We talk about the coaching philosophy his college career taught him, what it’s like to watch snowpack and fire season shift year after year from the front lines of race planning, and why he believes people are more likely to protect the wild places they've actually been.

Note: this past weekend, several weeks after we recorded this episode, the Daybreak team had to alter the course of the Hood Hundred due to wildfires. Even with the new route, they still ended up making the difficult decision to call the race early due to concerns over air quality. Read more here.

Listen to the episode

We talk about:

• Watching Oregon’s snowpack and fire season shift year after year from the front lines of race planning

• The coaching philosophy an “underwhelming” college running career taught him — and why athletes have to believe in the plan for it to work

• Growing Daybreak Racing from four events to a dozen a year, built on trust with permitting agencies and local communities

• Why “if you see it, you’re more likely to want to take care of it” shapes where and how Daybreak chooses to hold its races

• How much Aaron loves being on the mic, especially when Addie has decided to camp out at the finish line

Links

• Aaron Long Instagram

• Daybreak Racing

• Daybreak Racing Instagram

• Gorge Waterfalls Race

• Big Alta Race

Keywords
Daybreak Racing, trail running, race directing, Pacific Northwest, coaching, Oregon, Maine, snowpack, wildfire season, climate, adaptation, protection, conservation, action

And then I’m like - yo! When have we gotten so negative on here? What about the anti-doomsday messaging I’ve always said I would follow/produce! True. So let’s try to flip it a little.

In said flipping, I always worry about making the presence of climate impacts a positive. Like: well now we have all this flooding, but at least people understand sea level rise now! Damn. That’s pretty depressing, no?

BUT. But. And? So. I think I’m going to sorta kinda do that, but apply it to us all. Let me explain.

This week, I had a conversation with a group in which we all noted how interesting it was that New York City had now experienced several years of intense wildfire smoke, which is not something you’d expect in such an urban area so far from large forests. In fact, many people (anecdotally) in my life in fact choose to live in NYC because they are self-described “not nature people” (mega shoutout though too to all my friends in NYC that yearn for the mountains…here for you!). And maybe, just maybe (go with me here) this means that sometimes those folks don’t see the direct day-to-day impacts of climate in the way others do who spend more time outside or live “closer” to nature.

Photo credit:

Where I’m going with this is: though our outdoor community is “close” to the impacts, they will/are starting to be unavoidable to everyone regardless of where you live or what your hobbies are (or your socioeconomic status, though it is widely documented that the communities who bear the brunt of climate change are those in developing countries and often living in poverty). Jay Lipman, co-founder of The Nat, wrote on LinkedIn last week that after the smoke came to NYC, he was “getting messages from friends, colleagues and even got asked on a call this morning by the CSO of a major tech company…how she should explain what’s happening to her 4 year old son.” This was following another post he’d made asking if climate was back on the agenda. Maybe it is.

A pretty terrible screen grab of a reel Jay posted - but the color is not far off.

I say this as someone who has also had conversations with folks about ‘climate havens’ - “Is Maine one? Well, only inland because of the hurricanes.” “I hear the only one in the US is Michigan.” And so forth. But the thing about climate havens is a) it is an extremely “everyone for themselves” mentality, and guess who can access these havens/buy land or a house or actually make a move happen? Yes, you guessed it - those with money. Also b) clearly, as exemplified by what is happening in NYC and all along the East Coast with smoke, there is no real climate haven.

As we know, climate change knows no borders or boundaries, so the hilarious irony of Trump trying to put a tariff on Canada’s wildfire smoke is made even more comical (/sinister) by the fact that he however refuses to pay into the loss and damage fund that provides climate reparations to countries who have been impacted by the emissions of other countries (the US is still the second largest emitter to China). Trump’s fancy new idea makes me want to go - ohhh, cool! So we’re down for a global, mandatory tax on air quality now? Sick!

All my rambling is to say - we can try to get away from the impacts, to save ourselves… and certainly, adaptation is key and truly essential, so things like planned relocation are actual climate solutions that work (though that is a whole other can of worms around equitable impacts and the emotions of this solution). But, to put it bluntly, climate impacts are inescapable, so we have to wake people up to what’s happening. Whether that’s a rerouted trail race, World Cup hydration breaks (as contentious as they are), or the orange sky out the window of your high-rise apartment, whatever gives people an “a-ha” moment, I’m kind of all for it.

I guess it’s like - if we’re going to have air equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes, let’s also have some awakenings from it?

I don’t know. What I do know is, for better or for worse, it’s getting a lot harder to look away.

Julie is the author of Waiting for the Night Song and The Last Beekeeper. Her third novel, The Forest Becomes Her, arrives this month from St. Martin’s Press. She spent fifteen years running an organic farm in New Hampshire, kept bees before reconsidering what responsible beekeeping actually requires, and now teaches creative writing at Drexel’s MFA program after building a climate fiction course from scratch at Tufts.

In this conversation, Addie and Julie discuss Julie’s path from journalist to farmer to novelist, what climate fiction can accomplish that a report cannot, and the personal grief and unexpected climate solution behind her new book.

Listen to the episode

We talk about:

• Julie’s climate awakening, beginning with a discovery on her own farmland in New Hampshire.

• Her journey from from journalism to organic farming to fiction.

• Her new novel, The Forest Becomes Her, and her its three main characters, all connected to a clear-cut old-growth forest.

• Why climate fiction works as a Trojan horse for empathy, even with readers who reject climate change.

• A climate solution that is a new one on the pod!

Links:

• The Forest Becomes Her — pre-order, coming July 2026 from St. Martin’s Press, or wherever books are sold.

• The Last Beekeeper

• Waiting for the Night Song

• Julie’s Substack: juliesplottwist.substack.com

• Julie’s website: juliecarrickdalton.com

• Julie on Instagram: @juliecdalton

• Transcend / Tree Burial — the green burial company mentioned in the episode

Keywords: climate fiction, land back, New Hampshire, farming, Indigenous stewardship, Alaska, pollinators, regenerative farming, climate grief, climate communication

For a few weeks now, my partner Ryan and I have undertaken the watching of all the Jurassic Park movies ever made, in order. This is the first watching for me, as despite how obsessed I was growing up, I was never allowed to see the first movie due to the scary factor, and then by the time I was old enough I just never prioritized it and the obsession had faded. To our surprise, there was a Jurassic film made just last year, a discovery I had while on a plane recently and Scarlett Johansson’s face popped up under the iconic T-Rex logo (we had thought the story ended with Chris Pratt’s European adventures!). So we had one more to go to complete the series.

In this most recent watching, I was delighted to find how much climate appeared as a theme/phenomenon; each time it was woven into the conversation, I cheered. This reminded me of the “Bechdel test for climate,” which was created as a spin-off of the original Bechdel test to gauge the “mainstreaming” of climate into storytelling. The original test - also JUST brought back into my life by my friend Anuja reminding me that The Lord of the Rings, as wonderful as it is, certainly does not pass this test - has two criteria: 1) that two women talk to each other, and 2) that that conversation is about something other than a man. (Other sources remind us of a third criterion, which goes first, that states that both woman are named characters.) So LOTR, not quite the passing marks we’d hope for.

This new test, The Climate Reality Check, was created by the teams behind the storytelling firm Good Energy and the Buck Lab for Climate & Environment at Colby College (shoutout Maine!). Here, we have two new criteria that need to be present in a film to pass this test: 1) climate change exists and 2) a character knows it. Seems pretty simple right? Harder to achieve in a script (especially one not trying to hit viewers over the head with climate info) than we might think.

In the past few years, there have been several films that did indeed pass this test. Barbie, for instance, features a character that names climate change as one of the world’s greatest problems (I had no doubt Greta would sneak it in). I just watched another film - Voicemails for Isabelle - on Netflix where the character is listing off the world’s woes and climate lands on the list (nice job Emma Stewart and Netflix Sustainability team!). But interestingly, sometimes only the first criterion is met. For instance, 2024’s Twisters focused squarely on changing weather patterns, as the title suggest, but “doesn’t once mention climate change.” Some felt like this was a missed opportunity; others, like NRDC’s Rewrite the Future - which consults on exactly this topic to some of Hollywood’s biggest studios - find that subtle cues and allusions are the most effective way to prevent the kind of “audience shutdown” that happen when we are presented with blatant facts. But does it past the Reality Check? I would argue no, as while climate change clearly exists, without a specific statement from a character, it’s hard to know if they know that (the Reality Check says this understanding “can be demonstrated through dialogue, narration, actions, or visual imagery.” So maybe I’m wrong.)

But then we have Jurassic World Rebirth, a surprisingly bold example of the Reality Check, both on and off screen. In both the introductory copy and the dialogue mid-film, climate change is specifically mentioned as a driving force for why dinosaurs (in this Rebirth world) can’t survive outside of the Equator area. This is more due to the oxygen levels in the air, they say, than the heat (as yes, you might expect them to actually be able to survive in more places if that were the case, as they love tropical regions). I also believe there was a line about human-caused changes in the atmosphere, but maybe don’t quote me on that (going from memory here!).

Ok, so why does this matter?

There are several reasons, but I guess I’ll put a personal spin on it. I will say that the first reaction I have when I hear these mentions is relief. Someone else is talking about it, and on a broad scale! Other characters are, like me and so many I know, stressed out about this! There’s both a feeling of being acknowledged as well as a slight relief in the sense of it being available to anyone, anywhere to watch, and for that source to be, well, more legit? It’s in Jurassic World, don’t just take it from me! Or something.

The movie’s producer said:

[Jurassic World Rebirth] is science fiction — but the emphasis is on science. It’s essential that the audience believes the story you’re telling could really happen, and that means doing your research and making sure even the biggest ideas are grounded in authenticity. And if we’re reflecting the world as it exists today, that authenticity has to include our relationship with the natural world and the impact we have on it. I hope we continue to see more stories that make heroes out of the people who dedicate their lives to protecting the planet.

Jurassic World is not the only film in the last year to pass the Reality Check. These Academy Award-nominated films did too. And I’ll leave you with something Good Energy founder Anna Jane Joyner said about this very slate of films:

…As different as these films are, they also share a common thread. These films reflect ordinary people — a bus driver, a beekeeper, friends at a rave — who dig deep and find the determination to meet the moment. In periods of uncertainty and rupture, stories give shape to chaos and help us envision a way forward. At it’s best, cinema reveals what’s at stake and who we might choose to be.

So as we’re out adventuring this summer, the natural world close at hand (certainly closer than the flora and fauna of the fictional island in JWR, Île Saint-Hubert) may we think about what’s at stake and who we might choose to be.

It is also, by nearly every measurable metric, the most climatically consequential one, both in terms of impacts the tournament has on climate and the effects of climate on the game. The World Cup is a case study in climate's two-way relationship with global sport: the emissions it generates, and the heat it now has to contend with.

For all of us who care about sport in the outdoors - whether that is running trails, hiking ridgelines, or simply spending time outside - the World Cup is an interesting case study in the intersection of outdoor (large-scale) activity and a warming climate.

What the Numbers Say

The projected greenhouse gas emissions for the 2026 World Cup sit between 7.8 and 9 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalent, depending on the methodology used. That is roughly double the historical average for the four previous tournaments, and significantly higher than the 5.25 million metric tons attributed to Qatar 2022. Scientists for Global Responsibility, which produced one of the most comprehensive analyses to this end, describes the 2026 tournament as the most polluting in football history. Independent carbon accounting by Greenly estimates the total at 7.8 million metric tons, approximately 2.1 times the official figure reported for Qatar 2022.

The structural drivers are well-documented. The three host nations span a continent, placing stadiums at a greater distance away from each other. North America lacks the high-speed rail networks that reduce the carbon cost of travel in Europe or Asia. The tournament also expanded from 32 to 48 teams, adding 16 national squads and 40 matches, and correspondingly greater travel demand across the board.

The figure that most significantly reframes how event emissions should be understood is this: approximately 87 percent of the 2026 World Cup’s projected carbon footprint comes from spectator travel, well above the combined share attributable to stadium construction, team logistics, and operations. International fans, who represent around 35 percent of expected attendance, are projected to generate 74 percent of travel-related emissions. The average overseas visitor will travel nearly 19,400 kilometers on a return journey.

It must be said - many of you who read this substack know that I grapple with my own personal travel (which is still plentiful, both for work but also personally), and I also love welcoming so many visitors to the US (especially given all the beautifully surprising stories that have emerged, too many to link here - go google it - looking at you, Scots in Boston 👀). So I am more laying out the facts here versus offering a condemnation of this kind of travel… all to be discussed, I suppose.

FIFA’s sustainability strategy for 2026 addresses energy efficiency, waste management, and logistics. It does not set a carbon target for the tournament itself, and its stated position on spectator travel is that the organization will “encourage relevant entities to set up efficient air travel routes that reduce distances.” (I’ve talked as well about other large event series’ approach to participant travel, like UTMB.) At COP26 in 2021, FIFA committed to cutting its emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and reaching net zero by 2040 under the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework. In 2023, Switzerland’s advertising regulator ruled that FIFA’s claims of carbon neutrality for Qatar 2022 were unsubstantiated, marking the first formal greenwashing decision issued against a global sports organization.

The Heat Is Already Here

Climate Central analyzed temperature trends at all 16 host sites and found that climate change has increased the number of extremely hot summer days in 14 of the 16 host cities. Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, where matches are played outdoors, now experiences roughly two additional weeks of extreme June and July heat compared to the 1970s. Researchers at Brunel University found that 14 of 16 host stadiums could exceed the 28°C wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT*) threshold at which sports medicine organizations and FIFPRO, the global players’ union, recommend delaying or postponing play, with four of those venues potentially reaching 32°C. A separate climate risk assessment, “Pitches in Peril,” produced by Football for Future, Common Goal, and Jupiter Intelligence, reached a similar conclusion using IPCC-aligned modeling: 14 of 16 World Cup stadiums already exceed safe-play thresholds for heat, rainfall, or flooding. The report’s authors suggested this could be the last World Cup played under a traditional summer schedule in North America absent significant adaptation.

*WBGT accounts for humidity, radiant heat, and air movement, capturing the full thermal load on a human body working outdoors, and it differs meaningfully from standard air temperature. Outdoor athletes operating in summer conditions engage with this distinction routinely; as we know, the number on a thermometer reflects only one dimension of heat exposure.

That distinction stopped being theoretical in the tournament’s first week. NPR’s pre-tournament analysis found that more than one in three World Cup matches face dangerously hot, humid conditions, and the early schedule has borne that out. The opening match in Houston - Mexico vs. South Africa on June 11 - drew thousands to the outdoor FIFA Fan Festival, where 90 people were treated for heat-related illness on the first day alone, including 22 cases serious enough to require treatment beyond first aid and four hospital transports. Four days later in Miami, Uruguay’s match against Saudi Arabia took place under an active National Weather Service extreme heat warning, with a heat index exceeding 100°F at kickoff. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue logged 10 heat-related medical calls at the stadium that day, two of which required hospital transport. Houston recorded a separate wave of fan hospitalizations later in the week as temperatures again climbed past 90°F with high humidity.

“I would put all my red flags up for the city of Miami as my biggest place of worry,” said Dr. Douglas Casa, CEO of the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut, in comments this week. Casa noted that spectators and event workers face higher heat-illness risk than the athletes themselves, who benefit from cooling protocols, hydration support, and medical staff dedicated specifically to player care (that’s pretty wild to me, but yes absolutely makes sense). Physicians staffing World Cup venues this week described heat exhaustion - including headache, nausea, fatigue, and cramping - as the most common presentation they are treating, and reported stocking IV fluids in anticipation of continued demand as the tournament moves through its hottest weeks.

The exposure extends well beyond ticketed fans inside stadiums and elite athletes on the pitch. Outdoor fan festivals, street watch parties, and the lines and transit waits surrounding every match place large crowds in direct sun for extended periods, often with less shade and fewer medical resources than the stadiums themselves. Researchers at Arizona State University have specifically flagged the risk in queues and transit waits, where shade is scarce and crowd density makes it difficult to leave.

Some host venues offer real protection. Roughly 20 percent of matches are scheduled in air-conditioned stadiums, including Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta. Miami, Kansas City, and Philadelphia remain open-air. FIFA has responded with mandatory three-minute hydration breaks at the 22nd and 67th minutes of every match regardless of conditions, adjusted kickoff times in hotter markets, and an updated water-bottle policy allowing fans into US and Canadian venues with one factory-sealed bottle. These are concrete, in-progress adaptations, and they are also, by definition, responses to conditions that have already arrived rather than preventative measures.

Heat is not the only hazard this week has surfaced. A tropical disturbance moving through the Gulf has brought flash flood risk to Houston, Louisiana, and the broader Gulf Coast during match days this week, with forecasters warning of poor drainage and flooding risk in low-lying areas around outdoor fan festivals, even as the Houston stadium’s retractable roof keeps the matches themselves unaffected. The juxtaposition is instructive: covered stadiums can engineer around extreme heat or rain for the 90 minutes of play, while the outdoor infrastructure surrounding every match, including fan festivals, transit corridors, and parking areas, remains exposed to whatever conditions the week brings.

Additionally, props to Grist for covering FIFA’s lack of wildfire plan or any additional adaptation measures to this end either. But also - damn.

The Outdoor Parallel

For those who spend time in the mountains, on trails, or in open water, the operational challenges the World Cup is navigating are familiar.

Questions about when conditions are safe, how to interpret heat indices, and how to plan around a climate that no longer behaves predictably are central to outdoor event management at every scale. Trail race directors postpone events. Summit attempts are rescheduled to pre-dawn windows. Open-water races are cancelled or shortened. The 2026 Los Angeles Marathon allowed participants to end at mile 18 due to dangerous heat conditions, which I wrote about here. The logic FIFA is applying to stadium management closely mirrors the logic outdoor race directors and land managers have developed, in many cases well ahead of larger governing bodies, over the past decade.

The outdoor community has built practical, distributed climate literacy through direct engagement with changing conditions (whether we know it or not). Heat index interpretation, early-morning start strategies, expanded medical protocols, and real-time weather monitoring are now standard tools in the outdoor event toolkit. That body of operational knowledge applies directly to the World Cup context and to outdoor sports broadly as average temperatures continue to rise.

The World Cup involves outdoor pitches for the majority of its matches, and every fan gathering in an open stadium or street watch party exists in the same thermal environment as anyone recreating outside on the same day in the same city. NOAA has noted that major international events such as the 2026 World Cup can learn directly from the heat management protocols developed by outdoor athletics organizations in prior years.

The Scale Problem

The 2026 World Cup carries the emissions profile it does because FIFA made specific organizational decisions: expanding the tournament from 32 to 48 teams, distributing host venues across three countries on a continent without low-carbon long-distance transport, and declining to set a binding emissions target for the event. These decisions were made against the backdrop of FIFA’s own stated climate commitments.

Dr. Madeleine Orr, assistant professor of sport ecology at the University of Toronto, has described the 2026 World Cup as sending “a dangerous message about the intentions of FIFA and other events to just get bigger and bigger.” The trajectory of projected emissions across future tournaments reinforces this concern. The 2030 World Cup, planned across multiple continents, is projected to generate over 6 million tCO₂e; the 2034 edition, to be hosted by Saudi Arabia, over 8.5 million.

Individual adaptations, including cooling stations, adjusted kickoffs, and carbon offset programs, function at the margins. The decisions that determine the fundamental scale of emissions are structural, encompassing event size, host geography, and transport infrastructure. The adaptations treat the symptoms, but the structural decisions that are what are driving the overall footprint upward.

The counterargument has merit. Global sporting competitions generate civic investment and concentrated public attention at a scale few other events can match. Paris used the 2024 Olympics to update city infrastructure and reserved tickets for local residents to reduce long-distance travel. World Cup host cities have access to the same strategic opportunity: permanent investments in cooling infrastructure, resilient public spaces, and green transit that outlast the 39-day tournament. Whether that opportunity is seized, or whether the primary legacy is carbon expenditure, is a question that will be answered over the next several years.

What to Watch for the Remaining Five Weeks

The 2026 World Cup runs through July 19. One week in, the pattern is already established: heat-related medical incidents at fan festivals and stadiums, an active extreme heat warning during at least one match, and a tropical system testing outdoor infrastructure on the Gulf Coast. Five weeks remain, including several matches still to come in the hottest open-air stadiums on the schedule.

Several questions will define the rest of the tournament. Which venues see additional heat-related incidents as the schedule moves through its warmest weeks? Do the gaps between FIFA’s postponement threshold and FIFPRO’s recommended threshold narrow under continued scrutiny? How do outdoor fan festivals, which have proven more exposed than the stadiums themselves, adapt as the tournament progresses? The data accumulating now will be directly relevant to how the 2030 and 2034 tournaments are planned, and to how outdoor event organizers at every scale approach heat management going forward.

I admittedly have anxiety about this topic. As I wander around London pre-Climate Action Week (see? more travel…) in 28°C trying to find any shade I can (there are more tree covering in wealthier neighborhoods, go figure), I wonder how long we’re going to be able to handle the stress on the body, even in non-athletic endeavors like window shopping and cold brew drinking. Do we seek AC, living more of our lives indoors than we ever have before? What does this mean for outdoor recreation?

For the outdoor community, the first week of the 2026 World Cup offers a documented, large-scale illustration of a challenge that is already reshaping how and when people can safely spend time outside. The sport, the venue, and the institutional scale are certainly different from a trail race or a summit attempt; the underlying climate dynamic is not.

Keith spent nearly 20 years in Maine broadcasting — including three years at The Weather Channel — before making the move to Maine Conservation Voters, where he now leads communications. While his background in atmospheric science shapes how he thinks about evidence, his time in local TV shapes how he thinks about audience. The combination is pretty rare in the climate space, and it shows in the work he’s doing.

We talk about what the climate movement knows to be true and the difference with how we talk about it, AND the problems that arise when you approach a topic from the angle of guilt. Keith is skeptical of alarmism, wary of bundling climate with unrelated political causes, and convinced that heat pumps are one of the most instructive success stories in the space right now.

Listen to the episode

We talk about:

• Why climate messaging that leads with urgency and finger-wagging has lost the people it most needs to reach — and what works instead

• The test Keith uses for all of his communications: would he say the same thing to someone at a gas station in Skowhegan?

• Why heat pumps have taken hold in Maine while EVs have struggled — and what that gap reveals about how people actually adopt new technology

• How Keith used his own TV platform to report that his carbon footprint was higher than the average gas car driver’s — and why he thinks that kind of honesty matters

• The “Six Americas” framework in practice: who Keith is actually trying to reach, and why he’s not trying to reach everyone

• Why he avoids political affiliations even at an organization with “voters” in the name — and what the climate movement loses when it ties itself too closely to one side

Links

• Keith’s Instagram

• Maine Conservation Voters

• MCV Instagram

• Protect Our Winters

• Yale Program on Climate Change Communication – Six Americas

• Quilt (heat pump brand)

Keywords Maine Conservation Voters, climate communication, meteorology, heat pumps, Maine climate, electric vehicles, climate messaging, outdoor community, behavior change, local news, local weather, weatherman

View from the main pavilion

In true POW fashion, this was an event designed to get outdoor lovers into the outdoors. Together, we camped in a large field and made our way up the hill for out-of-this-world food each day (seriously - poke bowls, chilaquiles, fried rice, breakfast tacos? …the list, full of local ingredients, goes on), a hill that was necessary to get our blood pumping after camping in 35 degrees overnight 🥶 It also wouldn’t be a POW summit without plenty of outdoor activities - I chose fishing every time (more on that soon).

A glamping setup for the ages - complete with charging capabilities?! 😭

Throughout the days, we heard from experts in the field of decarbonization and natural climate solutions; scientists studying the outer reaches of the earth for climate indicators; athletes who had accomplished the most daring feats (shoutout Jim Morrison, who skied the first descent of the North Face of Everest last year and who also, very casually, was my fishing buddy) but still say climate change tops the list for the largest challenge of our time. Former Washington Governor Jay Inslee capped our two day experience as the keynote speaker (the title of this post is his quote), where he raised the ambition around taking action, urging us to get out the door and get our neighbors involved in even just talking about climate (he told us stories about canvassing and the tens of thousands of doors he has knocked in his life). Several people I look up to immensely were present, these two names included. It was star-studded and yet also extremely down to earth, with us all waving at each other as we emerged from our tents in the morning, groggy and chilly (no, actually, straight up cold).

Inslee himself! He was also on my plane back, not to brag.

Aside from speakers and panels, we also participated in interactive sessions like opening the aperture on the outdoors and focusing on the most pressing issues society is feeling today (climate-related or not), and how that impacted the outdoor industry. The biggest trend overall? AFFORDABILITY. Another was technology/AI/screens. My table for this exercise talked a lot about the research behind how access to green spaces/nature correlates with desire to protect the outdoors. We also split into regional groups (I decided to go PNW but was pulled strongly towards New England, story of my life) and talk about actions we could commit to to get out the vote well before the midterms (something like 11.2 million people that consider themselves environmentalists did not vote in the 2024 presidential election). Hearing everyone’s ideas - from livestreamed podcast-esque conversations with local leaders to ballot-filling parties to themed neighborhood dinners - was invigorating and refreshing.

Hilary Hutcheson welcoming us to her home.

Here are my key takeaways:

• We’re all in this together, we’re not alone, and we need each and every one of us and our specific talents, interests and ideas at the table.

• I’ve been wavering about the usefulness of writing these posts, of recording the conversations I do, of “talking about climate” as a real climate solution… and I do still think it is. The stories I heard last week - people talking to their neighbors, minds that were opened or changed over beers or on paddles - solidified that for me.

• There are a lot of folks - even people on stages and panels - who don’t know how to proceed all the time on this issue and who also feel fear, anxiety and trepidation. There were way more hands that went up when we were asked who feels uncertain how to proceed some days - including from scientists who presented! - that indicated, once again, that we are not alone, and also that it’s okay not to get everything perfect all the time.

And don’t worry, I didn’t forget FISHING!!! 🎣

The rest of this post is an ode to Hilary Hutcheson, her team and the Flathead River (so if you’re like, eh, I don’t really like fishing, you can probably stop reading here).

Hilary and her team ready to take us out

So, many of you know that I have been fishing since I was 3-ish. Thanks Dad! Here is a photo of me (a little older than that) on Kennebago Lake, rod in hand. But I got REALLY into it in 2020 as the pandemic was swirling and taking up a peaceful, socially-distanced pastime like fishing was extremely attractive.

Lil Ads. Man what a classic Beans sweater.

Now cut to the Flathead river, and photos of the bull trout I caught using my first every dropper/dry fly indicator situation … and my first ever fish caught on a river. That’s right, I’m a lake girl. I’ve fished plenty of rivers, but never caught anything - I always chalked it up to my ability to cast right to a rise (thanks, high school lacrosse!) and understand the ways of the lake in a way I could never grasp with the river.

The Bull! You can’t pick them up because they’re endangered but - hand for scale!

Thanks to Killion (Hilary’s stepson), I not only improved my cast during our casting lesson the day before, but I caught three fish of three different species - this bull trout, a rainbow (on the dry!) and a cuttbow (a cutthroat/rainbow hybrid). The cutthroat is the native, prized fish species, and this hybridization is the cause of many pain points. Rainbows are not native to the river, and have an interesting connection to climate - as the rivers warm, they are traveling further upstream and breeding with these “cutties,” creating this hybrid, and also competing with the purebreds for resources. Me catching one, in addition to the eight others caught that day, Hilary said, is further proof that this species is too populous for her liking.

Killion and Sam. Our team/band name was “Killion and the Rust Busters.”

I had the time of my life, learned so much, and forgot to think about eating or peeing or doing anything else for three glorious hours. It was a beautiful “flow state” of constant action (the river will give that to you!) and deeply knowledgeable guidance that kept me working harder on my cast and asking for feedback and advice along the way.

Hilary’s fly shop in West Glacier.

I seriously can’t get over the fact that POW provided such an experience for us. How lucky are we. Thank you POW for bringing us to Montana to dig deep on climate, create community and catch really beautiful fish.

We talk about motherhood and identity, what it costs to actually try for something, how humanitarian crises and climate change keep colliding in the same places, athlete advocacy, and a climate solution most people wouldn’t see coming.

Listen to the episode

We talk about:

• How resource scarcity, arable land loss, and climate displacement are already driving the conflicts Stephanie worked inside for fifteen years

• What it looks like to advocate for small island states at the UN – countries where climate change isn't a 2050 projection but a today problem, as in: their land is actively disappearing

• Why Free to Run insists on outdoor running, not indoor programming – being visible in public space is the whole point

• The “stay in your lane” argument, what labeling advocacy as “political” actually does, and why professional athletes have a responsibility, not just permission, to speak up

• Education for girls and family planning as a top-tier climate solution – and why it doesn’t appear on most people’s lists

Links

• Free to Run

• We Are Here – film featuring Sabrina Pace-Humphreys and Black Trail Runners at UTMB

• Stephanie Case on Instagram

• Project Drawdown – Education for Girls

• Black Trail Runners

• WTCTA on Instagram

Keywords

ultrarunning, trail running, human rights, humanitarian law, conflict zones, athlete advocacy, climate solutions, education for girls, Project Drawdown, UTMB, Black Trail Runners, We Are Here, professional athlete

I think there is validity to both sides, but it’s the overlap in their arguments - the center of the Venn diagram, if you will - that I find most interesting.

Huber’s argument is not coming from a climate denier. He wrote a book called Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet, and he believes the crisis is real and urgent. His point is this: the voters who already prioritize climate action are educated, higher-income, and firmly Democratic - what Thomas Piketty has called the “Brahmin Left.” The voters Democrats are actually losing are working class people for whom energy is, in Huber’s phrase, an “end-of-the-month” issue. When Democrats lead with the words “climate change,” Huber thinks they sound like they are talking to one constituency (an already-worried one) about a long-term abstract threat, while a different constituency is staring at a bill they cannot pay this month. The word/phrase “climate change” itself has become a class signifier, he says, a tell that the speaker is talking past most of the country, and until that changes, saying it might actually cost more votes than it earns.

You can see why this argument has traction if you look at the polling data. The Searchlight Institute, a Democratic think tank, put out a report proclaiming that the first rule on climate change is essentially to stop saying it (the same report said that “59% of voters in battleground states are ‘bothered that climate change has become such a political issue’”). Protect Our Winters (POW) has moved away from a “climate” framing and towards “clean air, clean water, healthy planet.” Look at Mamdani’s campaign!, Huber writes - the now-mayor rarely mentioned climate and instead leaned into “fast, free buses.” Battleground voters agree climate is a problem, AND YET they do not rank it in their top five concerns. Both “climate” and “climate change” register as Democratic-coded words in a way that “affordability” does not. The political math is real.

Photo credit:

McKibben’s rebuttal, which I would recommend reading in full, is that this math is wrong on several counts. The first is that the underlying politics have not actually changed. Gallup released numbers around the same time as his piece showing 44% of Americans now worry “a great deal” about climate change, which is near the highest reading since 1989. Sixty-three percent say the government is not doing enough to protect the environment. The shift is being driven by independents, the voters who decide midterm elections. Concern is going up; news coverage is going down. Both Reuters and the Washington Post have laid off their climate desks. Television coverage of climate change dropped 35% in 2025, and online coverage dropped roughly 32% over the same period. The country has not gotten less worried, but the conversation has gotten quieter. Those two things should not be moving in opposite directions.

McKibben's second point is that affordability and climate are not in tension if we stop treating them as separate stories. Gas prices, utility bills, home insurance. The cost of recovering from a hurricane that your insurer no longer wants to cover. The price of a loaf of pumpernickel grown in places that are now either too dry or too wet. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, whom McKibben quotes at length, has been making this point as well, including the fact that climate-driven insurance hikes are now the top economic issue in places like Florida and Louisiana and increasingly in California. Sixty-five percent of voters say climate change is raising their costs. By a margin of 74-10, voters want the companies that caused the pollution to pay for the harm.

His third point really hits home, which is that silence has its own gravity. Whitehouse calls it the “leadership lack loop.” When leaders stop talking about something, enthusiasm for it falls among voters, and that drop in enthusiasm is then used as evidence that leaders should not be talking about it. EcoAmerica ran a survey last month that found most Americans are concerned about climate change but believe that most other Americans are not. We are walking around lonelier in our worry than we need to be, because nobody in public life is reflecting it back at us. That is a strange and avoidable kind of failure, and climate hushing is making it worse.

A couple of weeks ago I sat in on a Rachel’s Network webinar called Women Leaders Fighting the High Cost of Climate Change, with Loren Blackford from the Sierra Club, Lena Moffitt from Evergreen Action, and Candice Youngblood from Earthjustice. The whole framing of the panel was the affordability angle that Huber is pushing toward. Climate change is driving up insurance, energy bills, and disaster costs, more than three trillion dollars worth of disaster costs in the United States in recent years. Clean energy is cheap energy, and the panelists thought advocates should lead with that.

But then, without any prompting, the panel landed almost exactly where McKibben does, even referencing his Substack as well. One line (paraphrased a little) was that if advocates stop naming climate change with decision-makers, decision-makers stop naming it too. The frame is affordability, but the word can still be climate. We have both at once, and we really can’t choose just one.

The panel also raised an element of nuance that I think the macro debate is missing - the question of “affordability for whom?” The fossil fuel industry has noticed the affordability frame too, and is using it right now to argue for more drilling and more pipelines and more gas. If the climate movement vacates the affordability frame and the only people occupying it are the companies whose business model is making the problem worse, we lose. The answer the panelists kept coming back to was specificity, the way California just passed a law blocking utilities from charging ratepayers for their own lobbying expenses.

Photo credit:

The outdoor world has been running its own version of this experiment for a few years now, and the results are interesting. POW, as I mentioned, has spent the last couple of years shifting its public-facing language, and you can find “clean air, clean water, healthy planet” on almost every page of their website. The word “climate” has not disappeared from POW’s vocabulary, but it is no longer the entry point. It is where you arrive once you have followed the trail of things people in the outdoor community already love and worry about. Hunters and anglers have been doing a version of this for even longer through groups like Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which talk about habitat, herds, water, and access far more than they talk about emissions, even though the threat to all of those things is, of course, climate. Same with Nature is Nonpartisan, which I talked at length about in this previous WTCTA post.

This is not climate hushing. It is the same move the Rachel’s Network panel was describing, just translated for an audience that responds to snowpack and elk migrations and trout streams rather than utility bills. The cost in the outdoor version is the loss of the thing you go outside for. We’re actually fighting for the same cause. The genius of “clean air, clean water, and a healthy planet” is that almost no one in America disagrees with it, including hunters in deep red districts who would tune out the word “climate” but will spend a Saturday morning calling their congressman about a mine that threatens a watershed.

I think Huber is right that the word “climate” alone is not winning persuadable voters in 2026, and McKibben is right that abandoning it will make the problem worse. The synthesis is the one POW and others are already living into, and the one the Rachel’s Network panel was pointing toward: lead with what people love or what they cannot afford to lose, and name the cause in the argument. Keep saying the word climate, just say it after you have said the thing the person across from you cares most about.

In this conversation, we get into what it felt like to be featured in the official Olympics documentary examining the long-term viability of winter sports – and we spend a good amount of time on something she thinks about carefully: why her advocacy has almost nothing to do with her Instagram, and why showing up quietly, in rooms nobody is watching, might be the most sustainable form of athlete advocacy there is.

Listen to the episode

We talk about:

• An early interest in environment and even climate - she wrote climate fiction in third grade!

• Her environmental interest expanding into a law degree and grassroots advocacy

• Racing internationally across seasons and noticing that something was always slightly off – not the same thing everywhere, but consistently strange

• Being featured in the official 2026 Winter Olympics documentary, which examines the long-term viability of hosting the Games as snow conditions change

• Why her advocacy looks almost nothing like her Instagram, and what it means to show up in rooms nobody is watching

Links:

• Anna Gibson on Instagram

• Protect Our Winters

• Anna’s Olympics Profile

• NCAA Article on Anna

• Crusher in the Tusher

• Jackson Hole AlpinFilm Fest

Keywords: ski mountaineering, trail running, environmental law, Winter Olympics 2026, Protect Our Winters, athlete advocacy, climate storytelling, human-powered travel, outdoor community, Jackson Hole, snow sports climate

So… let’s talk about what happened last week.

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate voted 50–49 to overturn a 20-year mining protection in Minnesota’s Superior National Forest – the headwaters of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, the most-visited wilderness area in the United States. (It must be noted that Susan Collins (R) of Maine did oppose the overturn - while I have a lot of thoughts on her politics that I will not include here, as a Mainer, I was happy to see that.) The vote clears a path for Twin Metals Minnesota, a subsidiary of Chilean mining conglomerate Antofagasta, to move forward with plans for an underground copper sulfide mine just outside the wilderness boundary. The Biden administration had imposed the protection in 2023 after a two-year Forest Service study on environmental impacts of this decision that drew 675,000 public comments, more than 95% of which opposed mining in that watershed. Congress used the Congressional Review Act – a procedural maneuver that bypasses the normal 60-vote threshold – to invalidate it anyway. Let’s also be clear: this wasn’t a close call on the science. The Forest Service’s own two-year study opposed this, as did 675,000 people who submitted public comments.

The bill now goes to the president’s desk.

Photo:

Also just last week the Forest Service’s plan to close 57 of its 77 research stations (!!!) – scattered across 31 states – drew alarm from foresters, scientists, and state land managers who rely on that research to manage wildfire, forest health, and watershed protection. Among the stations slated for closure is the Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory in the Pacific Northwest, which produces the smoke forecasts that the rest of us – runners, hikers, cyclists, paddlers – use to decide whether it’s safe to go outside. That closure is happening as wildfire activity is already well above average for the year, heading into what experts are describing as a potentially catastrophic fire season.

And on Thursday, Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz testified before Congress (another Maine shoutout: Chellie Pingree (D) made her opposition HEARD at this hearing) where he laid out a proposed 2027 budget that would cut trail maintenance funding by 64% and reduce overall recreation, heritage and wilderness funding by 31%.

Sweet. Awesome. So sick.

What this means for the way we recreate

The Forest Service manages 164,000 miles of trails; 84 million people visit those trails every year. The agency’s own internal analysis concluded that “public access, visitor satisfaction, and recreation-based economic contributions will continue to decline in 2026 and beyond” (more here) without investment in the trails program. They’re describing unusable trails, unsafe bridges, and negative environmental impacts as the direct result of the staffing cuts already in effect.

In Colorado, volunteers have been stocking and cleaning vault toilets on Independence Pass and drinking water has been shut off at the Maroon Bells Scenic Area because there is no staff. The Grand Canyon announced that visitors should expect delayed search and rescue response. The Sawtooth National Recreation Area cut ranger district office hours and is heading into summer with approximately 10 full-time non-firefighting staff to manage over 750,000 acres of public land.

For trail runners specifically, there’s a component to this that Runners for Public Lands is tracking closely. The Forest Service reorganization doesn’t just mean fewer people to maintain trails - it means the permitting infrastructure that trail races depend on is being destabilized at the same time. Race permits on National Forest land require coordination across ranger districts, NEPA review, and support from experienced agency staff – recreation planners, permit specialists, engineers. When that institutional knowledge is gone, permit timelines become unpredictable. Races that rely on this coordination – including some of the most iconic ultras in the country, like Western States and Bighorn – run on landscapes that also include Inventoried Roadless Areas, areas that are now under separate threat as the Forest Service moves toward rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule, which currently protects nearly 45 million acres of National Forest lands.

Photo:

The climate layer

I mean, let’s be real: what we’re watching is the systematic dismantling of the science infrastructure that gives us the best read on forests – how they’re responding to warming temperatures, where they’re becoming more fire-prone, which watersheds are most vulnerable. The research stations being closed aren’t just studying timber production and soil health. They’re the long-term monitoring networks that track climate impacts over decades. That work, once interrupted, doesn’t just pause. It ends. Research plots that have been studied for 40 years don’t get picked back up. The data gap is permanent.

Meanwhile, the Boundary Waters vote is also a water story. Copper sulfide mining produces acid mine drainage – the chemistry is straightforward and well-documented, which is why the Forest Service study recommended against it. The BWCA is more than a paddling destination and/or a fishing spot - it’s an interconnected freshwater system in a watershed that’s already experiencing documented climate stress. Mining contamination and climate stress compound each other. The senators who voted yes are accelerating risk in a system that’s already under pressure.

I keep coming back to something I wrote about earlier last year – the outdoor community as a political constituency (shoutout to Nature is Nonpartisan and Protect Our Winters for their work in this area). Backcountry hunters and anglers opposed the Boundary Waters vote (and Field & Stream covered it, not just the Sierra Club!). Trail runners are being told by their permit contacts that race access is uncertain. Hikers are arriving at trailheads to find closed ranger stations and overgrown trails. Wildfire evacuees in the West are increasingly dependent on fire behavior science that’s being defunded.

These are all outdoor communities. We all see and feel what’s happening to the places they love. And we have a stake in what happens next.

What we can do

The fight isn’t over on the Boundary Waters – advocates are now pushing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and the state DNR to cancel Twin Metals’ state mineral leases, which could stop the mine regardless of what happens federally. If you care about this, that’s where the pressure goes next.

On the Forest Service cuts and the Roadless Rule, public comment opportunities are coming. Runners for Public Lands is tracking the Roadless Rule rescission process and will share action opportunities when the next comment window opens. If you direct or run trail races on National Forest land, they’re also building a race course database to identify which events are most at risk – you can share course GPS files here.

And more broadly: this is a moment to think about who you’re in coalition with. The outdoor community is larger and more politically diverse than most people realize. That’s the thing that beat back the public land sell-off provision earlier this year, remember? When people understood “what’s in it for me” – access, culture, connection, livelihood – they showed up in numbers that moved lawmakers.

The same is true here. The stakes are real, the timeline is short, and we are not a small constituency. So… let’s go! 💪

Thorn

(Yes, thorn first.) A few weeks back, the Antelope Island Buffalo run - a 50-mile race in Utah - was cancelled due to an unseasonably early occurrence of swarms of gnats. The official statement from the race said:

Antelope Island experiences a seasonal emergence of no-see-ums (biting gnats) every spring (usually late April). When they hatch in large numbers, they form dense swarms, don’t respond to bug spray, and can make it extremely difficult to be outside without full coverage like head nets and heavy clothing - conditions that typically don’t align with a satisfactory race experience.

Because we are currently facing a record heat wave on the Wasatch Front, these bugs came early.

Under these projected conditions, the runner experience would be significantly compromised, and it would be unreasonable to ask our volunteers and staff to operate for extended periods of time on the course.

They also mention how hard the decision was to make (damn, I’m sure!) and how in 2027, they plan to “hold the race 2 weeks earlier to avoid this phenomenon.”

This is an interesting and unexpected climate impact. I come from Maine where ticks are becoming more and more plentiful due to the fact that temperatures are sometimes not cold enough to kill them off in the winter, leading to a surge of tick-related diseases in residents. The impacts of climate on heat conditions is one thing I “expect,” shall we say. But bug impacts? That’s a whole other ball game.

Rose

This weekend, Rhode Races (love the name!) is putting on the Newport Race Series using quite a sustainable approach. In partnership with 11th Hour Racing (who sponsored our Climate Strides events in NYC last fall!) and Epic Renewal, “they’ve diverted 76.5% of race waste, replaced single-use cups with reusable ones, and even have runners and volunteers ‘plogging’ the course ahead of race day (they pulled 250 pounds of trash last year alone). Nearly 1,000 pounds of materials are being recycled, with clothing and food donated locally,” according to Stacey Manasco, who works with 11th Hour on communications.

She makes the good point that this is an example of an event not just trying to reduce their impact, but leave a net positive effect as well.

Check out this week’s bonus podcast episode for a conversation with Dani Burton of the 11th Hour Racing team!

Bud

I’ll keep this one more vague - but - after the last WTCTA Substack on race day climate extremes, I had several people reach out to discuss the topic, including a climate adaptation expert (who is a runner as well) interested in creating a climate adaptation guide/kit aimed at serving race directors specifically. In checking with a few race directors in my network, I deduced that this would be of high interest to that community, especially coming from a specialist in this area. A great idea with a potentially large impact on the endurance event community. More on this soon…

Also!

The Where The Climate Things Are podcast has our first sponsor!! We are so grateful to the team at Open Fuel for reaching out after being inspired by the vision and mission over here - very cool! They have come on as our first sponsor to help keep the lights on and keep these episodes coming every week. Open Fuel, in addition to tasting really great (seriously), has a unique approach to sustainable packaging specifically that stood out to me as as different from the rest of the endurance nutrition field. We will hear more from Open Fuel co-founder Zach Hauer about their sustainability and circularity ethos and strategy in the coming weeks on the podcast, so stay tuned for that.

Want to also be a part of helping keep the lights on? Become a paid subscriber below - I am ever grateful 🙏

Thanks for reading - see you next week!

Take2Trail isn’t a listing site - Jes buys gear directly from sellers, authenticates it (fake Hokas and Salomons are a real and thriving market), OxiClean-baths it, photographs it, and lists it with full transparency on any wear or damage. The environmental case is real – the garment industry produces more global emissions than all of air and freight travel combined – and so is the access case: a full (new) trail kit runs $400–500. On Take2Trail, Jes thinks she can get you out the door for around $150.

We talk about:

• Growing up skiing and summering in the Adirondacks – and how a decade of obstacle course racing became an unlikely (or likely?) on-ramp to trail running

• How she built a business around a weak spot in the trail community: the trustworthiness of secondhand gear (authenticating fakes, absorbing the risk, and making the process actually painless)

• Why donated trail shoes almost never end up on feet – and what actually happens to them

• Buying with your dollars as climate action – and why small behavior swaps add up faster than most people think

• Where Take2Trail goes next – mountain biking, camping, youth sports, and something like an Amazon for gently used outdoor gear

Links:

• Take2Trail

• Take2Trail on Instagram

• Take2Trail on Substack

• Take2Trail Transparency page

• No Tox Life (compostable lip balm Jes mentioned)

Keywords: Take2Trail, used trail running gear, circular economy, gear resale, trail running access, fast fashion emissions, footwear recycling, obstacle course racing, New England trails, circularity, secondhand outdoor gear, climate action, closed loop, cradle to cradle

She would stand in front of a green screen, moving her hands over imaginary states and animated weather systems, gesturing with her arms to build excitement (I agree, weather is inherently exciting) and then clasp them together in front of her to signal that everything would be ok, and we’d be watching it closely together. Her hair was big, tall; her makeup was bright and rosy. Her style garnered more fan mail than one could imagine - the original internet trolls with too much time on their hands, their thoughts plunked out on typewriters instead of in social media comments. (I know for a fact her male newscaster counterparts never got nearly the amount of mail she did.)

And so spanned her multi-year career as one of Maine’s local weatherwomen.

I wish I owned this blazer.

This was before one had to be a meteorologist to forecast the weather on TV. Originally a newsroom secretary at a tiny news station in Connecticut, she often helped the weatherman prepare his weathercast for the 6pm news. When that same weatherman came back from lunch having had a few too many cocktails one day, she was asked to fill in for him and read the weather (true story). This, unfortunately, became a bit of a habit for the guy, and she ended up filling in many times, eventually pulling together enough of an audition reel to land the job up in Maine.

She met my dad on set too, fittingly, in Maine as well. He was behind the camera, a producer and camera op who was in the family business (the station, WCSH 6, was independently owned until 1998 - the oldest family-owned NBC affiliate in the country at the time it was sold). After being pregnant on the air for nine months with me, she used to bring my high chair into the newsroom and clip it to the side of the news desk as she got ready for her segment. I would kick my feet and coo and sometimes cry out, and then someone would hold me offscreen as she went live, praying I stayed silent.

I remember some nights watching her on the air on our small box of a television in the kitchen at home, only to see the segment fade to black and then 30 minutes later, she would walk through the back door, with the same hair and makeup. How?! How could Mom get through the TV? Was there a portal?? Years went by and I grew up in that newsroom, running around while Mom was on the air live, various news professionals diving to catch me as I whipped around carpeted cubicles. As I grew older, I got to sit in my dad’s production bay, watching his team call the cameras and organize the flow of the show. For my entire childhood, the opening music for the 5pm news made me perk up - after all, it’s what I listened to, in utero, for nine months every night on set.

This is real writing - hers! - on a wall that they would erase after each show. I laughed out loud at “crystal clear!”

When I went off to college, mom would text me “hello” and “here’s what the weather looks like in Providence today.” Though never formally trained, her weather interest lasted years beyond her weatherwoman tenure. Moving to Providence was the first time I realized how much I loved Maine. I had gone to sleepaway camp before - with horribly homesick results - but it was also in Maine. I had left my family but hadn’t really left my state.

As the years went on, I moved cities for one job or another, criss-crossing the country multiple times for my equally zigzagging career. International development and social entrepreneurship led to marketing and storytelling led to branding, and (in a glorious blaze of quarter-life crisis) led back to international development again, this time with a policy bent. In the summer of 2019, while a grad student back on the East Coast in New York City, I was given the opportunity to travel around the world and field produce short films about Indigenous leaders who had received a special prize from the UN celebrating their accomplishments on climate action. I vaguely knew my way around a camera - thanks to the many years in a newsroom - and I thirsted for travel like this, but I didn’t know much about climate change. The crash course I gave myself through research and seminar attendance was nothing compared to visiting and walking around with these leaders, who went above and beyond to drop everything and show our little crew around (or sometimes, depending on the country, just me).

I remember sitting down for these interviews with dozens of formal, academic interview questions written out on a notepad. I asked one leader in Micronesia about his ridge to reef strategy. He laughed and said “I don’t know about that, but I can tell you how we’ve protected our lands since time immemorial.” And there it was. My “aha” moment on climate work: this space is way too stiff and high-minded for its own good. We need to open the aperture to get everyone involved, listening intently to those who have been stewarding landscapes and living in harmony with nature from the beginning.

Less than a year later, as the pandemic was unfolding in NYC, I went home to Maine to visit for two weeks and stayed for two years. Still working for UN Development Programme, I co-organized one of the largest side events for the first ever virtual UN General Assembly - over 300 speakers, including Prime Ministers and CEOs alike - from my sister’s old bedroom at my dad’s house (I’m pretty sure Justin Trudeau saw into our living room, which is not a sentence I ever thought I’d write). In addition to featuring ten remotely-produced films on that year’s Equator Prize winners, the event itself centered around raising the call to action on protecting and restoring nature, a key element in both mitigating and adapting to climate change. Ensuring we had local community input - including youth activists, my favorite part of the whole program - was essential as well.

Various blurry photos showing UNDP life, including me sobbing on the last day of Climate Week 2019, when we had to say goodbye to the community members.

It was interesting living in Maine for this period of life, where everything in person had shut down and we were relegated to having distance beach walks in the bitter cold and even eating full meals outside in 18 degree weather (please can we never return to this). Nature seemed to thrive - though reports have shown to a temporary extent - and the pace of the world slowed for a bit. Maine is becoming increasingly known as a climate haven, which probably only in part explains the explosive growth of people my age moving there for the first time to start families and buy homes (also possibly explaining the astronomical housing market). But our lobster population is moving north; our storms are now violent enough to wipe entire beachfront properties straight off their base and leave communities with years of wreckage. The swings in temperature and weather are so drastic that both heat waves and cold snaps threaten the well-being of people and communities.

Through this time, my mom returned to the air to co-host the local show 207 about special interest stories in Maine. In the station’s programming lineup of 5pm and 6pm news, this was the 7pm slot. This ranged from local artists and musicians, animal rehabilitation efforts, generally stories about people doing good and cool things in the state. Over pasta dinners every week, she and I would discuss our work - new stories she was covering, new prime ministers who had approached my team about being involved in the UN side event that I was now slating into the programming. We didn’t really talk about climate change - I often felt like it was such a downer topic, especially at the dinner table - so I always framed it as conservation or general environmental efforts. But I forgot who I was talking with. One of Maine’s favorite weather forecasters.

My mom orchestrating the best-ever surprise birthday zoom with all my grad school friends - remember birthday zooms???

This past winter, my partner and I visited the news station. It had been at least 10 years since I’d been inside, maybe even longer (they started doing home shows during COVID, or scheduling people to come in solo at different times, so there was certainly no visitation abilities). I walked through various rooms like they were museums, touching the audio engineering desks and news cubicles in awe, my memory crackling back into life as I saw childhood moments laid out in front of me. Just before our visit, their very popular weatherman of over a decade, Keith Carson, announced he was leaving the station to work with Maine Conservation Voters on science and climate communications, to “help move the needle” on the 1:1 conversations around climate in various parts of the state, as “it’s not the same answer for everyone as to what makes them care about conservation.”

His departure made me sit up and take notice. This decision fits within a growing wave of meteorologists stepping up to raise the call to action on climate. Al Roker himself in recent years has become a vocal climate advocate, weaving in education about climate change to his newscasts and other interviews (and answering the common “why is it so cold if the globe is warming?” question we so often hear). As someone who now runs a climate communications production company aimed at the outdoor recreation community, I know the beauty (and difficulty) of meeting people where they’re at in these conversations.

My mom left the air a few years ago to work full time with a local animal shelter rehabilitating horses and finding them new homes, one of the stories she covered while on 207. Her climate venn, I would say. She traded her button down blazers for boots, and she’s happy she did it. She has a hand in raising the funds and the profile of the farm, and is part of a small but mighty team centered around animal care. She gets to feed the horses and watch the farm change throughout the year. Maine still has four distinct seasons, five if you count mud season. With concerted community action, active conversation and broader policy change, I hope (no, I insist on acting so) it stays that way.

Two decades later, Bart is the Director of Waterkeeper Membership Services at Waterkeeper Alliance – a global network of 300 waterkeeper groups protecting watersheds across 47 countries. Each chapter is autonomous, place-based, and licensed to protect a specific watershed, doing everything from water quality monitoring and litigation to habitat restoration and challenging polluters directly. Bart’s job is to hold the whole ecosystem together: connecting groups, building shared infrastructure, and making sure a waterkeeper in South Carolina and one in Senegal can learn from each other.

Listen to the episode

We Talk About

• How the waterkeeper model actually works – and what “autonomous but networked” means at the scale of 300 groups across 47 countries

• Why so many waterkeeper groups doing frontline climate work every day don’t identify as climate advocates – and what that gap costs the movement

• Growing up in Montana where being outside was just a part of life

• What it means to recreate deeply – and why truly listening to the places you love might be the most underrated form of environmental engagement

• The access question: as outdoor spaces get more privatized, what happens to the next generation of conservationists who never get the chance to build that connection

Links

• Waterkeeper Alliance

• Spokane Riverkeeper

• Atchafalaya Basinkeeper

• Puget Soundkeeper

• KYRS Thin Air Community Radio

• Billionaire Wilderness by Justin Farrell

Keywords

Waterkeeper Alliance, Spokane Riverkeeper, clean water advocacy, watershed, water justice, waterkeeper model, nature-based solutions, oyster restoration, outdoor recreation and climate, land access, climate identity, environmental communications

Running an ultra in above-80 weather does not sound fun to me. Does it sound fun to you?

The Bay is indeed experiencing a heatwave, but it’s not the only endurance races impacted by extreme weather in these last few weeks.

This week, UTMB released a statement that the Tenerife Bluetrail race in the Canary Islands was to be cancelled due to oncoming weather - “heavy rain, strong winds, snow, and highly unstable conditions.” The Bluetrail race begins at sea level and climbs toward Mount Teide, reaching elevations above 3,500 meters. Over the course of the race, runners already move through variable conditions in the form of coastal heat, forest trails and exposed volcanic terrain high above the island. Something as extreme as snow (!?) could derail it all.

As we know, extreme weather is becoming more extreme (read: erratic, intense, unpredictable, dangerous) due to climate change.

Statements like the one released by UTMB offer a glimpse into the planning that takes place around these events. Race directors spend months coordinating permits, volunteers, aid stations, medical teams and course logistics. Weather monitoring has become an increasingly visible part of that preparation. Many races now work closely with meteorologists and local emergency authorities as forecasts evolve during race week. But it’s always hard when an announcement like this comes so close to the race date that many runners are already on the island and will likely have to wait the storm out there.

Across the running world, organizers have begun incorporating adjustments that reflect these realities – earlier start times, expanded hydration stations, additional medical support and flexible course logistics that allow races to respond to changing conditions.

Earlier this month, organizers of the Los Angeles Marathon shared a message with runners ahead of race weekend that gave them the option to exit the course at mile 18 and still receive a finisher medal. Now, as you might imagine, this sparked an OUTCRY.

But before we dig into that, let’s look at the facts. Forecasts suggested temperatures could climb into the high 70s and low 80s later on marathon morning (March 8th). Large road marathons unfold across several hours - elite runners may finish in cooler temperatures, while thousands of participants continue moving through the course well into late morning/early afternoon (depending on start time). When temperatures rise through the day, the experience of the race changes depending on when someone crosses the finish line. Creating an earlier exit point gave runners the ability to decide, if they were feeling like they were in a dangerous spot, that they could pull the plug if they needed to, staying safe and feeling celebrated at the same time.

NOW. Yes. Obviously the running community was NOT happy about this. Responses ranged from mild annoyance to aggressive contempt and seething humor. Many said - yo, 26.2 is the marathon distance, this is ridiculous. I find myself agreeing with this take for the most part, HOWEVER - I will say - wow I’m using a lot of CAPS - that I do appreciate the race for attempting to provide a creative, adaptation-focused solution to the issues of rising temperatures. It may not have been the solution I would choose, but it definitely sparked a conversation. While I would not wish us to be in this scenario at all - where temperatures are so high we need a finisher’s medal for what is essentially a different race - I do appreciate the amount of people that sent this article to me as a “unique climate solution,” to put it diplomatically.

(Another note on this idea: this was also the most climate-related coverage I’d seen on the Olympics yet, with the Paralympics - the most-watched on record! - sounding the call as well. Again, I do not wish for this! This is a “for better or worse” kind of scenario! But at least it sparks conversation. The more people talking about this topic, the better.)

Outdoor sports have always required adaptation to weather patterns. Athletes adjust pacing, hydration and gear in response to the environment around them - they have since the dawn of racing. Race organizers are doing something similar on a larger scale, and now they’re offering more options in addition to cracking down on safety for fear of the worst case scenario. For many people in the outdoor community, races serve as gathering points. Volunteers, athletes and spectators come together in places that hold meaning for them. Now, evolving weather is shaping those gatherings more than we’ve seen before.

And…I just checked. It’s now 84°.

Susana works at the intersection of cryosphere science and international climate negotiations — studying glaciers, ice sheets, and the communities around the world that depend on them. But her work isn’t just inside research institutions or negotiation rooms. It’s also on skis, in expedition tents, and across some of the most remote ice on Earth.

Listen to the episode

In this episode, we discuss growing up in coastal Maine, the unlikely path from astrophysics to glaciers, and how Susana now combines polar expeditions, scientific research, and climate diplomacy. From skiing across Greenland to negotiating language at global climate talks, this conversation explores how storytelling, science, and sport can all play a role in shaping climate action.

We talk about:

• Growing up in Maine and the early moments that sparked a lifelong curiosity about science

• The unexpected path from astrophysics to cryosphere research and glacier science

• How elite sport and polar expeditions intersect with climate research and advocacy

• What climate negotiations actually look like inside UN processes like COP

• Why language — even a single word — can shape international climate policy

Links

Susana’s TED Talk

Susana’s trip to Greenland (profiled in the Portland Press Herald)

Susana as a rowing coach (amongst everything else)

Susana’s Instagram

UNFCCC

IPCC

Cryosphere overview – National Snow and Ice Data Center

Greenland Ice Sheet – NASA Climate

Keywords

cryosphere science, glaciers, polar expeditions, Greenland ski expedition, climate diplomacy, COP climate negotiations, climate policy language, linguistics, rowing, skiing, outdoor exploration, climate storytelling, polar research

I was initially curious whether climate change was impacting various avalanche risk factors, and had planned to write a post this winter about how avalanche conditions (and by default, safety recommendations/decision making) were shifting, especially with the “weird year” for snow in most of the Mountain West.

And then I lost a friend a few weeks ago in the Tahoe avalanche.

Niki Choo was an incredible light and force for good in this world, advocating for increased representation and inclusion in outdoor spaces while getting after it in all forms of outdoor recreation. There are many wonderful pieces on Niki and the impact she had on her community, but I wanted to share a piece we made together (directed by Faith Briggs Rose) a few years ago that speaks to her vibrant, tenacious spirit. I am ever grateful to the WeGotNext community for introducing us to Niki.

Photo: Fred Goris

And now, as many climate narratives are, it’s personal for so many people whose lives Niki touched. And it has become impossible for me to talk about science and climate in any sort of clinical way in the wake of such utter devastation.

Initially, I wanted to write a sort of “PSA” - helping spread the news of changing conditions. Now it feels like: “Duh. But what good does that do now?” Now, it’s just time to grieve with the community, as more and more news comes out of other losses in the mountains this week.

You can guess how things are changing. Warmer air means a higher snow line, more rain instead of snow means the makeup of the snowpack is different and more likely to slide… the list goes on. But I think the biggest takeaway is that there seems to just be more uncertainty, even more than before. So much uncertainty that guides who have trained their whole lives are being caught off guard by strange conditions. We don’t know what happened in Tahoe, or what is happening in other cases of avalanche tragedy, and we may never. It doesn’t really matter right now.

So, I am leaving a few links below for you to check out, but not before leaving more links remembering and celebrating Niki.

It’s a tough few weeks for the mountain community for sure. Stay safe, everyone. And hug your loved ones.

***

Niki Choo

My Roots: Niki Choo

Ottawa-born adventurer Nicole Choo felt the pull of the outdoors

Ski guides killed in California avalanche remembered as skilled and passionate

Snow Safety and Climate Connection

Could Climate Change Reshape Avalanche Danger in the Sierra Nevada? Scientists Say It’s Complicated

Will avalanches in California worsen with climate change?

How Climate Change Impacts Avalanche Conditions

Cover photo by Somer Kreisman (@somerrunner)

Growing up in rural Wisconsin surrounded by land conservation work, Molly developed an early relationship with environmental stewardship long before becoming a professional athlete. In this episode, we talk about climate anxiety in the outdoor community, how travel and training shape our understanding of environmental change, and why athletes don’t need to be perfect advocates to participate in climate conversations.

Listen to the episode

This discussion moves beyond performance and podiums to explore identity, place, and what it means to protect the landscapes that shape who we are.

We talk about:

• Growing up around farmland conservation and early environmental education

• Her studies (domestic and international) in environmental science

• Climate anxiety and witnessing environmental change through outdoor sport

• Why athletes don’t need expertise to engage in climate advocacy

• The difference between awareness, ambassadorship, and real-world action

• Local environmental issues - from snowpack loss to water use and data centers

Links:

• Molly’s Instagram

• Her Wikipedia page!

• Finish at Black Canyons

• Work with UNEP (video here)

Keywords

Molly Seidel, climate anxiety, athlete advocacy, outdoor community, trail running, ultrarunning, environmental storytelling, climate action, snowpack loss, outdoor recreation and climate, environmental stewardship

We talk about:

• who gets to tell environmental stories

• the path from creative writing to environmental science and back

• why hope - not doom - is a deliberate choice when communicating climate

• disability representation in STEM

• and one of our favorite climate solutions we’ve heard on the show so far: sunflowers that literally clean contaminated soil

Listen to the episode

Links:

• A Song for the Earth — Shannon Jade

• Shannon’s website

• Shannon’s Instagram

• Braiding Sweetgrass — Robin Wall Kimmerer

• The Overstory — Richard Powers

• Bioremediation + phytoremediation - Using plants - like sunflowers - to remove heavy metals and pollutants from soil and help restore damaged ecosystems.

• A Citizen’s Guide to Phytoremediation (link from the EPA from 2012)

Keywords:

climate storytelling, environmental books, poetry, climate fiction, nature writing, environmental science, disability inclusion, climate optimism, bioremediation, culture change