Spring Creek Podcast

Where is the space for hope in a world where it is almost impossible not to feel hopeless and broken? In that "almost," argues journalist Diego Arguedas Ortiz. In this episode, Diego argues that climate hope is linked with action: both ours and that of others alongside us. He follows the case of climate journalism, which was traditionally a domain of science and environment reporters; now, it is populated by political writers, sports editors and photojournalists that want to do their part. This expanding landscape offers a template for others to find their own space in the climate movement.

Diego Arguedas Ortiz is Associate Director at the Oxford Climate Journalism Network of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford. There, he supports a community of over 600 reporters and editors from more than 120 countries as they improve the quality and impact of their climate journalism. A Costa Rican reporter, he has covered climate change as his main beat since 2013. His work has appeared in BBC Future, MIT Technology Review, Le Monde Diplomatique, Univision and Anthropocene, among other outlets. His work includes six UN Climate Conferences, the Panama Papers international collaboration in 2016 and on-the-ground reporting from a dozen countries. In 2015, he was the founder of Ojo al Clima, Central America's first climate news outlet, which he led as its editor until 2019. From 2019 to 2021, he worked as an advisor on climate change communication for the Minister of Environment and Energy of Costa Rica and the Climate Change Directorate of Costa Rica.

This talk is part of the series "Collective Climate Action: Inspired Organizing for Our Future" produced by the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University. If you'd like to watch a video version of this talk, it's available on Spring Creek Project's YouTube channel.

People often think that social movements emerge when people get so frustrated with the state of things that they cannot not act. They think that only people who really believe in the cause join social movements. And they think that social movements only have an impact when they change the hearts and minds of the public. In this episode, Francesca Polletta draws on research about social movements to say why each one of these commonsensical beliefs is actually wrong. Then she suggests what lessons we can take from the reality of why movements emerge, why people participate, and when movements have an impact, especially for building a movement to stop climate change.

Francesca Polletta is Chancellor's Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. She studies the cultural dimensions of protest and politics, asking how and when politically disadvantaged groups have mobilized to make change. Her books include "Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements," "It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics," "Inventing the Ties that Bind: Imagined Relationships in Moral and Political Life," "Passionate Politics: Emotions and Social Movements," and, with Edwin Amenta, "Changing Minds: When Movements Have Cultural Impact." Francesca is currently working on projects about the kinds of storytelling that have persuasive power and about the cultural impacts of the women's movement.

This talk is part of the series "Collective Climate Action: Inspired Organizing for Our Future" produced by the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University. If you'd like to watch a video version of this talk, it's available on Spring Creek Project's YouTube channel.

In this episode, Aisha Shillingford invites us into a practice of imaginative world-building that involves thinking far into the future, deep intuition, and bold dreaming. She says we have the right and the responsibility to imagine another future, and what comes next depends on our ability to imagine. Aisha asks us to imagine not just changing our current system by knocking down what's not working, but envisioning new systems altogether. She also reminds us that making space for imaginative work and allowing time for rest are necessary for entering a mindset of bold visioning and working toward the world we want to build.

Aisha Shillingford is an artist, world builder, poet, and the Artistic Director of Intelligent Mischief. Her mixed-media collages, text-based work, street art, murals, installation and experiential design work reflect Black utopias, abolition, Black radical imagination, solidarity economics and climate futures. She has been an artist in residence within Laundromat Project's Creative Change Program, a mentor at the New Museum Incubator, and a Project Fellow at NYU Tisch Interactive Technology Program. She is committed to creating art, spaces and experiences that inspire Black folks to imagine and co-create beautiful futures together.

This talk is part of the series "Collective Climate Action: Inspired Organizing for Our Future" produced by the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University. If you'd like to watch a video version of this talk, it's available on Spring Creek Project's YouTube channel.

While we need urgent responses to climate breakdown, we will only make meaningful progress once we recognize that it is a symptom of a deeper underlying malaise affecting our society. Climate must be understood as one aspect of a multifaceted process of global ecological degradation caused by problematic characteristics of our socioeconomic system. In this episode, author Jeremy Lent explains how the underlying cultural foundations of modern civilization have led to our current crisis, and identifies the key leverage points that could redirect our society toward a more sustainable and flourishing future. Lent shows how it's possible to envisage a robust foundation on which a coherent civilizational framework could be established to set the conditions for all human beings to thrive on a healthy, vibrant planet.

Jeremy Lent is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization's existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future. His award-winning books, "The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning" and "The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe," trace the historical underpinnings and flaws of the dominant worldview, and offer a foundation for an integrative worldview that could lead humanity to a flourishing future. He has written extensively about the vision and specifics of an ecological civilization and is founder of the Deep Transformation Network, an online global community exploring pathways for a deep transformation toward a life-affirming future on a regenerated Earth.

This talk is part of the series "Collective Climate Action: Inspired Organizing for Our Future" produced by the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University. If you'd like to watch a video version of this talk, it's available on Spring Creek Project's YouTube channel.

Today's "Luminaries" guest is Fred Swanson, a former research geologist with the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, and a Senior Fellow of the Spring Creek Project. He is co-editor of the books "Forest Under Story: Creative Inquiry in an Old-Growth Forest" and "In the Blast Zone: Catastrophe and Renewal on Mount St. Helens." Fred has a deep history with the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon's Cascade Range as both a scientist who has studied this place for decades and a supporter of the Long-Term Ecological Reflections program that has hosted more than 120 writers and artists in residence at the Andrews Forest.

During this episode, Fred shares how Robert Michael Pyle's essay "The Long Haul" gave him a new perspective on his own role as a researcher and on the importance of taking the long view. Robert Michael Pyle is the author of nearly 30 books of prose and poetry. He is also a conservation biologist, butterfly expert, Guggenheim Fellow and one of the first writers-in-residence at the Andrews Forest. "The Long Haul" was an early contribution to the Long-term Ecological Reflections program, which is designed to last for 200 years, or approximately seven generations of human lives but only a quarter of the lifetime of the oldest red cedars.

"Luminaries" is produced by the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University. This series invites people to share stories about writing and art that illuminates their environmental thinking or work.

In this episode, Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. addresses the interconnected issues of climate change, poverty, economic injustice, and other social injustices affecting vulnerable communities. He explains that it takes collective organizing around the deeper problems of inequality to effectively address the climate crisis and he shares strategies the Hip Hop Caucus uses, including immersive storytelling across mediums, to tackle this work head-on. He discusses the importance of listening to and uplifting frontline leaders working on climate solutions in their communities and encourages us all to be intersectional environmentalists, recognizing that climate justice is racial justice and racial justice is climate justice. At the root of all this work, he speaks of cultivating a world worth saving and keeping hope alive.

Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. is a community activist and the President and CEO of Hip Hop Caucus, a nonprofit addressing issues impacting underserved and vulnerable communities, including climate change. As a national leader within the Green Movement, Rev. Yearwood successfully bridges the gap between communities of color and environmental issue advocacy. He is a leader in campaigns calling for divestment from fossil fuels and increasing diversity in the climate movement. He has fought on the frontlines for vulnerable communities, including at the international climate negotiations in Paris and efforts to fight new oil pipeline developments in Maryland and at Standing Rock. In 2018, Rev. Yearwood helped launch Think 100%, Hip Hop Caucus's award-winning climate communications and activism platform. Comprised of podcast, film, music, and activism opportunities, the platform challenges environmental injustices and shares just solutions to the climate crisis, including a transition to 100% renewable energy for all.

This talk is part of the series "Collective Climate Action: Inspired Organizing for Our Future" produced by the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University. If you'd like to watch a video version of this talk, it's available on Spring Creek Project's YouTube channel.

In this episode, Peter Friederici explains that societal responses to climate breakdown have been closely tied to the dominance of large-scale narratives that promote passivity and inaction. Close examination shows that these narratives follow the structure of classical tragedy as they support the status quo and inhibit creative change. We can do better by instead exploring alternative storytelling frameworks, such as comedy, that allow for adaptability, democratic decision-making, and the embodiment of radical hope.

Peter Friederici is an award-winning writer who teaches classes in science communication and applied sustainability at Northern Arizona University. His articles and essays explore connections between humans and place, while much of his teaching-related work is focused on increasing the sustainability of regional food systems on the Colorado Plateau. His books include "Beyond Climate Breakdown: Envisioning New Stories of Radical Hope," which explores how mindful new narrative frameworks can enable humans to better shape their future.

This talk is part of the series "Collective Climate Action: Inspired Organizing for Our Future" produced by the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University. If you'd like to watch a video version of this talk, it's available on Spring Creek Project's YouTube channel.

Climate change often feels overwhelming, leaving us with a sense of despair. To move forward, we need positive visions of a clean, green, and just world — yet these depictions are often lacking. In this episode, Tory Stephens explores why collective visioning and hopeful climate storytelling is a useful tool to creating a better future for all. From his personal journey of skepticism to embracing the power of imagination, he'll demonstrate how envisioning a better future can supercharge our climate efforts across creative projects, policy, advocacy and more.

Tory Stephens creates opportunities that transform organizations and shift culture. He is a resource generator and community builder for social justice issues, people and movements. He currently works at Grist Magazine as their climate fiction creative manager, and he uses storytelling to champion climate justice and imagine green, clean, and just futures, including through Grist's "Imagine 2200" annual series.

This talk is part of the series "Collective Climate Action: Inspired Organizing for Our Future" produced by the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University. If you'd like to watch a video version of this talk, it's available on Spring Creek Project's YouTube channel.

Today's "Luminaries" guest is Brooke Kuhnhausen, a psychologist who deeply values creativity and collaboration as portals of transformation and imagination so vitally needed for new ways of being together and caring for our living Earth. She practices depth and relational therapy in her private practice and also trains and consults with other therapists, teaching in various graduate programs and therapy institutes. She is a climate justice advocate, has been part of a number of eco-feminist collaborations with visual artists, and helps others shore up the resilient inner practices necessary to cope with climate grief and show up meaningfully in climate activist spaces.

During this episode, Brooke reflects on Joy Harjo's poem "Remember" from the collection "She Had Some Horses." Brooke explores the depths of Harjo's words by weaving in her own experience and the words of other writers and thinkers she admires.

Joy Harjo (b. 1951) is a renowned poet, writer and musician from the Muscogee Nation. She served three terms as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States. Her many honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and lifetime achievement awards from National Book Critics Circle and the Poetry Foundation. "She Had Some Horses" was first published in 1983.

"Luminaries" is produced by the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University. This series invites people to share stories about writing and art that illuminates their environmental thinking or work.

In this episode, Emily Johnston explains that the life we're living now isn't just on a collision course with Earth's limits; it's also historically abnormal in the extreme. How can we ensure that our social nature begins to work far more for a thriving world, than against one?

Emily Johnston is an essayist (anthologized in "All We Can Save") and poet ("Her Animals"), as well as a co-founder of 350 Seattle, and more recently of Troublemakers. She was also part of the valve-turner action in 2016, shutting down all the tar sands crude pipelines into the U.S. with four friends. She hosts the podcast "A Wild and Beautiful World."

This talk is part of the series "Collective Climate Action: Inspired Organizing for Our Future" produced by the Spring Creek Project at Oregon State University. If you'd like to watch a video version of this talk, it's available on Spring Creek Project's YouTube channel.