I recently graduated college
where I studied environmental science
and environmental sociology.
Now during one of my many,
many finals week study breaks,
I came across something
that piqued my interest --
and it wasn’t something
I was supposed to be studying.
It was a survey of 10,000 young people
across ten different countries
on their feelings regarding
the climate crisis.
A survey found
that 56 percent of Gen-Zers,
the generation that I’m a part of
and the largest
age demographic in the world,
believe that because
of the climate crisis,
humanity is doomed.
This felt like a punch in the gut.
I had just spent four and a half years
and tens of thousands of dollars
studying these things:
countless time organizing
on and off campus
and energy getting involved
with both local and national groups,
yet most of my generation
viewed it all as pointless.
Now if we look at the way that younger
generations talk about the climate crisis,
these feelings of doom
and despair make sense.
I mean, we’re drowning
in bad climate news.
Headline after headline detail
each week’s latest catastrophe.
“Unprecedented” has taken on a new meaning
as each day is unprecedented.
Just count how many times
you’ll probably hear it today.
I gave you two ones for free right there.
And everything is amplified
on social media
where there’s a remarkable lack of nuance
and an oversupply
of attention-grabbing rhetoric.
Many of us, including myself,
seem to believe that if we just share
these awareness posts enough times
that someone somewhere
will finally do something about it.
But unfortunately, Joe Biden probably
doesn't follow you on Instagram,
and he doesn’t follow me either -- yet.
I’m part of a diverse,
19-person-strong collective
called EcoTok,
and we use social media to share nuanced
climate education through infographics,
memes
and you guessed it, TikToks,
to our collective audience
of over four million people,
most of whom are Gen Z and millennials.
And through our work,
we’ve picked up on this pattern.
Our comments sections are filled
with people who have given up hope.
People who say they have
weekly anxiety attacks
about the climate crisis.
Or that they don’t want
to have kids anymore
out of fear of adding to the suffering.
Or that they see no point in taking action
when the powers that stand
against us are so strong.
Our generation and younger generations
need a new way of addressing
the climate crisis
that unshackles us
from the cycles of doom and gloom
that so often lead to inaction,
because we cannot
play a part in making change
if we do not believe
that change is possible.
Climate denialism,
which for decades has been peddled by oil,
gas and other big business interests,
has met its rival:
climate doomism.
The belief that we cannot save our planet,
so why take action?
Though they differ in origin,
both have the ability to paralyze action
and prevent progress.
And though things are bad,
they’re far from over.
So how do we find hope
when things feel hopeless,
and how do we communicate
the inextricable link
between hope and action?
To answer this,
let me take you back to March of 2020 --
absolutely no one’s first choice
of when to time travel to.
Many of us were quarantined in our homes,
people had stopped
going out and socializing,
yet the stream and virality
of bad news certainly had not stopped.
I was finishing up my semester at home,
as well as working to move
my activism online
when I was hit, not only with COVID
but also with burnout.
I began to question
the efficacy of my work,
my passion for environmentalism
and the purpose in studying
what I was studying.
I knew I needed something to inspire me.
I was scrolling on social media,
and I saw a friend who had been
sharing positive news stories.
I paired this with the rise of feel-good
dance videos that had really emerged
on TikTok
and started a series
called “Weekly Earth Wins.”
Here's a look at one of those videos.
(Music)
(Applause)
So at first this felt
really, really silly.
I mean, what did dancing
have to do with climate action?
And what good was sharing good news
when everything felt so bad?
But then I began to receive
people's feedback.
People told me
that these videos really helped
mitigate their climate anxiety,
that they looked forward
to these videos week after week
and that these videos helped turn
their anger and anxiety into action.
So I continued making them.
And in the process of finding
good news stories to share,
I began to pick up on trends.
Week after week,
institutions were divesting
from fossil fuels.
Week after week,
land was given back
to Indigenous communities.
And week after week,
states were implementing
renewable energy standards.
I never overlooked the scientific
projections or data,
but rather tuned in
to the hard-to-find good news stories
and examples of successful
on-the-ground work.
And in the process,
I uncovered the framework
that I had been yearning for:
climate optimism.
Climate optimism is a framework
based on the idea
that despite the bleak projections
and the high stakes,
we can restore our planet back to health,
and in doing so,
protect all that inhabit it.
Climate optimism is what gives us hope
when things feel hopeless,
is what sustains us
in our pursuit of sustainability
and is what fuels us in the uphill battle
of transitioning away from fossil fuels.
It’s also what gives us the energy
to continue fighting for our successes.
Virtually, the zero-emissions
energy source that nobody talks about.
So in this process,
I realize also that climate optimism
is not for everybody.
Climate optimism is not
for politicians who have stalled on action
or corporations who have
incessantly pursued profits over people.
To them, my message is clear:
listen to science and act now.
Stop failing the citizens and people
that you have a duty to serve.
Rather, climate optimism
is for those of us here today ...
that have dedicated our lives
to fighting the greatest
battle of our time.
But also to the part-time activists:
those who do what they can, when they can.
And perhaps most significantly,
to the marginalized communities
and people in the Global South,
who frankly don’t have time to get stuck
in the cycles of doom and gloom.
The need for climate optimism
has never been more urgent.
If we limit our vision of the future
to one filled with oil rigs,
smokestacks
and suffering,
we limit our capacity
and shirk our duty to change
the course of humanity for the better.
By looking for good
and working towards the good,
we empower ourselves to be agents of good
in the fight for the future
that we deserve.
The alternative --
giving up hope --
only relinquishes power
into the very entities
that have gotten us into this mess.
Luckily, I’m not alone
in championing this movement.
My friends at EcoTok
provide a great example
of a diverse set of backgrounds,
experiences
and voices coming together
to encourage this generation and the next.
Here's a look at some of our work.
(Video) Doria Brown: Canada is banning
six types of plastics.
The plastics include grocery bags,
stir sticks,
six-pack rings,
reusable food containers,
straws and utensils.
Now hopefully they put
some systems in place
for some people who need those things
for accessibility purposes,
but this is a step in the right direction,
and I’m excited.
Gabrielle Langhorn: From desertification
to bountiful vegetation,
a community in Cearà, Brazil has been
able to rehabilitate their landscape
using amazing collective action
and funding from FUNCEME.
Water is flowing,
crops are growing
and you can truly see a difference.
(Music)
Carissa Cabrera: [Good Blue News!!]
[The endangered Hawaiian Monk seal
population is up to ...
over 1,500!]
[This is the highest
it’s been in decades!]
Henry Ferland: Welcome back,
it is me, Trash Boy.
Every time I step outside I see trash
and litter on the ground, and I hate it!
So let’s clean some up!
I got my trash bag and gloves, let’s go.
One, two, three, four, five.
And all this trash in this grate, too.
Much better.
Storm grates like that is exactly
how trash enters the ocean,
and we don’t want that.
There are already over 5.25 trillion
pieces of trash in our oceans.
Let’s not let in any more.
(Applause and cheers)
ZB: We’re not naive.
We know the details and the data
that speak to the devastation
of the climate crisis
like the back of our hands
because it's our future to inherit.
But we also know that the future
we deserve cannot be built
on the unstable foundations
of fear and anxiety.
It must be built
with one of the few infinite resources
that we have on this finite planet:
hope.
So we choose climate optimism.
We choose to fight
for the future that we deserve.
And I hope you will, too.
Thank you.
(Applause)