Look for the helpers!
Real solutions for the climate crisis
It’s easy to despair when we hear that we humans wiped out two thirds of wildlife over the last 50 years. These are the moments when I think of the famous advice Mister Roger’s mom gave her son, “Look for the helpers! You will always find people who are helping.”
While world leaders meet in Europe this week for the pivotal United Nations climate summit, I drove to Santa Paula to meet with Kristine Tompkins. She managed to protect millions of acres of precious wild land by making the largest private land donation in history. thus, she helped conserve a total of 14.7 million acres of land and 30 million marine acres.
What she accomplished in the last three decades, at first with her husband at her side, will preserve some of the most precious ecosystems on the planet. Their work began in Pumalín, a largely impenetrable area that stretches from the Chilean coast into the snow-covered Andes. The wet climate is home to an incredible biodiversity comprised of thousands of species. The endangered Alerce cypresses, some more than 3,000 years old, grow here below the peaks of the Andes and are so precious the German colonists used their wood as currency rather than money.
Her conservation work got me thinking about the enormous responsibility that comes with landownership in the age of climate change. The biggest landowner on earth is the Vatican. The biggest landowners in North America are Bill and Melinda Gates. Imagine what they could do for the environment if the Gateses managed their 242,000 acres sustainably. Though Bill Gates’s latest book is called How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, his $5 billion land investment is “not connected to climate,” he told Mother Jones.
Tompkins says she could be “cynical and view the whole thing like rolling a peanut onto Pikes Peak with your nose. But don’t throw out audacious and seemingly impossible concepts because they’re difficult.” She quotes a recent study showing that 85 percent of the population is now being affected by climate change. “So it’s not just me anymore. This crisis will change people. People understand what really has to happen.”
Read all about her journey and see pictures of the jaguars she’s been rewilding here.
Kris Tompkins in Chile. Photo by James Q. Martin
My favorite part of working for Reasons to Be Cheerful is speaking with incredible people who are actively moving the needle, such as the Dutch weather makers who are determined to turn a desert into a forest, and entire communities that prevent deforestation.
These are people who make a real, tangible difference for the environment, and for us. At Reasons to Be Cheerful, I’m proud that I get to focus on innovators, scientists, and students who are implanting effective, reproducible solutions. This is what gives me hope and keeps me going.
I’m also humbled and happy to report that the LA Press Club awarded me first place in Environmental Reporting for my Pulitzer-funded story about preserving the California coastline from sea level rise: 10 years. $20 million. The fight to save broad beach.
Cheerfully,
Michaela
P.S. Look at this view of Pumalin, paradise preserved!
