Tag: nature

creativity

NYC’s Harbor is cleaner and more resilient. Thank the oysters.

Christa Avampato
Billion Oyster Party. Photo by Christa Avampato.

On Thursday night I wound my way through Brooklyn’s Navy Yard. Past industrial buildings, natural gas smoke stacks, and heavy machinery, I found myself at building 269 to celebrate a sustainability milestone in our city. 

For 10 years, Billion Oyster Project has used the nature-based solution of oyster restoration to clean the water of the Hudson River to a level unprecedented in the last century. Restored oyster reefs will also protect the coastline from storm surges, a threat the city faces from climate change. To commemorate all their work, and look toward the future, 2,000 guests gathered together this week to sample trays of freshly harvested oysters, enjoy small bites and drinks from over 20 of New York’s best restaurants, and celebrate the efforts of oyster over 50 oyster farmers from all over the country at the organization’s 10th Anniversary Billion Oyster Party — Back to Nature, Back to Health. 

New York City used to be the oyster capital of the world, home to half of the world’s oysters. When the Dutch arrived in the 1600s, New York Harbor’s oysters measured up to 10 inches long, the city was known for them, and the oyster industry helped lay the foundation for the city. Liberty and Ellis Islands where the Statue of Liberty now stands and where millions of immigrants landed to begin new lives here were originally known as Oester (Oyster) Islands. New York’s oyster industry ended due to overharvesting, water pollution, and shoreline build-outs from the city’s rapid expansion. The pollution of the river prompted a typhoid scare, and the city shut down oyster farming in 1927. 

The book The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell by Mark Kurlansky tells the fascinating history of New York’s oysters. The Billion Oyster Project is creating its future. The city’s 220,000 acres of oyster reefs were once homes to whales, dolphins, seals, seahorses, herring, striped bass, and hundreds of other species. Thanks to Billion Oyster Project, they’re on their way to being this home again. Today, the organization has 18 active oyster restoration sites across 16 acres of New York Harbor. Their efforts have restored 100 million juvenile oysters to the harbor. Oysters are starting to reproduce in the Harbor — a clear sign that this once booming industry can be revived and be self-sustaining. Billion Oyster Project’s goal for the next 10 years is to restore one billion oysters to New York Harbor by 2035.  

To grow the oyster population 10-fold in the next 10 years, they need our help. Volunteer, become a member or donate, share their mission through education efforts, dine at their restaurant partners, or attend an event. 

All photos taken at Billion Oyster Party by Christa Avampato.

creativity

New technology boosts beehive health

Christa Avampato
Bee pollinating a dahlia. Photo by Christa Avampato.

As someone who’s inspired by ancient wisdom and modern technology, I have a crush on Ubees. They’re a New York City-based agri-tech startup whose state-of-the-art technology enables remote, real-time monitoring of the health of beehives, the pollination status of the field, and the local weather information. With bee populations under threat, Ubees technology is vital to preserve crop health and yield. 

The company is an incredible example of how nature-based solutions and modern technology can support one another to create transformative change. Their technology benefits the bees and the surrounding crops, farmers, and environments. By repopulating and supporting the health of bees, Ubees helps farms boost their resilience and diversify their revenues through regenerative agriculture.

In addition to their connected hives, Ubees is also launching new consumer products. In collaboration with the coffee company Nespresso, they have developed Coffee Blossom Honey and Coffee Blossom Honey Syrup. Launched in August 2024, these products are available in New York City and Walnut Creek, California Nespresso boutiques.

Learn more about Ubees impact and expertise at https://www.ubees.com/.

creativity

If you care about babies, you must care about bats

Christa Avampato
Image created by Christa Avampato using Canva Magic Media

When you think about ways to improve the health of human babies, you may not immediately think of helping bats stay healthy. You should. The journal Science published a shocking paper this month linking a rise in human infant mortality to a declining bat population.

In addition to being pollinators that bring us the gifts of flowers and food, bats also consume massive amounts of insects that infest our crops and cause us endless hours of itching from bug bites. A single bat can eat up to 1,200 mosquito-sized insects every hour, and each bat usually eats 6,000 to 8,000 insects each night. That’s a helpful service but what does that have to do with infant mortality? It’s a direct cause and effect. 

Plagued by an outbreak of the deadly white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that kills bats, North American bat populations are dropping. This means there are fewer bats to eat insects that infest crops. That’s caused farmers to use more chemical insecticide. This insecticide leaches into crops, land, and water. This toxin has increased infant mortality. It’s also lowered crop yields, decreasing farmers’ crop revenue and the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables. 

This is just the latest study to show how the health of ecosystems is directly linked to human health and the economy. As much as I’d love for municipalities and companies to care about the planet because we depend on nature for our survival, as climate communicators and nature advocates we often have to make the economic business case to drive change. Studies like the one in Science linking bats and infant mortality provide a solid example of how to quantify the cost and value of biodiversity and ecosystem health.

I often hear the media vilify animals like bats without recognizing the vital role they play in our lives and in nature. If we can’t get people to care about bats because they are sentient beings and a part of nature, maybe now we can get people to care about them because they affect babies, the food supply, and our economy. If that’s the argument that works, it’s the argument I’ll make, backed up with research-based science and facts. 

Protect babies. Protect bats. 

creativity

September – a Month of Meaning with ReWild Yourself

Christa Avampato
Me on the Stairway to Heaven in the Pochuck Valley

I’m a big fan of ReWild Yourself, an online community inspiring nature connection. This month, they have a campaign called the Month of Meaning, encouraging their community members to connect with nature on a deep, meaningful level. It’s one of the five pathways they use as a means to help people connection with nature: meaning, compassion, beauty, the senses, and emotion.

Their website has free resources that are both fun and beautiful. They’re all open source so you’re free to use them any way you’d like, for yourself or within your community. There’s also a nature art challenge which has my collage artist brain spinning with possibilities. I kicked off the month hiking the Stairway to Heaven in New Jersey’s Pochuck Valley, part of the Appalachian Trail, with a good friend. A difficult 7-mile climb, the views make all the effort worthwhile and then we were rewarded with a walk through the flats, a preserved and protected wetland. There, the connection to nature runs deep.

September has always been a meaningful month for me. Forever a student, I love back to school time. Fall is my favorite season, so this always feels like my new year, a fresh start, the next chapter. It’s no wonder my Alive Day is September 5th when I survived an apartment building fire 15 years ago. It’s also the Gotcha Day (birthday) of my beloved rescue dog, Phineas, on September 18th. This will be my first without him physically on this plane after his passing in January of this year. He would be 15 this month.

While the meaning of, well, everything, is always top of mind for me, this month I’m going to especially focus on what nature means to me. I’ll be sharing my art, writing, reflections, hopes for the future, and actions that preserve, protect, and propagate the natural world we all have, share, and depend on every day. ReWilding ourselves and our planet has never been more important than it is now.

Photos by Christa Avampato.

creativity

Governor Tim Walz made Minnesota a climate action powerhouse

Christa Avampato
Image from Sierra Club

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has spent the better part of the last decade instituting climate policies that make economic sense and help all Minnesota residents live healthier, happier lives. Let’s dive into what he’s done in Minnesota and how this could help the entire country. 

1.) Minnesota is a clean energy leader

Like many states, Minnesota was long powered by coal. Today, 50% of the state’s power comes from wind, solar, and nuclear power, thanks to Walz. It’s one of the fastest transitioning states in the country. In 2023, he signed the Minnesota Clean Energy Bill into law, ensuring Minnesota is fossil fuel-free by 2040. (If you want to see how all U.S. states stack up with their energy sources, check out this cool interactive created by Nadja Popovich.) 

2.) Minnesota is a climate policy leader

On Walz’s watch in 2022, Minnesota launched the Climate Action Framework. This plan is preparing the state for climate change impacts, taking immediate and near-term actions to make the state “carbon-neutral, resilient, and equitable.” To-date, this plan has prompted the Minnesota Legislature to approve over 40 climate initiatives across industries including energy, health, agriculture, construction, and transportation. 

3.) Minnesota policies connect everyday local concerns with climate solutions 

Minnesotans have acutely felt the impacts of climate change over the past 5 years — drought caused economic losses for farmers and ranchers, wildfire smoke inundated cities and towns leading to health challenges, and a lack of snow and ice caused economic losses in the fishing and winter tourism industries. The state’s climate policies focus on climate solutions that create jobs, protect land and water vital for farmers and ranchers, reduce energy costs for consumers, and improve air quality to improve the health of residents, particularly children, the elderly, and those with existing health conditions. 

Walz’s simple, straightforward, optimistic, and solution-oriented communication style unites people, makes them feel hopeful, and connects the challenges they face with policy solutions that will directly solve those challenges. This makes him wildly popular with constituents across the political spectrum. People trust him because he’s helping them. This has helped turn Minnesota into a climate action powerhouse. Using his playbook, we could do this for the entire country. 

creativity

Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund creates economic opportunity and protects the planet

Christa Avampato

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is a powerful climate finance policy in the U.S. that hasn’t gotten enough attention. It effectively leverages blended finance, creating an effective model for future policies. Here’s the deal:

With the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Vice President Kamala Harris announced a $20 billion investment in climate and clean energy projects: three under the $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund and five under the $6 billion Clean Communities Investment Accelerator. They will create a national clean financing network for clean energy and climate solutions across sectors, ensuring communities have access to the capital they need to participate in and benefit from a cleaner, more sustainable economy.

Together, the eight selected projects will deliver on the three objectives of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund: reducing climate and air pollution; delivering benefits to communities, especially low-income and disadvantaged communities; and mobilizing financing and private capital. As part of this collective effort, selected applicants have committed to the following:

Fund projects across sectors that will reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions

  • These projects fund net-zero buildings, zero-emissions transportation, distributed energy generation and storage, and the decarbonization of agriculture and heavy industry.

Reach communities in all 50 states, the 6 U.S. territories, and Tribal Lands, with a particular focus on low-income and disadvantaged communities

  • $14 billion funds low-income and disadvantaged communities that need it most, ensuring that program benefits flow to the communities most in need and advance the President’s Justice40 Initiative
  • Over $4 billion to rural and energy communities
  • Nearly $1.5 billion to Tribal communities

Mobilize private capital at an almost 7:1 ratio over the next seven years, with every dollar in grant funds leveraged for almost seven dollars in private funds

  • This is a significant point because a sustainable world requires private investment. This means $20 billion in U.S. government funding activates an additional $130 billion in private capital from banks, asset managers, and individual investors for a total of $150 billion. (This is known as “blended finance” — investments from different sources are combined to achieve a common goal.)

Fund community lenders and partners who are already working in communities across the country to deliver investments quickly

  • 1,000 community lenders are lending in low-income and disadvantaged communities, including Community Development Financial Institutions (including Community Development Loan Funds, Community Development Banks, Community Development Credit Unions, and Community Development Venture Capital Funds); low-income credit unions, and green banks.

Hundreds of thousands of good-paying, high-quality jobs, especially in low-income and disadvantaged communities

  • Create hundreds of thousands of good-paying, high-quality jobs, supported by a number of local, regional, and national labor union jobs

Vice President Harris has spent her career standing up for people and the planet. She’s not resting on her laurels. She’s moving us forward toward a healthy, sustainable world for all. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is a cornerstone of a set of policies that create economic opportunities while protecting the planet we share.

creativity

Mine for metal with plants

Christa Avampato
Metalplant co-founders Laura Wasserson, Eric Matzner and Sahit Muja with the Albanian farming team.
Image: Metalplant

Plants like sunflowers are viable nature-based solutions that remove heavy metal from polluted soil through the scientific process of phytoremediation. The term is a combination of the Greek phyto (plant) and Latin remedium (restoring balance). Simply, brilliantly, and quickly, the plants take up the heavy metal in large quantities and store them in their fatty tissues. This causes no harm to the sunflowers, nor to the land. They also thrive in hot, dry climates. What a wonder for a world wracked by pollution and climate change impacts. 

Now imagine taking this incredible adaptation even further. What if we extracted the metals from the plants and use these metals in our technology so we didn’t need to mine for them? 

This is exactly the mission of Metalplant, a startup in Albania transforming some of the most degraded land in the world into a lucrative venture. This idea of phytoremediation isn’t new. Many have tried. Metalplant added another step to their process. While mining with plants (a process they call phytomining), they also remove CO2 from the atmosphere by spreading large volumes of rock dust on their farms. That rock pulls carbon out of the air. This process is known as enhanced rock weathering.

I worried about the impact of the rock dust on the soil and the life within that soil. Thankfully, enhanced rock weathering is a regenerative practice, using mycorrhiza and other fungi fostered by the roots of the plants absorbing the metal from the soil. 

Curious and want to learn more? Metalplant would love to hear from you. Get in touch with them at https://metalplant.com/contact/.

creativity

I submitted my dissertation to the University of Cambridge

Christa Avampato

It is written. It is submitted. In the wee hours of Monday morning, I submitted my dissertation to the University of Cambridge. I’m proud of it. Every cell in my body is passionate about the topic and I think it can help to make this world a better place.

There are many people who helped make this dissertation what it is. The anonymous marking criteria precluded me from thanking them by name in the acknowledgements of the dissertation so I’ll thank them here.

My advisor Dr Candice Howarth provided support and encouragement from the start. 

Louise Drake was enthusiastic about my topic from the point I submitted my proposal and provided early materials that helped me on my journey. 

My first year tutor Angus Morrison-saunders sharpened my writing and research skills to make the writing of this research project possible. 

The staff at Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) always warmly welcomed us in Cambridge, answered our many questions with kindness and grace, and created the space to make this phenomenal experience possible. There is so much work that happens behind the scenes and the staff is to be commended for all they do. 

My friends and classmates Milly Moore, Alasdair Martin, Patricia Minogue, Aaron Hemsley, Mark Champkins, Barbora Kotoun, Laura Hillis, Mitch Reznick, CFA, Iuliia Takhtarova, and Aonghus Kelly read my work at various points (some more than once, you kind souls!) and provided feedback that made the work much better than it would have been otherwise. 

My close community of friends and relatives cheered me on throughout this two-year adventure and provided support for my studies in so many ways. 

Many people graciously and generously gave their time so I could interview them for this dissertation. Your insights and perspectives made this research possible. Thank you for your honesty, candor, and enthusiasm for the work. 

I love being a part of Cohort 13 and I’m inspired every day by all my wonderful classmates and friends. You taught me so much, not only about sustainability but also about life. I’m a better person for knowing you. Thank you for everything. 

While we all now wait for our grades and the confirmation of our graduation celebration in 2025, I’m filled with gratitude and love for two fantastic years. Onward now to save the planet.

creativity

Can ecofiction inspire climate action?

Christa Avampato
Created by Christa Avampato using AI.

While on vacation I wrote my first full piece of ecofiction for a climate fiction writing competition. It’s a short story (5,000 words) that provides a slice of life in New York City in the year 2200, and grew out of the research I did for my University of Cambridge dissertation.

It’s told through the eyes of a journalist walking his dog who by chance meets the 90-year-old former mayor who galvanized the rebuilding of NYC after it was destroyed by floods caused by climate change. Biomimicry figures prominently in it. I tried to incorporate humor, heart, and redemption alongside the heartbreak, loss, and destruction. Ultimately, it’s a story about leadership, community, and vision.

No matter the outcome of the competition, I enjoyed writing it and plan to do more with these characters and in this genre. The predominant channels and messages we’re using for climate storytelling now are not generating the scale and speed of the changes we need. Fiction can play a bigger role is painting the picture of what a world transformed can look like, what it will take to get there, and how we might work together to make it so. The fandoms around fiction can be a unifying force for good, which is exactly what we need, now more than ever.

(I created the images below with AI, inspired by the story I wrote.)

creativity

I’m a guest on the nature podcast, Unearthing Wild Wonders

Christa Avampato
Nature inspired — home, healing, and biomimicry with Christa Avampato

A few months ago, I met Nicky Jenner, a gardener, conservationist, and nature lover who lives in Devon in the southeast of the U.K. Though I’ve only known her a short while, the moment we met I knew she was a kindred spirit. 

She told me she was starting a podcast called Unearthing Wild Wonders about the wisdom and wonder of nature, and how we bring about positive change in our deeply troubled world. I was honored when she asked if I’d be a guest and I immediately accepted. Our episode, Nature inspired — home, healing, and biomimicry with Christa Avampato , is out now. Unearthing Wild Wonders is beautiful, uplifting, and hopeful, and each episode leaves me newly inspired to continue my work to protect the planet. Also, Nicky’s voice immediately puts me at ease. 

In our conversation, Nicky and I talk about how the challenges I’ve faced in my life and with my health ignited my passion and commitment to make a difference for all beings on our precious planet. We talk about biomimicry and how the most unlikely species have inspired phenomenal innovations that we now use in our daily lives. We chat about the many languages we need to speak to bridge the divide between science, conservation, business, and finance.

I talk about my University of Cambridge dissertation that uses storytelling to connect climate entrepreneurs developing nature-based solutions with family offices looking for new investment opportunities that deliver a financial return and have a higher purpose.

I also share stories about my journey to overcome cancer, and how learning to heal my own body helped better prepare me to heal the planet. One of them I’m sharing publicly for the first time — how lying in a hospital bed seriously ill from chemotherapy helped me realize the immensity of the plastic waste problem and made me even more determined to do something about it.

I’m so grateful to Nicky for having me on the podcast. Our conversation happened just days after the passing of my sweet soul dog, Phineas, one of the worst losses of my life. Talking to Nicky helped me begin to heal and honor him. I’m so grateful for that. Let us know what you think of the episode.

I’m excited for the day when I’ll get to Devon, give her a hug, and walk through her garden with her. Nicky has a wonderful website and newsletter at https://www.hawksdawn.co.uk/ that I highly recommend. You can also find her on Instagram @nickyjenner_hawksdown posting gorgeous pictures of nature along with inspiring quotes and stories.