Positive Environmental News Is the Focus of Climate Optimism, a New Book on the Climate Crisis - Teen Vogue
Positive Environmental News Is the Focus of Climate Optimism, a New Book on the Climate Crisis | Teen Vogue
I began my climate activist journey after Hurricane Harvey decimated my hometown of Houston, Texas. At the time, I was working at a social services agency and witnessed firsthand the devastation this disaster wrought on our community, and more specifically on already marginalized groups — Black and brown and low-income families — in our community. The relationship between social justice and climate change became crystal clear to me, as did the complex history of a small percent of humanity, and our outsized impact in causing the climate crisis.
I decided I wanted to study environmental sociology and earth science in college, and got involved in climate education and grassroots organizing. I even ended up taking my school to court over its fossil fuel investments.
But all of this work that I was so passionate about was draining me. I felt like I was swimming against the tide, exerting myself to a point where passion waned and depression sank in.
On my hours-long scroll through social media one day, I saw a friend post about “Good News Friday”— positive climate stories that weren’t getting attention in the media. Hooked by the idea that organizers somewhere were celebrating the fruits of their hard labor, I latched on.
Nearly three years later, I maintain a weekly newsletter that collects positive environmental stories and shares them with a community of more than 60,000 people. This exercise has helped me re-cultivate my passions for activism and improve my mental wellbeing overall.
That work became the seed for my new book Climate Optimism: Celebrating Systemic Change Around the World. The result of those three years of data collection, the book provides insight into what I have found to be the most promising systemic solutions to the most harrowing systemic crisis of our time.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”