Willow Defebaugh: I would say my two great loves in life are nature and storytelling, and with storytelling, the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis. It is the most important story of our, of our time, of our species. And I, I always think about this, that, you know, human beings love. We love stories. It’s part of what, what makes us human? And we love these grand epics and these heroic films. And, and this is that story. This is, this is the story of this is the moment where every human being needs to pick up their sword, whatever that looks like for them. It might be a pen, it might be, who, who knows, but It is the greatest story of our time, and it’s this, and I hope, I hope it is the story of how our species will reweave its place in the web of life, but I, it’s like, as a storyteller, how could I not tell that story? How could I not be part of that? That story?

Mike DiGirolamo: Welcome to the Mongabay newscast. I’m your co-host, Mike Delamo, bring you weekly conversations with experts, authors, scientists, and activists working on the front lines of conservation, shining a light on some of the most pressing issues facing our planet, and holding people in power to account. This podcast is edited on Gadigal Land. Today on the Newscast we speak with Willow Defebaugh, the co-founder and editor in Chief of Atmos, an award-winning magazine covering culture, nature, and climate. She’s also the host of a new podcast series called ‘The Nature Of’ featuring prominent voices from the nature, conservation and media sectors. As you’ll hear me mention several times on this episode, I cannot recommend her podcast enough, which has some guests we’ve even hosted here at Mongabay, such as Dr. Ayana, Elizabeth Johnson, and Amy Vitale. As a podcaster myself, I deeply appreciate how zdefebaugh weaves together science, nature, and culture, making them relevant and vital for the listener. We talk about why this is important, how art and culture together with science is a lifeline for science communication, making what can be abstract topics, have emotional depth and consequence for individuals and society. Deba describes the philosophy behind the nonprofit outlet Atmos and what drives and inspires her work covering topics such as biomimicry and spiritual ecology. Most importantly, Defebaugh really nails how you as the listener can think differently about your role in the natural world, which we are already a part of. However, as she explains, we need to rethink our relationship with nature, not through an anthropocentric lens, but rather one that is biocentric.

Willow, welcome to the Mongabay Newscast. It’s great to have you with us.

Willow: Thank you so much for having me, Mike.

Mike: So I just wanna say congratulations on your podcast series, ‘The Nature Of.’ I am a huge fan. As I was explaining to you earlier, I am also really inspired by the attention the podcast has gotten. I’m really glad to see people listening to it. It’s a really fantastic season. Can you elaborate on the significance of the title, The Nature Of? What is the significance of the title and the theme of the podcast?

Willow: Of course. Well, first of all, thank you so much for listening. It really, really means the world. It’s been such a joy to create this show. The title was one of the first things that came to us and the concept really came from wanting to dive deep into the nature of a number of different topics. So something that we’ve always been really passionate about with Atmos is kind of bridging climate and culture. And part of that means inviting people into climate conversations and environmental conversations who maybe don’t realize how their work connects. And you know, a perfect example, the first episode of the first season was with Esther Perel, who’s, you know, one of the world’s foremost relationship experts and couples therapists, and she was so excited to talk about the nature of relationships because she doesn’t often talk about her work in conjunction with the natural world, which I see as really a series of relationships. So, the title was really meant to be about diving deep on each of these different subjects, delving into the nature of relationships, the nature of music and sound, the nature of, food, et, et cetera.

Mike: Yeah, I mean I really actually enjoyed that episode with Esther. And as you say, you open the episode by saying that you see nature as a series of relationships and you talk about our interdependence. And I agree that we just don’t hear enough people talk about nature with this lens. And so I wanted to ask you, you know, if nature is a series of relationships, where do humans, you know, fit into that? And is your view more about biocentrism than anthropocentrism?

Willow: Yes, definitely. You know, this is the question that probably occupies most of my, most of my thinking most days, is how humans currently are fitting into the wider web of life, you know. For so long, our definition of nature has excluded humankind, right? Its nature is this word we’ve come up for that refers to anything that is outside of the realm of human society and things that we’ve created. And there’s a whole movement that ‘we are nature movement,’ which is seeking to actually change those definitions because I deeply believe that language matters and how we talk about the world shapes our experience of it. And so, the word that we have that most applicable to life on earth, we’ve excluded ourselves from, and that’s so, so deeply telling of this greater schism that we have created between ourselves and the rest of life on Earth. And, I love that you brought in the term biocentric, because that is so much of what this work means to me is just realigning ourselves with life, right? That’s what bio means. Bio means life, and to me, life, nature, these are kind of interchangeable terms and there are things that humans are inarguably a part of, and I want…I’m so passionate about helping people. Wake up to the fact that they are already deeply embedded in the web of life. It’s just a question of how, how conscious we are to it. And the more we begin to wake up to that, the more we can start to re-pattern our place in the web and our species place in the web because, [they] have so many, so many helpers. So many other species who we can learn from. And we get into this on the podcast, on the design front or the solution front, and I’m so passionate about reweaving those connections and helping us to understand ourselves as part of nature, not at the top of some kind of pyramid.

Mike: Yeah, both you and Perel really dive into that entire topic on that first episode. And you mentioned that you feel like a lot of the root of the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis, is because we have lost the ability to be in a healthy relationship with nature. And I totally agree with you. And then you say that the relationship has become transactional or one-sided. So, can you, elaborate on that?

Willow: Yeah. Well, something that was interesting to…that I was interested to bring into the conversation with Esther was you know, there’s so many different forms of symbiosis within biology and ecology, right? There’s mutualistic relationships in which both parties benefit. There’s commensal relationships which are somewhat neutral, and there’s parasitic relationships that, benefit one party at the expense of the other. And I really love looking at the world through a lens of symbiosis because it’s actually—becomes a framework through which we can see our lives, right? What are our relationships, our interpersonal relationships? Who am I in mutualistic relationship with? Who am I in parasitic relationship with? And I loved Esther kind of brought in this fourth sort of human, form of symbiosis, which is transaction. And I think that that very much speaks to so many of our relationships with each other, but also our relationship with the natural world. We commodify the rest of life on earth as opposed to seeing more than human life as beings that we are in relationship with. And when you understand yourself as in relationship with something, then the question, the next question your mind can go to is, well, what is [that]? Is it a healthy relationship? Am I in right relationship with this thing? And to me, that’s such a critical first step towards healing. Because if we don’t even understand that we’re in relationship with something, then how are we ever going to work towards ameliorating it, healing it? And I do really believe that it’s the root of the climate crisis, because I think that if we were to just treat the climate crisis in isolation, which we’re not even doing a great job of, or at least our world leaders aren’t—I really worry that the same…without addressing the root causes, the same harm will just be replicated in other forms. Right? The, you know, excess greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, they’re a symptom of a deeper disconnect where we’ve lost sight of the relationship that we have to the rest of life on Earth. And the question is, are we going to be a species that steps up and decides to be better stewards and to form positive kinds of symbiosis, mutualistic relationships with other species, on this planet or are we going to be a species that harbinger annihilation? And that’s, you know, not to sound dramatic, but that’s, you know, that’s how I think of it as, and so much of it comes down to relationship.

Mike: You went into this topic, which is a topic I really love. It’s close to my heart. And you talk about empathy and you mentioned that humans reluctance to anthropomorphize nature and animals sort of can keep us from empathizing with them, but that more and more scientists are recognizing the importance of doing this.

Willow: Yeah.

Mike: Can you talk about that and can you talk about why empathy is so important and, you know, a strength?

Willow: Absolutely. It’s one of the greatest joys of doing this work and Atmos and this podcast is I get to hear from people in the scientific community all the time who come up to me and say, I’m so happy to have a space to talk about my work in a way that is not purely scientific in the Western sense, where I’m not allowed to talk about rocks as my teachers or talk about fungi as my teachers. And I think it just that sense of freedom that I experience or feel with scientists is…it just shows kind of…what a box Western science [is]. And I think it’s really important to specify Western science. Because so many Indigenous sciences mix together. You know that there’s, you know, in breeding sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about the language of animacy, right? And how in English we so crudely call a river it instead of they or, you know, other pronouns. And seeing other life forms as beings. And how this connects to empathy is that if we want to, in order to cause harm, in order to have a transactional relationship, there has to be a level of—I’m gonna…it’s an imperfect word, but I’m going to say ‘dehumanization’—you have to see something as ‘less than,’ you have to see something as not a person. And I’m gonna use ‘person’ in more of the legal sense, which is like an entity. You have to see it as less than a being, right? Like when you really think about how industrialized agriculture and specifically, I’m thinking about meat and dairy, how those incredibly cruel systems have come into place are through a lack of empathy. Right? It’s like a wall had to be put up for us to say, it’s okay for us to treat these other beings this way. Because I’m not empathizing with them, right? You have to remove empathy in order to create that level of harm. And we see this with other human beings. We dehumanize other human beings. It’s happening all over the planet. And so, empathy to me is so much the radical cure to what we’re talking about here, because to empathize with another being human or more than human, is to say that I see that you are expression of life. You are a living being that came into existence through no fewer miracles than I did. And we might look different and our biology might be different and our species might be different, but we are more alike than we are dissimilar. That we are alive and we are part of the web of life. And we all, whenever I think about the fact that all life shares a common ancestor, I mean we really are talking about family. We’re talking—I mean, this is kinship. And when you start to see the world that way, it’s…how can you not have empathy? And I think that so much of what we are up against is people’s desire to dissociate because when you, or not even desire, but the response to dissociate, because I think when you actually open your heart to what is happening to the world, it’s so terribly painful. Like to empathize, it’s painful. It’s painful to look at someone and feel their suffering as our own, but the irony of our species, which like, you know, the great Buddhist thought leaders and scholars have, have long talked about is just the more we run from suffering, we try to turn away from it, the more we create. And that occurs to me as a great kind of conundrum of our species in a lot of ways. And I think empathy and compassion are the way forward and out of that… that was a long tangent…

Mike: No, no, it was great. I could not have said that better. That was…yes, you hit the nail on the head. I wanted to give you some space to talk about something that you mentioned you write about, which is spiritual ecology. For people who are unfamiliar, can you tell us what spiritual ecology is?

Willow: Yeah, so spiritual ecology, sometimes called deep ecology. It’s really an eco-philosophy and it’s taken a lot of, it’s had a lot of different authors and voices contribute to it over time. It’s also very deeply rooted in Indigenous wisdom, but it’s essentially, you know. If it had a goal, I would say the goal is to shift from an anthropocentric worldview to an ecocentric worldview. But the way I practice it, and I write about it is that it’s essentially connecting science and spirituality. It’s…and spirituality is this very loaded term because we associate it with religion or like pop cultures, like yoga, spirituality, but spirituality is really just, it’s a framework for how we talk about our worldview. It’s how we talk about, you know, our beliefs. And so I write a newsletter called The Overview. It’s a spiritual ecology newsletter. And, each week, I look to different species and aspects of the natural world, and then I just try to pull insights from them. Teachings, I guess. And you know what, hummingbirds are the only animal on earth that have evolved the capacity to hover, like to be able to fly, but standing still. And they did that so that they can pollinate flowers without breaking them. So, what can we learn from that about living lightly? What can we learn from that about being delicate in our exchanges? So it’s, for me, it’s that, it’s looking to the biology and science of the world and seeing it as enchanting, seeing it as something that…is just, I look at, you know, it’s like I just, I think of some of the greatest scientific minds in history, and I’m just like thinking of Einstein, right? Who…they go so far to the side of science that they end up just being like [throws up hands]…

Mike: Yeah.

Willow: It’s all so mind blowing. You know, call it what you want, but there’s something, there’s something deeper, something so incredible. And I personally find that unlocking that reverence, that sense of awe and wonder for the natural world and bringing science out of just this, the kind of Western box, I think it can be very motivating for people. Because you wake up to the magic of this planet and you’re like, hell yeah. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that this place that has hummingbirds continues thriving.

Mike: Yeah, I mean, there’s almost some elements of biomimicry in that, you know, taking inspiration from the way the natural world operates and trying to incorporate that in built environments. It, you know, it’s something that I definitely think we could be learning a lot more from, especially just in our day-to-day lives, even if we aren’t doing things like architecture, just in the way that we interact with other people.

Mike (narration): Hello listeners, and thanks once again for tuning in. If you’re joining us for the first time, welcome. We’re glad you’re here. And if you’re enjoying our work, please join the thousands who have subscribed to our show on your favorite podcast platform. This is the best way to stay up to date on our latest releases, and if you’re wondering how you can support our work, leave a review as this helps elevate the profile of our show. But you can also donate to us at mongabay.com by clicking the donate button in the upper right hand corner of the screen. If you have additional feedback, you can reach us podcast[at]mongabay.com. Thanks so much for listening. Back to the conversation with Willow Defebaugh.

Mike: And on that note, you end each episode, and I love how you do this, you end each episode with these guided meditations or actions that the listener can do to, you know, either improve their life or their community or connect with the environment in a different way. And I’m curious to know if anyone has reached out to you or responded to let you know what kind of impact these had on them. Have you gotten any feedback on those?

Willow: Yeah, it’s so funny. I wasn’t sure how those would land and you know, you never know if people are actually going to kind of follow through with an action item. But, yeah, I’ve had conversations with people, I’ve had people text me being like, I’m journaling right now doing the prompt from this episode. And I think that it was important for me to include, because journaling is a huge practice of mine and my life. It’s really how I process the world. I mean, writing is how I process the world, and some of these conversations we get into some pretty, you know, heavy subject matter, some pretty heady subject matter, and I think having a chance to internalize and to apply them to your own life is beneficial. And that’s mostly the feedback I’ve heard from people is okay, take the concepts and then find out how you can apply them to your specific life.

Mike: And, would you say that, that’s how you, sort of meditate on how you relate to nature? Was there an element of, you know, thinking about that while you were creating these?

Willow: Yeah, absolutely. Everything that I do comes from a personal place, one way or another. You know, in speaking back to the overview of the newsletter, those subjects always, you know, that edition about the hummingbirds came from me thinking about what it looks like to be a little bit more delicate in my life and a little bit softer. And it always comes from a personal place. And then I try to use the natural world as kind of the common language to make it feel more universal. So, it definitely shows up in the podcast too, which is, you know, I would sit there and have these conversations with these people who blow my mind and I wanted to know how I can internalize what, what the wisdom that they shared, and that’s really where the prompts came from.

Mike: That’s incredible. And again, I really enjoyed those and was thinking about them myself, and intuitively I was like, yeah, why don’t I think about things more like that? So, it was definitely appreciated. This might be a bit of a personal question, but what is it about the environment that captures and inspires the work you do? I mean, because you’re a journalist, you know, you write, you create a lot about the natural world. What inspires that for you?

Willow: I’ve just always been enchanted by nature, by life. Ever since I was a little kid, my room was just full of animal books and stuffed animals, and I was always just obsessed by the other life forms that we share this planet with. But I think the shortest answer is just that this is my home, you know? I would say my two great loves in life are nature and storytelling, and with storytelling, the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis. It is the most important story of our time, of our species. And I always think about this, that, you know, human beings love…we love stories. It’s part of what makes us human. And we love these grand epics and these heroic films. And…and this is that story. This is the story of this is the moment where every human being needs to pick up their sword, whatever that looks like for them. It might be a pen, it might be, who knows, but it is the greatest story of our time, and it’s this, and I hope, I hope it is the story of how our species will reweave its place in the web of life, but it’s like, as a storyteller, how could I not tell that story? How could I not be part of that…that story?

Mike: I could not agree with you more, that you know very well said. I want to shift to talking a little bit about the work that Atmos does in general, because it is doing the storytelling. And I’ve taken a look at the work that Atmos does and I love how you lay out the website, first of all, and then you put things into some categories such as like art and culture and identity and community, which I think are incredibly important lenses to examine the natural world through. And so I wanted to talk a bit about how Atmos explores identity and community and highlighting, the interrelatedness of our individual identities as strengthening ecosystems. Can you talk about this and what Atmos looks at when exploring those stories?

Willow: Absolutely. I—you know, a hallmark of nature and a hallmark of life on Earth is biodiversity. So, to me, identity and community and diversity are just inseparable. They’re inseparable from talking about nature and the environment. And there’s specific lenses with different communities, right? It’s, you know, Atmos is always trying to uplift Indigenous voices and Indigenous wisdom. And because it’s so central to so much of what we do. And then there’s also the long story and history of environmental racism within this country and the ways in which environmental pollution has particularly harmed communities of color. And then there’s ways, the ways in which the natural world has often been weaponized against queer people and, you know, ideas of what’s natural and biology, which really just reinforced the framework of humans. The, if queer people are unnatural, then that is saying that people are unnatural. Right? It’s reinforcing that divide, because to say it happens in humans means it must be unnatural. You know? Not to mention the fact that it turns out it happens in thousands of other species. So, I love being a platform to highlight those stories. The stories that. draw the threads and draw the connections and, you know, it’s that the last one in particular, queer ecology is just so close to my heart. And because I have always been queer and I hated different points in my life feeling like I couldn’t, that felt incompatible with my love, lifelong love for nature, and getting to heal that through storytelling has been hugely important to me. So, it’s really just, I can’t imagine it not being part of what we do.

Mike: Thank you for sharing. And then another section I wanted to talk about really quick was the work that you do that focuses on art and culture. And which is, you know, I’ve said this a number of times on this podcast, but you know, theater and film is my background, and I’ve long been a champion of how art can drive social and environmental change, and I just talked with Tsering Yangzom Lama at Greenpeace about how, you know, narratives shape the material conditions of our politics and how we treat nature. So, I’m inspired to see you prioritize this in Atmos. Can you talk to us about the importance of covering this subsection as it relates to nature?

Willow: It is so core to the founding of Atmos is, you know, we really, from the beginning, we knew that we wanted to invite creative storytellers and artists into this conversation alongside scientists and journalists. And, the reason for that is that, I mean, one, I had all, both me and my co-founder Jake Sargent, we were always, both of our background was more in arts and culture, and we were really interested in how storytelling around the climate crisis often leans more towards the data driven and clinical, the arts, as you know, if that’s your background, they’re designed to speak to people’s humanity. They’re designed to reach people in a place of heart. And I think that what we need is to be changing people’s hearts, not just minds. And so, it felt like this vastly untapped potential to invite the arts into how we tell stories about the climate crisis and the environment.

Mike: Yeah. I definitely agree with you there. I want to jump back really quick to the podcast series as a whole because what I think this does really well is bring [these] aspects of nature to the listener from many backgrounds. You do it exceptionally well. Were there any—I’m sure you probably had some—but were there any standout like aha moments for you in your conversations? And, if so, what were a couple?

Willow: Oh yes, so many. You know, I think you mentioned biomimicry earlier, and so I’m thinking about the episode with Janine Benyus, who literally wrote the book on biomimicry and founded—co-founded—the Biomimicry Institute. That episode was just full of light bulb moments for me. She, I…you know, I have been a journalist for 15 years, and I think that was the first time I ever cried live during an interview because I asked her to paint a picture of a biomimetic future and some people really struggle to articulate the sort of like end goal of the work that they’re doing. And Janine is not that way. She just launched immediately into, we’re flying in on a hydrogen run plane that’s transparent and the wings are designed to mimic the hydrodynamics of whale fins and just, it was so specific and it was so arrestingly beautiful. I just, I couldn’t help but cry, and that episode is what really shifted for me, or helped me understand that what all of this work, when we talk about nature, what we’re talking about is life. You know, she very clearly says our planet, every single species that is alive today, is an example of life having gotten it right. So, there are millions of other beings of species that have figured out how to live sustainably and not just live sustainably. As she points out, they’ve figured out how to do so sustainably and elegantly, like nature’s designs are so elegant. And she talks about, the chitin in insect wings that produces color rather than relying on pigment. And that makes it more biodegradable and it makes it more, it actually requires less energy for the organism to create. Human beings, meanwhile, create hundreds of synthetic pigments and dyes, which are difficult to break down and create pollution, right? So, it’s like nature has this elegance, which is also simple, that we can learn from every single one of those millions of other species. They’re all potential teachers for us. So, we have this isolating feeling that we have a massive challenge on our hands as human beings. How are we gonna fix this? But it’s like we have our blinders on and we’re ignoring the fact that there are so many other forms of life that can teach us. And so that, I mean, that whole episode just really, really blew my mind and, turned me on to the wisdom and wonder of biomimicry.

Mike: It’s a good one for sure. And for folks listening, I do recommend listening to the whole series, but that episode in particular is quite good. It’s interesting you mention, you know, how beautifully designed or how beautifully evolved nature like designs in nature are. It makes me think of this time when I was in grad school and our voice teacher, you know, we were being introduced to voice work and my voice teacher handed out a schematic or an anatomical schematic of the voice box in humans, and it was hands down like the most beautiful image of human anatomy I’ve ever seen. And he said, if there’s any, he goes, if there’s any doubt in your mind that the human body is amazing, let me assure, let me assure you that it is. And here is the reason why, your voice box is so perfectly evolved to create sound. It kind of blows your mind, that we have these two little vocal folds that create this sound, you know, with all these intricate muscles that make up, you know, all the muscles in our neck and our mouth. Just that alone is enough to kind of put you in awe.

Willow: I absolutely agree. You know, I think. I don’t know why I’m quoting Einstein so much, but I think he said that either nothing is a miracle or everything is, and the more you start to look at these things with fresh eyes, you see how miraculous all of life is.

Mike: Yeah.

Willow: I’m never gonna think about the human voice box the same ever again after this conversation.

Mike: It’s crazy. It’s crazy. It really is the way it changes with age and also, you know, how you can damage it with substances or drinking or smoking, so to speak. It really makes you want to take care of it when you learn more about it.

Willow: It’s great metaphor for the eEarth.

Mike: Exactly. Yeah. I do want to mention this, because this was probably my favorite episode, was your episode with Steph Speirs and you talk about collective action versus individual action. And you point out that you think it’s a false dichotomy as individual action can inspire collective action, and it doesn’t necessarily take that many people to initiate it. It could be a tiny fraction. I forget what the, the numerical rule is. I think it’s something like around, it’s like between one and 10%. If one in 10% of people are engaged on something, then like sort of, the movement has started. I’ll insert a note into this to actually quote—

Willow: –It’s 10%. It’s critical mass. It’s if you reach 10% of a population, then it creates a sea change.

Mike (note): Okay. There’s some nuance to this, and what I’m mentioning here may be additional or tangential to what Willow just mentioned, but research indicates that only 3.5% of the population is needed for nonviolent resistance movements to be successful. This was conducted by Erica Chenoweth, a public policy professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, which shows that these movements have four key ingredients. One, a large and diverse population of participants that can be sustained over time. Two, the ability to create loyalty shifts among key regime supporting groups such as business elites, state media, and security elites such as the police or military. Three, a creative and imaginative variation in methods of resistance beyond mass protest. Four, the organizational discipline to face direct repression without having the movement fall apart or opt for violence. I’ve put the link to this research summary, which I’ve directly quoted from the Harvard Kennedy School’s website in the show notes of this episode. Go check it out.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and if you think about that, that’s not that many people. if you like, think about where you live, your city or your community, if just 10% of you are engaged on something, you can really, you can really make a change. So, what do you think holds people back from taking more initiative, and individually doing things to inspire collective action?

Willow: It’s such a good question. I think fear is definitely one. I think people feel if they aren’t a perfect environmentalist, then they don’t get to be part of these conversations or that they shouldn’t then try to inspire others. And I think that in the systems in which most of us operate, it is impossible to be a perfect environmentalist. Every corner and turn of the maze of late stage capitalism, it’s going to cause you to make a decision that’s going to, in some way, form or another, hurt the environment. And so, we are all trying to figure out how to be better, but I think if we can help people understand, you know, I can’t tell you how many many dinners I find myself at where someone is like apologizing to me for eating meat and I’m like, I don’t need you to become plant-based. Like you could try being plant-based once a week. Do you know what an impact that would have if every person around the world was plant-based for just one day of the week? You know, there’s so many shades and areas in which people can make positive steps. And I think that part of this is about strategy. You know, I’ve watched…I’ve been doing this long enough now where it used to be that everything was about your individual impact, your individual carbon footprint, right? And then it really became more widespread knowledge that that really was invented by BP and was just like a whole PR tactic to try to get people caring only about their individual emissions and distract people from caring about their massive emissions of the fossil fuel industry, essentially. So, then the conversation became around we need to focus on systemic change and organizing, but there are areas in which it’s better to focus on one over the other. Right? It’s when it comes to individual impact, for example, switching to plant-based meals, even just part of the time can actually have a bigger impact than if you were to shift, say, to an electric vehicle. And in the case of fossil fuels, you know, it is a short list of a hundred companies that are responsible for the majority of emissions. So there…it does come down to organizing for policy reform and regulation, right? But then for food, you actually can really make an impact if you change your habits even slowly, even taking steps. So, I think there needs to be less all or nothing thinking and more strategic thinking to say, okay, for this we’re focusing on, I’m going to work on my individual impact. Recycling is another one. Like 9% of what we recycle actually gets recycled. That’s an example where like you can expend all of your energy towards recycling. I’m not saying you shouldn’t. But at the end of the day, what we really need is companies producing less plastic. Right? So, but food is totally different. And food waste, for example, is another way you can really, help prevent greenhouse gas emissions because if you compost your food scraps and you’re reducing the amount of methane that’s created in landfills. So, it’s just, it’s being strategic about where you’re putting your individual, effort versus collective effort. And they do inspire each other. So, I think it’s just, it’s such a yes and to me.

Mike: Yeah, because when you think about it, how many times have you, I know I have been over at someone’s house or a friend of mine and they’re doing something that’s making an impact in their own small way. And then I then adopt that same practice. Because I’m like, oh, that’s cool, I should do that too. And so this definitely has a ripple effect. Before you close your conversation with Esther Perel, you said a really beautiful statement. You said ‘the wound is where the medicine is,’ and you were discussing people’s reluctance to thinking about or dealing with the multiple ecological crises that we face. And you were saying if we actually paid attention to what’s happening rather than ignoring it or shifting under the rug because it’s too stressful, we could actually, you know, have some forward progress. So, what do you think that journalists and environmental communicators and platforms like Atmos and like Mongabay can do to help people engage with this topic? What can we do to better reach these people?

Willow: I think the first thing that comes to mind is, I sort of have different answers for individuals versus storytellers. But since you asked about communicators and storytellers, I would really say emphasizing solutions. You know, as we know, the climate crisis is such a small percentage of news, period, and when it is in the news, it’s only focused on disasters, disaster headlines. You know, one of my other favorite conversations for the podcast was with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, who is a brilliant marine biologist and self-described climate policy nerd. And she talks in that episode about how we really do have most of the solutions that we need. Like the climate crisis is not this giant question mark or unsolvable mystery, you know? In many parts of the world, renewable energy is cheaper than it’s ever been. And you know, we have the solutions, but so many people don’t know that genuinely. And that is where we come in as storytellers. And that’s why solutions have been a very big focus for us at Atmos this year, is because I have found in my personal life that when I tell people who aren’t directly involved in the climate movement, how many solutions we actually have at our fingertips, I watch the shift for them because it’s like suddenly it’s oh, there is hope. Oh, we’re not completely doomed and think when people only associate the climate crisis with disaster, because that’s what they’re getting from the media, they don’t understand that things do not have to be this way. Genuinely, so many people in my life prior to having some of these conversations have just thought that we are, you know, screwed and because there’s no way out of this situation. And the more I find that you educate people around the fact that you know, we’re really being held hostage in this situation. It’s a matter of how quickly we are going to scale the solutions and how much backsliding we’re gonna have to face, such as the backsliding we’re facing in the United States right now, but I think that that is one of the most important things storytellers can do is uplift climate solutions.

Mike: Agreed. Willow, where can people go to learn about you and your work.

Willow: They can listen to The Nature Of podcast, which is streaming on all major podcast platforms. Atmos.Earth is the home for all Atmos content, all of our stories, our print magazine. You can sign up for my newsletter there and on social media, I am Willow On Earth. And I post a lot more of my own personal writing there and thoughts and views.

Mike: Well, Willow, once again, congratulations on this podcast series. I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it to everyone listening and thank you so much for speaking with me today. I really appreciate it.

Willow: Thank you so, so much, Mike. It’s been a pleasure. Appreciate all of your questions.

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