How do we change the climate story from one of despair to one of possibility? That is the question you must answer in your final essay.
Where do the possibilities lie and what is your role in them? Or as Joelle Gergis asks, “How are you going to show up in this moment?”
(p. 43).
As Rebecca Solnit writes, your job in this essay is to “engage and inspire those who care but who don’t see that they can and should have an active role in this climate movement, who don’t see that what we do matters.” Solnit also argues that “this crisis is a crisis of storytelling.” So how do we tell a better story? How do you want to tell a better story?
Utilize all of the rhetorical tools we have talked about this semester: telling anecdotes, building characters, focusing on particulars/detail, creating empathy, quoting writers who have inspired you, moving from observation to insight, and more.
some writers that have inspired me are rebbecca solnit and todd davis