other thing is just the resilience of nature itself. In so many cases, things bounce back: the ecosystems, the species, the individuals, whatever scale you want to measure it on. There’s an incredible resilience in the natural world that, if given a chance, can really resurge. Again and again, and increasingly, we are seeing creative and insightful people finding ways to do what is good for nature that is also good for the community that lives beside and within it. And not seeing a separation between human and natural.

I just came back from shooting an episode in Indonesia, where a young person from Australia met a shark hunter who ran boats harvesting sharks. She went to make a film excoriating him and instead, they became friends. They now have a dozen boats that don’t go hunting sharks anymore but instead take tourists to go swim with the sharks. It’s stories like this where people connect, rethink, and find different kinds of solutions. Ultimately, we’re trying to communicate that these solutions are there. Any one only does so much, but in aggregate they actually are very powerful.

Find someone you want to support or be that person. There are opportunities to… show up… right where you are. There is no limit on what you can do if you want to do something. I do know that in story after story, we are seeing people finding ways to make impact happen where they are or by supporting others where they’re not. I think we can get through this time, and that a very large majority of people—certainly on a planetary basis, but also within the nation—are already on board with all of this. We all live on this one planet.

Learn more about stories of Wild Hope by reading our complete interview with Geoff in Biohabitats’ blog, Rhizome.

Your work may be joyful, but it certainly is not easy. I imagine it can become even harder when elections result in leadership changes. What gives you the hope and determination to continue doing what you’re doing?

The day after the [U.S. presidential] election, as any climate activist would, I was like, “What? Did we just lose? What does this mean?” It’s hard to wrap your head around. It’s going to be a bumpy four years, for sure. But one way I like to think about the climate crisis is that it is this great collective call to action. There’s a way of thinking about all of this thermal energy that’s coming in year to year, as this different age. It’s a solar age, and that brings with it chaos and loss, but also brings with it a call to be connected; a call to be an actor and not a participant; a call to adventure;  a call to reform systems that in many ways have not been working in the first place.

That’s another central theme across the Charleston Climate Coalition: centering equity. We’re being called on to rethink so many of our systems and the deep fault lines of inequity running through so many of them. We have to do this work if we care about our fellow human beings.

Hope is an action. I tell people the greatest climate anxiety salve is knowing you’re doing the most you can, and that actually does really help move things through.

Ecological restoration actually gives me a tremendous amount of hope. I saw a news story about salmon returning to a restored river that was under new stewardship, and I started tearing up. The success stories show us that if we give nature a chance, it really takes it. That feels really empowering.

There’s a part of me that doesn’t need hope, because the climate crisis is not a binary “we fix it; we don’t fix it” thing. It’s the points of degrees of warming that have very dire human consequences. There’s this broad spectrum, and each notch we bring it down is less suffering and loss. We just keep doing the work to notch it down, even if things feel hard, even if it feels like we’ve lost federal ground or things are moving slower than we’d like (which they always are). There’s a Nelson Mandela quote, “it always seems impossible until it’s done.” You just don’t know the future. Anything could happen. Revolutions can happen. Cultural changes can happen. Spiritual movements can happen. Federal shifts can happen. There’s so much that’s unwritten.

What advice do you have for people who may be looking, as you once were, for a local group to join that is taking climate action, but such a group may not exist where they live?

You can start small. In fact, small groups of people acting is how change starts. Don’t worry about matching another organization; worry about having a little group of people who are sharing how they feel, figuring out one action, and then maybe getting involved with another group that’s also interested in that action. It’s all just doing things. You don’t have to know what you’re doing. You’ll swiftly learn by doing. Move from consideration to action and then everything else will flow from there.

Do you have any final words of encouragement for our readers?

I think the folks doing ecological restoration are doing…  literally the most important work on the planet. Many people who are working in this sphere have a science background and are approaching things from that mindset. I have a sort of ecological spirituality that I work with. I feel like the earth has a spirit, and I’m sure that as folks who are in nature, your readers are interfacing with that spirit in their own way. I encourage you to think that you’re in a relationship with the earth, and that the earth is tremendously grateful for the work you’re doing.

Learn more about how the Charleston Climate Coalition is making positive change by reading our complete interview with Belvin on the Rhizome blog.

In all of your sharing of things going right, have you noticed an impact on your own wellbeing and your own drive to do something?

Spending so much time every day learning about and reporting on stories of progress, I am almost bombarded with how many things are going right. For every problem that I know or learn about, I find there are several people working on solutions. People who are smarter than me: scientists, researchers, students, whoever it is that is working on developing or scaling solutions. It’s very inspiring and motivating that there are so many people doing so many good things.

Any words of advice for Leaf Litter readers?

Social media is not inherently good or bad. It really depends on how you use and consume it. Doom scrolling—endlessly scrolling news or social media content that makes you feel sad, and angry, and anxious—is pervasive, and that’s not beneficial to anybody.

The platforms are really great at sucking us in and making us forget what we’re doing. I do this all the time, where I log onto an app to work, to post a video for work, and then 20 minutes later I catch myself scrolling and I just blacked out. All of us do it. There are steps we can take to limit that: get screen time apps; set a timer on our phones; delete apps on the weekends. Beyond that, be conscious and deliberate about the content you’re consuming.

I highly encourage people to break free of the doom scrolling and try hope scrolling instead. Focus on the positive stories and the things that are going right. Amplify the voices of people who are stepping up in their communities and making a difference on a local scale. Engage with content that’s highlighting solutions that we want to bring to the world.

Our actions do have an effect. By engaging with and amplifying content that we want to see, not only will it cater our algorithms to make us see more of it, but it will make other people see it more of it as well. And it will reward the work that these people are doing. That’s what I try and do. I try and find great stories of really inspiring, motivating leaders who are doing something great and make as many people aware of it as possible. I think we all have a little bit of say in that. If we do that, then social media can actually be a great net positive. It can raise money for a nonprofit or gain huge traction behind a petition to avoid drilling in the Arctic.

Never before has someone been able to reach five million people for free by talking for 30 seconds. It’s almost unfathomable how this organic reach has the ability to have such a big impact for good or for bad. It’s a little bit of all of our responsibility to try and ensure that it’s for good.

How can social media algorithms work for the planet? Learn more in our complete interview with Jacob Simon on the Rhizome blog.