Resources to Spark Hope – Climate Generation

Climate change news often focuses on the negative effects on our communities. These news stories often provoke feelings of sorrow and can increase our climate grief. This resource list is intended to provide outlets that focus on the positive effects that environmental advocates are having on our planet. It is also meant to inspire communities by providing examples of projects that are in place and working to combat climate change.

Climate Generation’s Gist

• Climate Generation’s Gist is a monthly newsletter with updates on the nonprofit’s work in training educators, mentoring youth, and engaging with communities through storytelling to accelerate climate action.

Climate Generation’s Teach Climate Tips

• Climate Generation’s Teach Climate Tips is a network of educators and includes a monthly newsletter to help equip teachers with tools to teach about climate change.

Environment America’s Good News

• Environment America is a national network of 30 state environmental groups that work together to achieve clean air, clean water, clean energy, wildlife and open spaces. 

Happy Eco News

• Happy Eco News provides positive information about the environment and the people working to improve it. 

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s “The Climate Optimist”

• Havard’s “The Climate Optimist” provides a monthly dose of good news about climate change. 

The Daily Climate’s Good News Page

• The Daily Climate is a publication of Environmental Health Sciences, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to driving science into public discussion and policy on environmental health issues including climate change. 

The Optimist Daily’s Environment Page

• “The Optimist Daily is your go-to herald of positive environmental news, highlighting eco-friendly solutions and scientific progress around climate action, circularity, conservation, and more. Learn about everything eco in our Environment section.”

Green Space

Community gardens are a great way to bring communities together, combat food insecurity, reduce carbon emissions from food shipments (including packaging) and improve the quality of the food being consumed. Here are a few examples of community gardens in the United States:

1. Growing Neighbors is located in Spokane, Washington and is a nonprofit organization that connects community members with the 26+ community gardens in the area. 
2. Shiloh Field in Denton, Texas is home of the largest community garden in the United States. Their mission is to bring communities together and to feed the food insecure. 
3. Soo Line Community Garden is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota and was founded in 1991. This community garden replaced an empty underutilized lot and became a green refuge to members of the neighborhood. 

Green roofs, green walls, and other forms of living architecture have economical, social, and environmental benefits. This type of infrastructure is a climate adaptation that can reduce flooding, promote biodiversity, and reduce energy use by functioning as an additional layer of insulation. Tree and vegetation planting can also reduce heat indexes and have a positive effect on heat islands in cities. Here are a few examples of green infrastructure in the United States:

1. California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, California has a green roof that covers nearly 87% of the total 2.5 acre space. 
2. The Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, New York, has one of the largest green roofs in the United States, covering 6.25 acres. 
3. Will’s Garden at the Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Illinois was a recipient of the 2023 Green Roof Award of Excellence in Extensive Commercial Projects. 

Microgrids are distributed energy resources that act as a single, controllable entity. Microgrids can connect and disconnect from the grid to operate, making them an energy resiliency tool to combat power outages that disrupt communities. Advanced microgrids also have the capability to model energy use and use local assets to save costs and reduce energy losses. Here are a few examples of Microgrids in the United States:

1. Fort Collins, Colorado Microgrid is part of a larger project called Fort Collins Zero Energy District. This microgrid was created to assist the City of Fort Collins in reducing peak loads by 20-30%, increase the input of renewable energy and deliver improved efficiency and reliability to the grid. 
2. Montgomery County, Maryland has two microgrids that power essential facilities during power outages. These were put in place due to the increasing number of outages from major storm events. The microgrids are focused on bringing power to their public safety headquarters and a correctional facility in the area. 
3. Santa Rita Union School District in Salinas, California has installed Solar and energy storage systems at six different locations. These systems will be able to keep the school running for up to 7 hours during a power outage. It is also meant to offset some of the energy use pulled from the grid, saving the schools money on electricity. 

Regenerative Agriculture is a systematic farming method that focuses on closed-loop practices to limit the amount of input of fertilizers and pesticides, improve soil ecology and health, and promote existing ecosystems and wildlife. Here are a few examples of regenerative agriculture in the United States:

1. Acres of Eden is a regenerative farm located in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. This farm focuses on improving the quality of their products without the use of pesticides, preservatives or chemicals. This farm focuses on sustainable circular farming methods to improve soil health, increase biodiversity, improve water management techniques, and increase climate resilience.
2. Honey’s Harvest Farm is a regenerative farm located in Lothian, Maryland. They focus on permaculture practices and growing a healthy living soil to provide nutrient rich products for foods and medicines.  
3. Rivers Edge Ranch is located in Chewelah, Washington. This farm values sustainability and keeping the land viable for generations to come. This farm focuses on rotational grazing, reduction of artificial fertilizers, improvement of water quality, decreasing tillage, and enhancing biodiversity. 

A resilience hub is typically a community gathering place such as libraries, schools, churches or community centers that focuses on addressing the root causes of vulnerability with every services’, programs and infrastructure. These hubs usually include a disaster response plan for the community to address vulnerabilities during an extreme storm event. You can find more information about resilience hubs here. Here are a few resilience hubs that currently exist in the US:

1. New Ulm Public Library in New Ulm, Minnesota, offers services that strive to foster an environment that promotes community connections and engagement, ignites curiosity and growth while providing services that enrich the community members lives. Their current strategic plan can be found here.
2. Police Athletic League of Wilmington, Delaware, is a nonprofit organization that has been serving its community for over 22 years by increasing resources for families and youth in Wilmington and New Castle that includes programming for early learning, before and aftercare, education, prevention, recreation, and other activities for community members.  
3. Rock Island Public Library in Rock Island, Illinois, provides a multitude of services for community members including education resources on a variety of topics, a game library, a seed library, a home and hobby supply library, and a technology library. This allows families to check out items that can be used without the need to buy an item. This is not only a great resource for citizens, but it is also reducing the amount of items that will end up in the landfill someday.