The spotlight
Hello there, look out fam. We celebrate a milestone: Today marks the 100th edition of this here old newsletter.
Over the past two plus years we have covered a wide variety of climate solutions, from resilience hubs on sun grazing on the power of municipal budgets. We have answered some of your insightful ones questions. We even started with a book club. And of course we’ve maintained a high level of enthusiasm for climate fiction rubbish.
We want to thank you all for being part of this community. Whether you’ve been a subscriber since day one or this is the very first newsletter to hit your inbox, we’re glad you’re here!
To celebrate 100 issues of Looking Forward, we’re rounding up some superlatives – senior yearbook style. My editor challenged me to pick a winning story in several categories: the most surprising, the most useful, the funniest… you get the idea. So take a look back (or take a look for the first time!) at some of the topics that stuck with me, and resonated with your fellow readers.
And, to honor our continued love for the drabble form, we are also excited to announce a special event. We introduce a mini drabble game, dedicated to Looking Forward’s mission to envision a clean, green, just future. Find the deets below!
Most surprising
Meeting your neighbors is a climate solution
Climate change is a global problem. But its impact – and often its solutions – take place locally. In the very first issue of Looking Forward, we explored how the simple act of making friends with your neighbors can be part of a crucial infrastructure for climate resilience. I still look back on this newsletter as setting the tone for how we view and discuss what makes a climate solution, because of how it changed my perspective.
Climate activist Christine Nieves Rodriguez in Puerto Rico told me about her experience weathering the disaster of Hurricane Maria—and how the bonds between neighbors and friends made all the difference in the storm’s aftermath. “The people who are physically closest to you will become the most important people in your life when everything comes crashing down,” Nieves said. Read the story here.
Successor: It’s not just you: The planet also wants a 4-day work week
Most doable
Invest in the climate while you sleep
In this first-person feature, former Grist Fellow Marigo Farr wrote about her experience switching to climate-friendly banking and investment options—and offered a series of ways readers can begin to do the same. (Ando, the bank Marigo used at the time, has since closed. But the other companies and resources she researched are still active.) Inspired in part by Marigo’s inclusive, approachable advice, I tried it myself. I already used a sustainability-oriented bank called Aspiration, which offers a fairly low-key investment fund (the minimum is $10). I decided to start with $100, just to get a feel for doing something international with my dollars, instead of storing them in a cardboard box in my attic (I’m kidding, of course. But hardly ). Read the story here.
Successor: Say ‘I do’ for more sustainable celebrations
Best interview
Why Older Americans Are Taking to the Streets for Climate Action
In March 2023, an organization called Third Act held a nationwide day of marches, rallies and sit-ins outside major banks to protest their continued funding of fossil fuels. The twist: These activists sat in rocking chairs. The organization, founded by author and environmentalist Bill McKibben, is specifically for those over 60.
For this newsletter, I interviewed Lani Ritter Hall, who was a first-time protester when she joined the Third Act demonstrations. Our conversation was both fun and thought provoking – I could tell how stimulating the experience was for her, and how meaningful it was to do this with a group that proudly emphasized their advanced age. “For the first time in 76 years I was on the street with a sign in front of a bank in Cleveland, Ohio,” she told me. “It was like, Oh, my god, am I really doing this? Yes you are!” As a young person myself, I was fascinated to hear how being closer to the end of life was in some ways a driving force for activism for her and other Third Actors – “suddenly there is so much more urgency to really try to make.” a difference so that the world will be better for future generations.” Read the Q&A here.
Successor: The official US climate report includes LGBTQ+ issues – for the first time
Most conversation starters
To keep building materials out of landfills, cities embrace ‘deconstruction’
This piece by Syris Valentine explored the concept of deconstruction – taking buildings apart and reusing or recycling the materials, rather than demolishing them and sending the waste to landfills – and how a growing number of cities are taking up the practice obligated. The topic seemed to hit home – this newsletter holds the record for most reader responses!
This note from Brian Hart particularly stuck with me:
“First of all, I want to point out that those of us who formed households in the late 60s and early 70s built with tons of recycled materials. (More extreme versions were labeled “hippie” by some.) When my late wife and I bought a cabin on the edge of the Fraser River in 1971, we had a minuscule budget to make it livable. Recycled materials made this possible; to wit: All the doors and windows in our house were originally the suite entry doors from a 1930’s office building, complete with frames and transoms and hardware, that were already on a truck to the dump; I paid the driver to drop them off at my place. (A unique feature, at the time, was that every window and door in our house had a mail slot.)
The list went on, from the bathroom sink to the kitchen cabinets. And several other readers responded to share about local initiatives in their cities, their interest in ReStores, and some of the secondhand or repurposed items that are nearest and dearest to them. Read the story here.
Successor: Heat pumps are declining in Maine, one of the coldest states
dearest
Meet Mr. Trash Wheel, a campaigner for the end of single-use plastics
This might be my personal favorite newsletter of all time. Although I have since moved to Seattle, I was a proud Baltimorean in the spring of 2023, and eager to celebrate (and share with you) a strange and delightful local phenomenon: it was the ninth birthday of Mr. Trash Wheel, the mouth-like machine that sits in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor gobbling up trash before it can make it to the ocean — and he was having a party. Mr. Trash Wheel now has a family of equals in different parts of Baltimore, and the concept has even spread to other cities. And, in addition to directly removing litter, the wheels’ celebrity has turned into an advocacy tool for the end of single-use plastics. Read the story here.
Successor: Four stories of relationships forged by climate action
– Claire Elise Thompson
See for yourself
In honor of 100 issues of Looking Forward, we are excited to launch a mini drabble game.
Drabble, small 100-word pieces of fiction, have been a mainstay of Look Forward since the beginning. We have always aimed to document the work being done today to address the causes and impacts of the climate crisis, while also envisioning what the future might look like if we get it right. This is where drabbles come in. So, we’re going to celebrate 100 issues with an ode to the 100-word form. Send us a drabble imagining the world in 100 years for a chance to win gifts!
Here is the command: Choose one climate solution that excites you, and show us how you hope it will evolve over the next 100 years to help build a clean, green, just future.
We’ve covered a boatload of solutions for you to draw from (100, to be exact!) – so if you need some inspiration, read the full Looking Forward archive hereor check out some of the issues linked above.
Drabbles offer a glimpse into the future we dream about, so paint us a compelling picture of how you hope the world, and our lives in it, will evolve.
Here’s what we’ll be looking for:
- Descriptive writing that makes us feel immersed in the scene and environment.
- A sense of time. You don’t have to put a specific time stamp on your piece, but give us a clue that we’re in the future (not an alternate reality), about 100 years from now, and that some things have changed.
- A sense of feeling. Is this vignette about joy? Frustration? Excitement? Nervousness? The everyday pleasure of living in a world where needs are met? Let us feel something!
- 100 words to the point.
The winning doodles will be published in Looking Forward in May, and the winners will receive gifts! Some Grist-y swag, and a book of your choice lovingly packaged and mailed to you by Claire.
Hand in: Send your drabble to lookingforward@grist.org with “Drabble contest” in the subject line by the end of Friday, April 26.
We look forward to reading your visions for a clean, green, just future!
A parting shot
For our 100th farewell shot, we share a reflection from Mia Torres, the editorial designer responsible for Looking Forward’s look and feel:
“I was browsing through our archive and pulled this illustration from November 2022. That was it for our issue sustainable holiday gifts, and marks the transition from the collage style we launched the newsletter with to the bright, poppy hand-drawn approach I use today. It’s nice to take a moment to reflect on how much our art has evolved over the past two-and-a-half years. Cheers to the next 100 issues!”
