In this episode of Climate Shifted, host Eva Frye speaks with Autumn Leiker, a designer and climate artivist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. While many climate stories are doom-and-gloom, Autumn decided to ask their community a different question: considering the realities of the climate crisis, what world do you actually want to live in? This simple but powerful question became Into the Unknown Together, a beautiful anthology of stories, recipes, and art from the people of New Mexico. This work is powerful because when we get out of the limiting fear mindset and into creative ideation, when we imagine the world we do want, we actually start to build it. 

Autumn had never published a book or run a contest before—but they showed that any of us can create something meaningful in our own communities.

Discover why listening matters more than telling, how stories are humanity's most powerful tool for creating change, and the practical steps any of us can take to inspire climate imagination in our own communities. Because when we tell new stories about our climate future, we imagine the pathways for living into them.

FULL TRANSCRIPT HERE

The Power of Place-Based, Community Storytelling

Building Climate Imagination

Community-Centered Approach

Practical Project Building

"We are the storytelling animal... Everything is a story that someone has imagined, so the world that we're living in today and all the systems that we are living in, for better or worse, they are all something that someone imagined at some point."

"When writers create new stories, they open up pathways that we can also live into... it is how we can create new worlds."

"If we don't try to start imagining what we do want and then how to get there, then it's never going to happen."

"Being on the right side of history doesn't necessarily mean we're going to make it... but I want to be on the right side of things, and I want to help others engage with that as well."

"I so want more people to do this. Please take the idea, do whatever you want with it, change it, do it in your communities."

Autumn's Project:

Influences & Inspiration:

Essential Reading Mentioned:

Grief and Joy as Climate Tools

Place-Based Climate Action

Creative Climate Communication

Which story or voice does your community need to hear? What world are you helping them imagine?

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