Yesterday, a new chapter in my life began. I got my last Lupron shot. This is a photo of me outside Perlmutter Cancer Center right after I got my shot. I couldn’t stop smiling, and right after this photo I cried many happy tears.
By the end of August, it will be out of my system and I’ll transition to a new medication regimen to keep cancer recurrence at bay now that I’m approaching the five-year mark since the end of active treatment. For a few weeks the old and new meds will mingle in my body — orchestrating the hand-off as one recedes into my past and the other ramps up to carry me into the future for the next 5 years. The hope is that this new medication will cause less chronic pain and fewer, less severe side effects than what I’ve been taking for 5 years while also protecting me from having a recurrence.
These past 5 years have required me to break down and rebuild every area of my life several times over. It’s felt like a constant dance of doing and undoing. Just as I started healing and getting my bearings, something else would send me back to square one. To get through, I reminded myself that this is exactly the process that also strengthens muscles. I’m very strong physically and mentally. I’m also very tired.
All I can do is what I’ve been doing. Living each day, one day at a time, as best I can. It’s all any of us can do.
After my June 18th storytelling show at the AKC Museum of the Dog, I’ll be taking it easy this summer, mostly because I need to start this new chapter as healthy as possible. As I bid farewell to these medications that massively impacted my body and mind, I’m grateful for their service and everything they taught me. I’m grateful that they worked as hoped, even though they made daily life difficult every day. I’m still here and that’s what matters.
A Gulf Coast storm followed by snowmelt in January 2025 temporarily increased the Mississippi River’s outflow, sending a surge of sediment through the delta and into gulf waters. NASA.
We often talk about climate change in the future tense, but the physical reorganization of our world is already happening in real-time. It is a story of where we can stay, where we must leave, and how we might restore the land and waterways that connect all species that share this planet. For more than a century, people have built rigid concrete defenses against rising sea levels and in an attempt to dam and direct rivers to suit our immediate needs. But the physical reality of our planet is now demanding a total reorganization of where—and how—we live together as part of an ecosystem that is far bigger and more powerful than us rather basing our construction on the belief that people can dominate nature.
As we face this transition in mindset and practical living, we are guided by a fundamental climate choice first formulated by physicist and former presidential science advisor Dr. John Holdren:
We basically have three choices when it comes to our changing climate: mitigation, adaptation and suffering. Holdren acknowledges that we’re going to do some of each. The question he asks us is what the mix is going to be. Increase one of the three, and we will do less of the second and third. To many minds, this is the goal: the more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required and the less suffering there will be.
Following on from his framework of these three pie pieces, I’ve been thinking about three distinct pieces of research that point us toward where the climate transition is leading us.
1. The Physics of Departure: The Sinking Gulf
A new study recently published in Nature Sustainability brings the urgency of Dr. John Holdren’s triad into sharp focus for the American South. In the Gulf Coast, specifically around New Orleans and the surrounding delta, researchers have identified a compounding crisis: the land is physically sinking (subsidence) at the same time the ocean is rising. This is a perfect storm that threatens one of the most culturally rich cities in the U.S.
The Acceleration of Relative Sea-Level Rise
Using high-resolution satellite data and GPS monitoring, the study reveals that the land in this region is moving downward at a rate significantly higher than previously estimated. This creates a Relative Sea-Level Rise that is often double or triple the global average. While the world discusses centimeters of rise over decades, communities in the Gulf are dealing with inches of lost elevation in just a few years.
This subsidence is driven by a combination of natural sediment compaction and human activity, including the extraction of groundwater and fossil fuel. Because we have dammed the Mississippi River (as discussed in our next section), the natural delivery of new sediment that used to replenish the delta has been cut off. The land is starving for the very silt that used to keep it above water.
The Limits of Adaptation
When the land physically disappears, the limits of adaptation are breached. We reach a point where holding the line with higher levees and stronger pumps becomes a mechanical impossibility. We cannot prevent a flood with a tablespoon while the tap is turned up to full blast. This is rapidly shutting down the option mitigation. Therefore, it forces the zero-sum choice Holdren warned us about: New Orleans must choose between managed retreat—a proactive, planned relocation—or unavoidable suffering for those left behind.
Relocation in this context is not just a logistical move; it is a cultural crisis. To avoid mass suffering, we need a framework for place-making that moves entire community networks together. If we don’t plan for the transfer of the community—the music, food, heritage, and social bonds—we risk losing the soul of the Gulf to the rising water.
2. Working With the Water: America Undammed
While the coast sinks, our inland arteries are being liberated through a radical shift in infrastructure policy. As reported by theNew York Times, the United States is currently undergoing a massive effort to dismantle thousands of obsolete dams—many of which have outlived their 50-year lifespans and now pose significant safety risks to downstream communities.
This is proactive adaptation in its purest form. For over a century, we treated rivers as plumbing—static pipes to be redirected, blocked, and controlled. Now, we are learning that a free-flowing river is a far superior neighbor than one trapped behind aging concrete.
The Multi-Species Dividend of Restoration
When a dam is removed, the results are often instantaneous and transformative. By restoring the natural flow, we allow for the return of sediment—the literal building blocks of the land—which has been trapped in reservoirs for decades. This sediment is what naturally replenishes deltas and keeps coastal lands from sinking, directly impacting the crisis seen in and around New Orleans.
Furthermore, removing these barriers restores migratory paths for fish and wildlife that have been blocked for generations. It is an act of biological reconciliation that allows species to move toward cooler waters as temperatures rise, a key component of the Deep Adaptation required in a changing climate.
The Safety and Financial Calculus
Beyond ecology, the Undammed movement is a response to the mechanical failure of the 20th-century model. Aging dams are increasingly unable to handle the 1,000-year flood events that are becoming more frequent. Removing them is a strategic choice to avoid the catastrophic suffering of a dam failure. By restoring natural floodplains, we create massive, landscape-scale sponges that can absorb and slow down water surges, protecting human infrastructure by working with the water’s energy rather than trying to stifle it. We’ve made water a foe when we’re much better off giving it the room it needs to be our friend.
3. The Nomad Century: The Infrastructure of Global Movement
If the sinking Gulf represents the limits of adaptation and the undammed rivers represent the liberation of nature, then Gaia Vince’s book Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World represents the inevitable human response: The Great (Human) Migration. We are moving toward a reality where the map of human habitation must become as fluid as the climate itself.
To manage this transition without catastrophic suffering, we must move away from the 20th-century model of fixed borders and toward a 21st-century model of managed movement. Given our current geopolitics, this is getting more complicated (and contentious) by the day. There’s no doubt that this requires a radical rethink of our global systems across three specific pillars:
The Digital State and Portable Identity
In a world of mass movement, your identity cannot be tied to a physical piece of paper in a desk drawer that might be lost to a flood or a fire. We need a global framework for Digital Identity—portable, secure, and internationally recognized credentials that allow migrants to carry their medical records, professional certifications, and legal standing with them. This ensures that a doctor from a submerged coast can become a doctor in a receiver city on day one, rather than being trapped in a cycle of structural suffering and economic, intellectual, and talent waste.
The Rise of Receiver Cities
The green zones—latitudes in the north that will remain temperate—must proactively prepare to become Receiver Cities. This is the ultimate test of Holdren’s triad: by investing in massive adaptation now (housing, high-speed transit, and sustainable food systems), these regions can prevent the mass suffering of unplanned, chaotic arrivals. These cities must be designed as expandable machines, utilizing modular architecture and circular resource loops to integrate millions of new residents while maintaining ecological balance and social structures.
Deep Adaptation and the Preservation of Culture
Scholars like Jem Bendell have expanded on this reality through the framework of Deep Adaptation. It acknowledges that because global mitigation failed to prevent significant warming, we must now pivot toward valuing what we want to keep. As communities move, we must build systems to archive and carry forward the culture of humanity—languages, traditions, and social structures—so that when we relinquish the land, we do not lose the soul and the history of the people who lived there.
The Togetherhood Takeaway
We cannot command the planet to stay still. Our survival depends on our ability to move with the land and the water, rather than against them.
Audit the Mix: Look at your local climate initiatives. Are they focused on mitigation (reducing the cause), adaptation (living with the effect), or is your community opting for future suffering by ignoring the problem?
Audit the Choice: Demand that your leaders explain their Holdren Mix. Are they spending on adaptation now, or are they effectively budgeting for future suffering?
Map Your Resilience: Research the topography of your own region. Understanding whether your land is rising or sinking changes every conversation about long-term infrastructure and property.
Map Your Role: Research your own local geography. Is your community positioned to be a receiver of migration or a sender? This changes every conversation you have about local infrastructure and zoning.
Advocate for the Flow: Support local river restoration projects. Undamming a waterway is an act of long-term climate insurance for your entire watershed.
Practice Fluidity: In a Nomad Century, the most valuable skill is the ability to form deep community connections quickly.
Redefine Home: In a Nomad Century, home must shift from a static point on a map to a commitment to community resilience, wherever that community ends up.
The map is changing. To honor the planet and each other, we must have the courage to move with it. Will we each find it within ourselves to do the mitigation and adaptation needed to limit suffering? That remains the most potent question on the table today for every country, policy maker, and person. Eventually, nature will demand an answer.
Just after graduating from my Master’s program at University of Cambridge / Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) last summer, I went to Stockholm, Sweden for vacation. While I was there, I stayed in a beautiful neighborhood that was a perfect melding of nature and city infrastructure.
Thanks to a very serendipitous bowl of soup, I learned from a waiter that this neighborhood had a secret – it had been transformed from a toxic, industrial wasteland into a living lab for climate action.
I had the opportunity to interview incredible people for this piece including the former finance minister of Sweden, the lead architect, energy and climate researchers, and the team members of ElectriCITY, the collective leading the district’s sustainability efforts. Their inspiring blueprint can be adapted and applied in every city, including my hometown of NYC.
This week, four astronauts aboard the Artemis II Orion spacecraft achieved something humanity has not done in over fifty years. They flew around the far side of the moon, traveling farther from Earth than any humans in history – 252,760 miles. As they passed behind the lunar surface, they turned their cameras back toward home and captured a breathtaking Earthset, watching our bright blue planet sink behind the desolate, cratered edge of the moon. Looking at all of the media coming from the mission gives me chills in the best way.
The Cognitive Shift When astronauts view our planet from this immense distance, they often experience a profound cognitive shift known as the Overview Effect. From 250,000 miles away, they can’t see political borders, neighborhood disputes, or ideological divides. They see a single, fragile ecosystem. They realize that every being, be they a person, animal, or plant, shares the same life support system and collectively, the same destiny. We all only have one home and it belongs to all of us.
A Floating Laboratory for a Sustainable Earth People frequently wonder why we invest in space exploration when we face so many massive challenges right here on Earth. The answer is that a deep space capsule is the ultimate testbed for our future. We do not explore space to abandon our home planet; we explore space to discover the exact tools necessary to protect it.
To survive a lunar mission, astronauts cannot waste a single resource and a vast group of people with different talents and experiences must work together as a cohesive team with a singular shared mission – bring them all home safely. They must operate a circular economy. NASA engineers design advanced filters to scrub carbon dioxide directly out of the cabin air—technology that now forms the foundation of direct air capture facilities fighting global warming today. They develop systems to recover and purify every drop of moisture, translating directly to water filtration for drought-stricken communities. They conduct experiments on high-yield indoor agriculture to feed the crew without the benefits of direct sunlight or nutrient-rich soil, helping us understand how we can grow food in harsh environments. Staging this mission also requires the development of stronger, lighter materials that translates into the conservation of valuable resources.
Alongside this climate engineering, the Artemis II crew is conducting experiments that directly advance medical science. They carry microchips containing living human bone marrow tissue to study exactly how deep-space radiation and microgravity affects human cells. They monitor their own biological responses to understand why and how extreme stress alters the human immune system. Solving these medical challenges in space paves the way for individualized cancer treatments, tools to predict and treat chronic conditions, and advanced healthcare innovations that test drugs and vaccines. All of this research means that the astronauts are both scientists and test subjects. What we learn from these missions directly translates to helping all of us build a better healthcare system.
Orchestration on a Massive Scale The mission also represents the ultimate example of community orchestration. Sending a crew around the moon and safely bringing them back is never the work of one isolated visionary. It requires a massive, synchronized ecosystem of engineers, technicians, and scientists across the globe. Thousands of people must set aside their individual egos and operate with absolute trust in one another to navigate the unknown.
The Takeaway We do not need to launch into orbit to apply the Overview Effect to our daily lives. When we get stuck in the weeds of local disputes or feel overwhelmed by the friction of community building, we simply need to change our vantage point.
We can actively choose to step back and look at our neighborhoods as unified ecosystems.
Change your altitude to change your attitude: When a conflict arises in your community, intentionally zoom out. Ask yourself how this specific disagreement affects the overall health of the neighborhood ecosystem rather than just your immediate block. Then help other people zoom out as well to gain the same benefits of perspective.
Acknowledge the shared ship and the shared journey: Remind yourself and your neighbors that you all rely on the same local infrastructure and green spaces, and that collectively you are building your local economy to benefit everyone. You succeed or fail together.
Orchestrate across borders: Look for ways to connect your local initiatives with efforts in neighboring communities. A thriving garden in your neighborhood benefits the pollinators across your city and beyond.
Translate the research: Take inspiration from the Artemis crew. Look for ways to do small experiments and use the solutions you develop through those experiments to help your community and share with adjacent communities.
Nature requires us to act as a unified whole. We just need the right perspective to see it. Luckily for us, the crew of Artemis II is helping all of us to keep looking up.
If you’ve been watching the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina this week, you’ve likely seen the mascots: two adorable, ferret-like creatures named Tina and Milo.
They are stoats (also known as ermines when they have their winter white coats!), and they were chosen to represent the games because of their liveliness and resilience. But biologically speaking, the stoat isn’t just cute. They are engineering marvels that have been refining their technology for over 5 million years.
While athletes are pushing the limits of human performance on the slopes, the stoat offers a masterclass in biomimicry—inspiring everything from search-and-rescue robots to “smart” clothing.
Here are three ways this little creature is shaping the future of technology:
1. The Soft Robotics Revolution
The stoat’s superpower is their shape. They’re elongated, highly flexible body allow them to navigate complex, burrow-like environments that other predators can’t touch.
Engineers are now studying this slender agility to design soft, maneuverable robots. Unlike rigid machines, these stoat-inspired bots can twist and flex to navigate narrow, restricted spaces—making them perfect for search-and-rescue operations in collapsed buildings or inspecting intricate pipeline infrastructure.
2. Adaptive Camouflage (Smart Materials)
We know the stoat changes their coat from rusty brown to snowy white in the winter. But biomimicry looks deeper than just the color change.
Researchers are studying the ermine transformation to develop adaptive materials that can change their properties based on environmental cues. Imagine stealth technologies or outdoor gear that doesn’t just insulate, but actively responds to temperature shifts and visual surroundings, mimicking the stoat’s ability to blend seamlessly into a snowy landscape.
3. Algorithms of Efficiency
Stoats are specialized hunters. Their movement is fast, fluid, and incredibly efficient.
Computer scientists are now analyzing their hunting dynamics and even their playful behavior to write better code. The way a stoat moves—making split-second decisions to navigate obstacles while maintaining speed—is informing movement algorithms for autonomous vehicles and drones.
The Togetherhood Takeaway
It is easy to look at nature as sweet and poetic. Nature’s that, and so much more. When we look at a stoat, we are looking at 5–7 million years of R&D and adaptation through experimentation.
As we cheer on the athletes this week, let’s give a little applause to Tina and Milo, too. They aren’t just mascots; they are blueprints for the next generation of adaptive, resilient technology.
Nature doesn’t just survive the winter. She engineers her way through it.
In a recent episode of The Common Good from the Garrison Institute, science writer and Biomimicry Institute co-founder Janine Benyus joined host Jonathan F.P. Rose for an illuminating conversation. The topic was profound yet elegantly simple: uncovering “nature’s universals” — the deep, time-tested design patterns that silently guide all living systems, and how we can apply them to the human world.
Benyus, the pioneer behind the biomimicry movement, anchors her work on a single, powerful biological truth: Life creates conditions conducive to life.
This isn’t a romantic notion; it’s a design principle. Over billions of years, successful natural systems — from the vastness of a forest canopy to the complexity of a coral reef — have learned to thrive not through competition and extraction, but through cooperation, self-organization, and elegant networked intelligence. These are the strategies that generate abundance without consuming the system that supports them. When we look at nature, we are looking at a master class in sustainability, efficiency, and resilience.
The Blueprint for Human Innovation
The conversation moved beyond mere observation to practical application, identifying core natural principles that can and must guide human industry and ethics. Two standout concepts for redesigning our civilization are:
Right-Sizing: In nature, nothing is over-engineered. Organisms do what is necessary, but no more, often using modularity and local resources to solve problems. Benyus challenges us to abandon the modern human impulse for massive, centralized, and often brittle systems. Instead, we should mimic nature’s local, tailored, and efficient solutions.
Distributed Abundance: Nature’s design is fundamentally anti-monopoly. Resources and solutions are distributed — sunlight, nutrients, and water flow through a network, ensuring that the health of the whole system supports the success of individual parts. Applying this principle to economic and social systems means designing for local self-sufficiency and ensuring resources are abundant and regenerative for all, rather than concentrated at the top.
A Call for Biological Literacy
Ultimately, the episode serves as a powerful call to re-embrace our own biological literacy. For too long, Benyus contends, Western culture has viewed the world — and our place in it — as a collection of separate parts to be managed and exploited. This mindset has dictated our industrial processes, our economic models, and even our spiritual disconnection from the living planet.
The discussion highlights that re-embracing these universal patterns is not just about engineering better products; it’s about reshaping our culture and spirituality. By learning from life’s inherent genius, we move toward a worldview where we recognize the world as a single, living, interdependent whole. The greatest innovation of the next century will be applying nature’s wisdom to create human systems that are as beautiful, cooperative, and conducive to life as a thriving ecosystem.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on how we can all embrace nature’s principles to live our best lives and also care for the planet. What do you think?
Me outside the Perlmutter Cancer Center in NYC on October 29th after seeing my surgeon on the 5-year anniversary of my discharge from surgery
Last week I celebrated 5 years since the bilateral mastectomy that saved my life and removed any sign of cancer from my body. My friend, Wayne, describes journeys like this as a log flume. When we begin, we’re at the top of a terrifying drop. We’re scared, nervous, unsure, hopeful, confused, anxious. All the emotions of the human condition are raw and tumbled in our minds and hearts. We’re trying to keep our head up and our eyes ahead. we don’t want to take that plunge into the unknown. But we have to. We can’t turn around. The only way out is through.
And so, we take a deep breath, and we let ourselves fall. We face all the things we were afraid of, and then some. In every health challenge journey, circumstances arise that we never expected. In my case, I had to have another surgery 3 weeks later because lymph nodes that biopsied negative came back positive in the pathology. All the nodes from that second surgery were, thankfully, negative. Then I nearly died, twice, from a life-threatening allergy to Taxol, a common chemo drug, that shut down my lungs in the middle of COVID. My oncologist at the time thought I was being overly dramatic about my side effects when in fact I was suffocating. (I fired her from my care team, and she no longer sees patients.) My pulmonology team thought my lungs might be permanently scarred and I may need to have an oxygen tank for the rest of my life. Thanks to science and diligence, I fully recovered and now I’m healthier and stronger than ever.
I spent the evening of my 5-year surgery anniversary producing and hosting NYC’s Secrets & Lies – Ghost Stories. The irony isn’t lost on me—that I nearly became a ghost myself with so much life I still wanted to live and that storytelling and creativity have been two of my greatest teachers and healers.
In the wee hours of the morning after my surgery, I woke up in recovery. High as a kite on a massive amount of drugs, my nurse ran around the hospital to find me a turkey sandwich and to this day it’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten. I happily gobbled it down, watched a Harry Potter film on my tablet, and cried enormous tears of gratitude. There was less of my body in the world, but I was still alive, still breathing, and cancer-free. My greatest wish that morning was to see the sunrise so my nurse got me out of bed and wheeled me to one of the lounge spaces in the recovery wing so I could see the sun come up over the East River and the FDR Drive. I will never forget that view.
My surgery team members came to see me before I was discharged. My plastic surgeon who had placed the first installment of my reconstruction – the tissue expanders that would go on to cause 14 months of constant pain – told me that I woke up from anesthesia very quickly, before I’d even left the operating room. I began gushing how grateful and thankful I was to the whole surgery team. She said the entire team was laughing and crying right along with me. I have zero memory of this, and I wish I’d been fully conscious to remember it. Leave it to me to bring the funny in the darkest of times!
Then my breast surgeon came to check me before discharge. Through our masks, I thanked her for saving me and she said, “Sweetie, I’m just part of the team. And every person in this hospital shows up every day with the only goal being to help you heal. And you will heal. And how you feel now – the pain and the fear – it won’t always feel this way. We’re going to get through this together.” My dear friend, Marita, picked me up from the hospital and drove me home to where my sister and my dog were waiting for me. In the following months, so many beautiful friends sent me care packages, messages, cards, and food, and came to visit me from a distance – outside and masked. The trying times we made it through! I’m so thankful for everyone who cheered me on and helped me in a million different ways. I wouldn’t be here without you.
It’s fitting that exactly 5 years at that exact time she came to see me in recovery that I had my 5-year check-up with my breast surgeon. She gave me a clean bill of health, and we talked about the next 5 years of meds. She eased my mind and soothed my heart, as she always does, with science and compassion. We have a plan to keep me cancer-free, and I feel ready to start this next chapter.
I left her office with tears in my eyes and my head, heart, and spirit filled with gratitude for every second of these past 5 years. I’m even grateful for the worst days on this journey because I got to live them. Every morning, my first thought is, “Whew, I got another one!” Long may that tradition continue.
Below are photos of me on the day of my surgery and the morning after when I woke up and saw the sunrise
The urgent global challenge is feeding a rapidly growing population while fighting the uncertainty of climate change. As a storyteller and a biomimicry scientist, I often ask: How does nature solve a massive, existential crisis? The answer, it turns out, lies not in some distant super-technology, but in the subtle genius of a single plant cell.
New research from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has illuminated a fundamental biological “master switch” in the DNA of food crops like corn, giving us an actual blueprint for creating a resilient, thriving future. This isn’t just botany; it’s a profound lesson in survival written right into the plant kingdom.
The Inner Wisdom of the Plant
Plant growth, from the deepest root to the ripest ear of corn, is governed by its stem cells—unspecialized cells that hold the potential to become any part of the plant. The challenge facing plant scientists has always been figuring out how to balance these cells: when should they grow and when should they specialize into, say, a fruit or a thick stalk?
In a breakthrough study, scientists mapped the gene expression in these cells, revealing the network of regulators that act as the plant’s precise internal control panel. This network balances growth and stress response, allowing the plant to strategically allocate its resources for survival.
This knowledge is a gift to us all because it shows how nature manages risk. A plant facing drought doesn’t just despair; it shifts resources to deepen its roots. A plant under pest attack doesn’t just succumb; it redirects energy to fortify its cell walls. It’s a marvelous, elegant system of risk mitigation through metabolic flexibility.
A Blueprint for Humanity’s Resilience
As my work focuses on biomimicry—integrating nature’s genius into the human world—I see in this discovery a direct path to solving our human challenge of food security. We are not meant to struggle endlessly against the elements; we are meant to learn from the masters of endurance.
This plant study provides us with three clear takeaways for building a better world:
Precision over Force: Instead of overwhelming fields with more fertilizer and water, we can use this genetic knowledge to engineer plants to be more efficient—to use nitrogen more effectively and direct energy precisely where it’s needed most for resilience.
Unlocking Latent Potential: We are now able to see and manipulate the plant’s own evolutionary solutions. We can develop crops with deep-seated, natural defenses against drought and disease, built on the plant’s own wisdom, not on chemical dependency.
The Power of the Foundational System: The corn stalk teaches us that true resilience comes from perfecting the foundation. By understanding and replicating the simplest, deepest biological controls, we can build human systems that are robust and adaptable, just like an ecosystem.
A Brighter Future Ahead
This breakthrough is more than just a scientific finding; it is a fundamental shift in our relationship with nature. By finally decoding the genetic “master switch” that plants use to govern their own destiny, we are handed a powerful blueprint for survival. The challenge of global food security has never been greater, but this research proves that the solution is not an endless technological sprint, but a deeper engagement with the patient, profound wisdom of the living world. The era of resilient agriculture is not just on the horizon—it has already begun, written in the complex, hopeful language of a plant’s own DNA.
I just attended Dr. Katharine Hayhoe’s Climate Week NYC talk at the American Museum of Natural History, and it was the most empowering climate message I’ve ever heard. It reframes the entire discussion around three simple ideas: Head, Heart, and Hands.
A research-backed truth: Dr. Hayhoe shared that most people in this country and in the world (~60% on both counts) are worried about climate change. We, the worried, don’t need more doom and damning data to get us concerned because we’re already there.
The challenge: Even though we’re worried, we aren’t taking enough action to alleviate our worry because we don’t know what to do about it.
The solution: Sync up our head, heart, and hands – what I’m calling the great triumvirate of change – and sync with others.
Well, that’s all well and good, but how do we do that? Dr. Hayhoe’s advice: Get clear about what we care about, how climate change will impact what we care about, find others who care about what we care about, and start talking!
Here’s our action plan:
Head: Define Your Why. Clearly identify exactly why you’re worried. Finish this sentence: “I care about climate because I care about…” How is your personal well-being, favorite place, or dearest value already being affected by climate change? Keep it simple, personal, and jargon-free.
Heart: Connect to Community. Now that you know what you care about, find communities, groups, and individuals who share that passion and are also affected by climate change.
Hands: Turn Conversation into Action. Get in touch with those communities and start talking about your shared worries and values. That act of conversation and connection will lead to meaningful, collaborative action or project to protect what you care about.
Climate change will affect everything everywhere all at once. It is a global issue, and no one will escape it so no matter what you care about, it will be impacted and there are communities of people who care about it, too. Let’s dive into an example from my personal life to see this action plan come to life.
An example:
Head: I’m worried about climate change because I love New York City. Since most of our city is at or near sea level, we will be subject to serious impacts from sea level rise, and we have a lot of issues now with rain flooding the streets and subways – our main modes of transportation. We also have a lot of people living in a small amount of space so there is a lot of pollution that impacts our health and well-being, and often crowds out green space, which is causing more heat, dirtier air, and health issues.
Heart: I love this city, and I do believe we can make it greener, cleaner, and healthier for all beings who live here – people, pets, wildlife, and plants. I want to find other people who also care about nature in NYC.
Hands: I run a live storytelling game show called NYC’s Secrets & Lies all about the secret history of NYC. This month, I decided to make the show all about stories related in nature in NYC and applied to have it become an official Climate Week NYC event. They accepted it (hooray!). I found a terrific venue – a hidden theater inside Port Authority Bus Terminal (a great tie into the transportation issues impacted by climate change here in NYC!) We had a wonderful cast of storytellers who were enthusiastic about the topic and told a wide range of stories. I also invited Josh Otero from the Natural Areas Conservancy to be our special guest to talk about all of the amazing work they do to make NYC greener and healthier. We had a sold-out show with a waitlist of 33 people, and all of the stories talked about interesting aspects of the history of nature in NYC. We had so much fun, and it was a great way to get the message out there! This show gave me a place to put my worries about climate change and turn them into action with others. I’m planning to do more of these shows – stay tuned!
Our climate anxiety is reaching new heights and as Dr. Hayhoe explained, the way to use that anxiety for good is through stories. Storytelling is about conversations. Every great idea, every meaningful action, every ounce of change – it all begins with a conversation. Get out there, start talking, and see what change you can create with others.
Copenhagen, the vibrant capital of Denmark, is renowned for its design, cycling culture, and high quality of life. But beneath the charming canals and green spaces, a pressing challenge looms: managing increasingly intense rainfall due to climate change. Rather than relying solely on traditional infrastructure like pipes and sewers, Copenhagen is embracing nature-based solutions, transforming itself into a “sponge city.”
The sponge city concept, originating in China, focuses on absorbing and retaining rainwater where it falls, mimicking how nature manages water. This involves integrating nature-based solutions into the urban landscape to capture, filter, and slowly release stormwater to mitigate flooding.
“If you want to survive, you have to be spongy,” says Yu Kongjian, dean of Peking University’s College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and founder of Turenscape, one of China’s largest landscape architecture firms. “Trying to protect cities with hard, gray infrastructure made of concrete is doomed to fail.”
Copenhagen is a frontrunner in the spongey revolution, and its journey offers valuable lessons for cities worldwide grappling with similar climate-related challenges. My dear archipelago home city of New York, I’m looking at you!
One of the key elements of Copenhagen’s sponge city transformation is the creation of what’s known as green infrastructure. Parks and green spaces are being redesigned to function as rainwater retention basins during heavy downpours. These areas, often featuring sunken lawns and permeable surfaces, can temporarily store significant volumes of water, reducing the strain on the city’s human-made drainage system and reducing the risk of flooding. For example, Enghaveparken has been renovated to include a large underground reservoir capable of holding approximately 22,700 cubic meters of water. This dual-purpose space serves as a recreational area for residents while providing crucial stormwater management capacity.
Beyond parks, Copenhagen is incorporating blue infrastructure into its urban fabric, giving water a place to flow. The city’s numerous canals and harbors are being leveraged to manage excess water. Innovative solutions like floating wetlands and constructed ponds not only enhance biodiversity but also help to filter and retain stormwater. Furthermore, permeable pavements are being increasingly adopted in streets and public squares, allowing rainwater to seep into the ground rather than running off into drains. This reduces surface runoff and helps to replenish groundwater levels.
The driving force behind Copenhagen’s commitment to becoming a sponge city is its ambitious Cloudburst Management Plan, developed after a severe storm in 2011 caused widespread flooding. This comprehensive plan outlines a series of long-term projects aimed at making the city more resilient to extreme weather events. It emphasizes a collaborative approach involving the municipality, utility companies, businesses, and citizens in implementing nature-based solutions across the urban landscape.
The benefits of Copenhagen’s sponge city approach are manifold. Beyond reducing flood risk and alleviating pressure on drainage systems, these green and blue infrastructure initiatives enhance the city’s livability. They create more green spaces for recreation, improve air quality, support biodiversity, and even help to cool urban heat islands during hot summer months.
Copenhagen’s journey to becoming a sponge city is not without its challenges. Retrofitting existing urban areas with green and blue infrastructure requires careful planning, investment, and community engagement. However, the city’s proactive and integrated approach serves as an inspiring model for how other cities can adapt to the increasing impacts of climate change by working with nature, rather than against it. As extreme weather events become more frequent, the lessons learned in Copenhagen offer valuable insights for building more resilient and sustainable cities for the future.
Christa Avampato 