Finding hope for the climate around the world

Winter feels like it’s getting shorter each year, governments and billionaires seem apathetic to their massive carbon footprints, and I am bombarded daily with daunting headlines warning about how climate change is going to lead to the end of humanity as we know it. As a young person, this constant anxiety over the climate and the powerlessness I feel over the future of the planet is exhausting. Any hope regarding climate change seems impossible to come by, but when I do come across a piece of good news, I feel, even for just a moment, optimistic.

In the spirit of this year’s theme being hope, I wanted to write a piece highlighting a few people and groups across the globe whose efforts to slow down and find solutions to the effects of climate change bring about just that. From large-scale conservation efforts to small-scale local activism, these stories offer us a little bit of hope about our planet and reveal the importance of climate activism, no matter how futile it may feel sometimes. 

The emergence of climate cafes

As it turns out, the anxiety I have been feeling over the climate has a name—eco-anxiety. And it’s more common than you think, especially among younger generations. To understand and combat eco-anxiety, there has been an emergence of climate cafes across the globe. These cafes, which are typically informal and community-led, provide a space for people to discuss their feelings and perspectives on climate change.

In Nigeria, SustyVibes, a non-governmental organization focused on motivating youth to participate in climate action by making sustainability cool and relatable, opened its own climate cafe in Lagos. The climate cafe is a part of the organization’s initiative to understand and validate the eco-anxiety and environmental perspectives of Africans. The initiative, The Eco-anxiety in Africa Project (TEAP), is leading the effort to understand how Africans feel about climate change and providing space for their communities to discuss these feelings. 

I spoke with two of TEAP’s team members to discuss how addressing eco-anxiety, particularly in Africa, can lead to better outcomes for climate change. “When we speak about climate change, we often forget about mental health,” said Svetlana Onye-Sanya, project lead for TEAP. Posttraumatic stress disorder, grief, and anger are all factors which can contribute to someone’s unwillingness to participate in climate conservation. Ayomide Olude, project manager at TEAP, added that apathy is also a common feeling promoted by climate change. 

Especially in West Africa, according to Svetlana and Ayomide, which has seen oil spills, flooding, heatwaves, drought, and a lack of relief efforts and support from the government, there is a shortage of research on the social aspect of climate change. Through their research and initiatives, such as the climate cafe, TEAP is hoping to find ways to best support vulnerable groups and encourage youth in particular to become involved in conversations about climate change. By addressing the impact of eco-anxiety and shifting the focus towards younger people, Svetlana believes that youth will be “less anxious to plan ahead for the future.”

The emergence of climate cafes, especially in places disproportionately affected by climate change, highlights a gap in the discourse surrounding climate change–how our perceptions and feelings towards the climate crisis have impacted the work we put into protecting the planet. How many of us have been deterred from taking action to protect the planet purely because the effort seemed pointless? How many people are being left out of these discussions altogether? Climate cafes and building accessible spaces for open communication on climate change are just some of how we can go about protecting the future of our planet. 

Indigenous solutions and restoration

When I began my research into climate change innovations and solutions, I was expecting to learn about new, elaborate, technological inventions which may finally turn out to be the one-size-fits-all cure for climate change. What I found, however, is that many of these “solutions” were either just concepts, hypothetical, or only about one aspect of climate change. 

For example, the “Mammoth” is a giant new carbon-sucking machine—basically a massive air purifier based in the Icelandic tundra. While in theory, these sorts of machines are a smart way to remove the gases from the atmosphere, which lead to climate change, it has been criticized for being expensive, energy-hungry, and lacking proof of effectiveness. 

However, in learning about climate conservation efforts around the world, I realized that the solution for global warming may not be in the future but rather rooted in the past. Indigenous people from all over have been taking care of the land for centuries. Their invaluable knowledge of their environment, when applied to modern conservation efforts, may well be the first step in combating the effects of climate change. In New Zealand, native Māori groups have been organizing their own conservation efforts, rooted in the beliefs and practices of their ancestors. 

Led by Te Rūnanga o Kaikōura, a Māori tribal council based in the town of Kaikōura on New Zealand’s South Island, a conservation project is cleaning out creeks and rivers, planting native plants, and setting up traps for invasive pests. This restoration of the natural environment supports and preserves the biodiversity and ecosystem of the area through the implantation of traditional Māori conservation methods. Also, since much of Māori tradition, belief, and life is deeply connected to the natural environment, it is a critical step in maintaining Māori culture, something which climate change has made difficult to conserve. 

The daily tasks of the conservationists who work as part of this project are assigned based on phases of the moon, which not only takes into account the physical effects of the moon—like tides and weather—but also the spiritual significance of what the different phases of the moon mean. This project serves as an example of Māori tradition being applied to modern-day conservation and the positive outcomes of it.

New Zealand’s Ministry for the Environment (MfE) is committed to working with Māori communities in developing environmental policies and resource management arrangements. This not only benefits Māori communities across the country, who are at high risk of being displaced by the effects of climate change, but also the entirety of New Zealand’s ecosystem. Based on the Māori concept of Te Mana o te Wai—which refers to the vital importance of water—New Zealand’s MfE has enacted an Essential Freshwater work programme, which at its core, reflects the values of Te Mana o te Wai. This work program prioritizes the health of freshwater sources over social and economic needs, which in turn ends up benefiting people as a whole.

This integration of Indigenous knowledge in conservation efforts is also found in southwestern Guatemala, where each year, the 48 villages of Totonicapán, an Indigenous Maya K’iche region, gather to elect their new council and president. The job of Totonicapán’s Council of Natural Resources and its president is to protect and restore the region’s communal forest, which spans over 51,892 acres. Using traditional modes of governance and ancestral ecological knowledge, the K’iche have been successfully managing their own natural resources for centuries, but in recent years, deforestation and climate change-related forest fires have posed significant threats to the region. 

Nevertheless, the region has a long-term conservation partnership with the EcoLogic Development Fund, which helps Indigenous communities in Central America and Mexico safeguard their natural resources. The partnership provides the K’iche with the guidance and financial support needed to maintain their conservation efforts. In addition to this, EcoLogic has been carrying out a large-scale reforestation project in the region, in which native plants such as cypresses and pine trees are planted and matured in greenhouses before they are used for reforestation by community members from all across the region. Similar to the Kaikōura-led project in New Zealand, this project is based on ancestral knowledge and the value of caring for the environment and is deeply connected to the lives and well-being of the people who depend on it. 

Imagine if the collective knowledge of Indigenous people from across the world and the shared value of caring for the environment were applied to our modern approaches to conservation. Centuries worth of ecological knowledge and a worldwide community effort to reverse climate change may well be the solution that we have been searching for. 

Small-scale activism and big outcomes

Last spring, a neighbourhood in Memphis, Tennessee, proved that local activism and small-scale efforts can have a profound impact. Beginning in 1976, the community of Shelby County in Southwest Memphis was home to a facility responsible for sterilizing medical equipment and materials. The facility, Sterilization Services of Tennessee, emitted a known cancer-causing gas into the air, ethylene oxide, or EtO. Classed as a hazardous air pollutant by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), breathing in EtO over many years, such as the residents who lived near the facility, can lead to leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and stomach and breast cancers.

The Memphis Community Against Pollution, a local environmental organization focused on pursuing environmental justice for Black communities in Southwest Memphis, as well as protecting the area’s health and environment, is the group which led the fight to the facility’s closure. Through petitioning the White House, the EPA, and the Shelby County Health Department, as well as putting pressure on the facility to close, the facility announced that as of April 30, 2024, it will no longer be in operation. 

For Shelby County, this is a huge win in the pursuit of environmental justice on a local scale. The facility’s closure serves as a reminder that to battle global warming, you don’t need to take on the whole world at once because more often than not, there is a positive impact to be made on your own community. Every major climate movement has started small, and many, such as Greta Thunberg’s “School Strike for the Climate”, have grown to a global scale. Even just joining an already existing movement, you will be making a positive impact.

Managing the stress of climate change

For many people, climate change will continue to cause anxiety and uncertainty, especially for younger generations. There is, however, effort and hope being put into managing and reversing the effects of climate change. Whether it be talking about how climate change has personally impacted you, following traditional and proven methods of conservation, or just beginning your journey as a climate activist, there is so much you can do to contribute to the fight against climate change. What I hope you, the reader, take away from these stories is a sense of inspiration and the knowledge that you do, in fact, have the power to make meaningful change. Start as soon as you can.