In keeping with our theme for 2023, this Earth Day we'd like to share with you Seeds of Hope: how nature inspires scientists to confront climate change.
On Earth Day last year, the Washington Post published this series of brief reflections by climate scientists and conservationists about what keeps them going and inspires them to do the work they do, even when the overall picture feels bleak. These offerings come from across the globe by environmentalists and researchers from places such as National Center for Atmospheric Research, Conservación Amazónica, Imperial College London, and Dream of Wild Health.
From the Washington Post site:
For Earth Day, The Washington Post’s climate team asked 11 scientists and conservationists where their hope comes from. What aspects of nature give them the strength to confront our perilously hot present? What plants, animals and landscapes are they inspired to save? Their reflections are odes to nature’s beauty and resilience, even as it comes under threat from deforestation, pollution and climate change. They are also reminders of humanity’s own capacity for transformation. People have helped forests recover and endangered birds rebound in the past. We still have a chance to create a safer and more sustainable future.
What rekindles your Hope for the Earth when your stores are low and your sparks of life have dimmed? This Earth Day, we invite you to write your own seed of hope and tuck it safely away for the days you need it most. The Earth deeply needs our efforts and concern, but without a doubt, it also needs our joy, our celebration, and our Hope.
I'll begin:
Every winter I firmly believe there's no way my dear ones will ever return. The deep chill and dark skies of winter in northern Vermont sink in so deep, by March it seems all hope has been drained from the world. And then as April dawns, the first croak comes, tentative…almost a question. And the second. And within minutes, a hundred or so wood frogs joyfully come back to life after their deep winter death and greet each other in celebration. And as the sun begins to sink on this most glorious day of regeneration, the blessed song begins in stereo all around me, and the peepers join them in their glee. They are my teachers and my family. I burrow down into the mud when the conditions around me are too much for body and mind to bear. The warmth of the sun and the soil will return. And I am reborn.
Please come over and share your Earth Day reflections on what brings you Hope on our Facebook page! Your words may be the spark that uplifts and inspires another.