Powerful stories of frontline communities' climate solutions can change the world

WHEN YOU'RE TRYING TO PERSUADE PEOPLE TO DO something important, you can present statistics, policy statements, graphs, and spreadsheets. But without a story that paints a picture of what's at stake, touches the heartstrings, and sparks the imagination to envision possibilities, it's hard to move people to take action. One formula for accelerating transformational change is to amplify the right message from the right messenger at the right moment in time.

- Gloria Walton and Mark Ruffalo

We can often feel powerless when it comes to taking action whether because those abusing power contribute to the feeling of helplessness, or the doomsday approach common in some climate storytelling creates crippling ecoanxiety. When we think change is impossible, we stop trying. But when humans tell their stories, we see ourselves in them, and that gives us something to fight for.

Listen to the story of Nalleli Cobo-a young activist and 2022 TIME100 Next honoree who grew up near an active oil rig in Los Angeles, battling cancer, illness, and loss-and it's hard to turn away. When she tells you that after years of organizing with her community, the city council finally voted to stop oil drilling, you feel the power of her story.

We at the Solutions Project believe in the power of storytelling specifically, storytelling from communities of color and low-income communities that are hit first and worst by climate change, pollution, and other effects of our dirty-energy economy. These frontline communities are creating practical, replicable solutions to the climate crisis.

What do frontline climate solutions look like in America today? A Latino community organization in Brooklyn helps develop New York City's first community-owned solar-power project, and successfully campaigns to transform an industrial waterfront into a wind-energy hub that will power 1.3 million homes and create 13,000 local jobs. Members of the Navajo nation install solar-power systems to bring electricity to off-the-grid Indigenous families and their homes. A Black church in South Carolina deploys solar-powered hydropanels that turn air into clean drinking water for communities that don't have safe tap water.