Minnesotan advocates for climate justice through storytelling

CATHY WURZER: You heard it all year like a broken record, the sixth-hottest may recorded in Minnesota Gateway to the fourth-hottest June. September was the state's hottest on record. Globally, 2023 is on its way to being the hottest year, which is, of course, part of a larger trend. The world's 8 warmest years have all happened since 2014. Numbers stacked up like this are one of the ways we talk about climate change.

Jothsna Harris is working to help people with kind of another way, storytelling. She's a climate justice advocate in the Twin Cities area, and the founder of a consulting company called Change Narrative. We're going to talk with her in just a moment. But first, we're going to hear a bit of a conversation she had with Cassie Bean in Minneapolis.

CASSIE BEAN: I don't know, you're a mom. You know how it is. Like, I feel like you just touch things differently and you think about things from a different lens because your kid's here. And that's not to say someone without kids don't care.

JOTHSNA HARRIS: I definitely feel that even thinking about my daughter is now looking at colleges and she's like you, wants to travel the world and see lots of places. And so we just went to the National College Fair and she was attracted to schools on the East Coast, schools on the West Coast. And then she started watching these YouTube videos when we got back about what are the differences between East Coast and West Coast.

Then I think about not just her being far away know and travel that it will take, plane tickets that it's going to take, emissions also, that it will create, but also things are different now. And we have those moments of we actually need to flee wildfires or air quality you can't go outside and you can't breathe, or hurricanes, or heat waves. You have to have good inside spaces and infrastructure--

CASSIE BEAN: Resources.

JOTHSNA HARRIS: Resources, yeah.

CASSIE BEAN: So you can get out.

JOTHSNA HARRIS: I feel like too coupling that with our children who are teenagers now and their view on life has been impacted by the pandemic. And what they want to be, like, is college even the thing to do? you Question everything when you're living in a world that is more uncertain and less stable. You know, so much innovation is happening and young people are really dreaming about different reality.

CASSIE BEAN: I think that's what I wrestle with the most. As a mother, what should I be imparting or be super mindful of to really expose my son to. I take being a mom so serious like, oh. I would put this probably just on the list of top 10 things that you should be trying to prepare your kid for in the future like education, trying to make your best financial decisions for them.

But yeah, I mean the way things are going, I could see accounting for climate, adaptation, I don't know. My parents didn't do that with me, but I don't think that they were seeing what we see and I don't think they were prompted by what they were seeing. But I am trying to figure out, again, ways that I can do my part from where I sit, whether it's the recycling. And I feel is like a bare minimum.

And growing up, I think people probably felt like that was their part to do, but I feel like there is something more beyond just recycling. And I think that those action items are not always easy to know. There is this saying in the Jewish faith that really resonates with me, I'm going to paraphrase it but it says, it's not-- you're not obligated to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it, which always sits with me.

I think my doom kind of comes in with climate stuff because I feel-- I don't know, it's easy for me to go there where I'm thinking about size and impact and proportionality and percentages. This is kind of how my brain can work sometimes. And what I like about that's saying is that it kind of reminds me that you still aren't free to stop doing that.

CATHY WURZER: That's Jothsna Harris talking with Cassie Bean about their experiences of climate change. Jothsna is on the line. Welcome to the program. How are you?

JOTHSNA HARRIS: Hi, Cathy. I'm so grateful to be here with you today.

CATHY WURZER: Well, Thank you for taking the time. I am a big fan obviously of storytelling, I guess you can think of me as in a sense a professional storyteller. You know this, story's appeal to our senses and our emotions and they can leave a really big impact on the listener. When did you realize that storytelling was a really effective way to address climate change?

JOTHSNA HARRIS: I think just being a person in this world is something that has always resonated with my spirit, and it's really what makes us human. How we think about the world around us, how we make sense of it, much of that has been told through stories. And when thinking about climate change, it becomes especially important because it is an issue that has oftentimes been communicated mostly through the head and through the sciences, which is essential.

But we also need that head and heart connection to be able to spark and sustain our action and to know that this is an issue that we are experiencing. Climate change is now part of the human experience. And so we have to be able to speak to it in ways that bring that data to life so that it makes sense for our lived realities.

CATHY WURZER: Give me a sense as to how you would tell a story about climate change through the heart. Does that make sense?

JOTHSNA HARRIS: It does. So I'm always so interested in asking people beyond their experiences of climate change, about their unique identity as a person, about cultural aspects, about their lived experiences, and aspects that just make them who they are. And then there's an opportunity to weave that into how we think about climate change so that you come away with a story that is much more dynamic and really speaks to the intersectionality of climate change that is as diverse as our identities.

CATHY WURZER: What kind of questions do you ask people to get at their story, their climate story?

JOTHSNA HARRIS: I think most people actually don't think that they have a climate story, or that they feel their voice is important enough to share it. So that actually becomes the work is to be able to affirm and validate that somebody has a powerful story to tell, but also that what they have to say is important.

So asking questions like who are you? What makes you a unique person in this world? What are the values that guide you in your world view? What is your experience of nature? Is there a landscape that has special meaning or significance for you? What is a time that you felt your voice was powerful? And then asking questions about their experiences of climate change, whether that is through direct impacts of wildfire or air quality, being in the experience of a hurricane, flooding, drought.

So there's opportunity to think about how our stories about climate change can be told in ways that bring in those dynamic perspectives that speak to the emotion and vulnerability that comes with just learning about and understanding climate change.

CATHY WURZER: Katharine Hayhoe, who you know as a climate scientist, has said everybody should talk about climate change more. And she says she feels it's helpful to not even use the word "climate," especially because it's kind of a politically loaded word nowadays. Are there ways you could tell folks-- how can you get past some of this polarization in their climate storytelling?

JOTHSNA HARRIS: Well, I think when we tell a story, it bends the listener's ear to listen in a different way, rather than starting with facts and figures, which can sometimes shut down the climate conversation, especially in this polarized environment. So beginning with a story or asking somebody, what is your experience of climate change, or what do you think about it, can we find a time to actually sit down and talk about it can be incredibly helpful. And then there will be a place for those climate facts to come in to reinforce and ground the story and bring some depth and meaning to it.

CATHY WURZER: Jothsna Harris, I wish I had more time with you, but I have to run. Thank you so much.

JOTHSNA HARRIS: Thank you, Cathy. I appreciate being able to talk about climate change in mainstream places to bring to light the importance of talking about it as people so that we can speak to the emotion, and vulnerability, and aspects that make us alive in this time Thank you.

CATHY WURZER: All best to you. Thank you, Jothsna. Jothsna Harris is the founder of Change Narrative LLC, where she helps folks use storytelling for climate action.