Wednesday, Oct 8

Welcome to Your Daily Dot where Dot will share tips, advice, and stories on how we can make our world better.

Dear Reader,

When 81-year-old Janet Willoner’s grandchildren joined in Fridays for Future (inspired by Greta Thunberg’s School Strikes for Climate, in which students skipped school on Fridays to draw attention to the climate crisis), the octogenarian wasn’t one to be left out. Inspired by her grandkids’ love of nature, Janet got planting. Since 2019, she’s planted more than 4,200 seeds (which have grown into trees), keeping her venture secret until it was clear that the trees were thriving — she didn’t want to look “silly,” she told a BBC reporter. She has donated her trees to various organizations and expects soon to blow through her goal of 5,000, at which point she’ll just keep planting. Her motivation is simple, and universal. “I felt the human race is in a crisis at the moment, but from any crisis there’s the opportunity for something better or different to emerge from it,” said Dot’s Climate Champ. Keep planting, Janet. You’re an inspiration to grannies, grandchildren, and all of us in between. 

Speaking of grandparents, even those not planting trees can plant seeds of change. While research tells us that older folks feel less threatened by climate change, they’re more likely to be able to point to ways in which things have changed, such as winters that were colder or species that were more plentiful. And sharing these stories can help beat back what’s called “shifting baseline syndrome” — our tendency, because change happens so incrementally, to develop amnesia when it comes to changes in our climate, concluding that things have always been like this. In other words, as climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe keeps urging us: Talk about climate change.

Rootedly,

Dot

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For more Bluedot Climate Quick Tips, click here. 

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