DR. JENNIFER ATKINSON
Climate Justice, Eco Grief and the Role of Storytellers

In this episode, I’m talking to author, professor, and activist Dr. Jennifer Atkinson about what it means to collectively vision forward and imagine a thriving future for our planet.

“The story of climate change has been a scientific story from the very beginning. That’s the way we always tell it. But we have known that story now for three decades and longer. We don’t need more scientific research in this moment. What we need now is our storytellers to convince us to act on what the sciences have been telling us. We need the artists to help us imagine a thriving future. What does that look like?” —Dr. Jennifer Atkinson

Our conversation happened during Autumn Equinox season in 2020.

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GUEST INFO

Dr. Jennifer Atkinson (she/her) is an Associate Professor of environmental humanities at the University of Washington, Bothell. Her seminars on Eco-Grief & Climate Anxiety have been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, NBC News, the Seattle Times, Grist, the Washington Post, KUOW and many other outlets. Jennifer is currently working on a book titled An Existential Toolkit for the Climate Crisis (co-edited with Sarah Jaquette Ray) that offers strategies to help young people navigate the emotional toll of climate breakdown. Jennifer regularly collaborates youth activists, psychologists, climate scientists and policy makers beyond the university to give public talks on climate and mental health. Her podcast Facing It also provides tools to channel eco-anxiety into action. Supported by a grant from the Rachel Carson Center in Munich, Jennifer currently coordinates a team of interdisciplinary scholars and activists from around the world examining the role of despair and hope within the Climate Generation ("An Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators”).

Jennifer is also the author of Gardenland: Nature, Fantasy and Everyday Practice, a book that explores garden literature as a "fantasy genre" where people enact desires for social justice, joyful labor, and contact with nature. Her writing on the history of gardening in hard times has been featured on programs like NPR, The Conversation, and Earth Island Journal. Jennifer holds a PhD in English Literature from the University of Chicago, and lives in Seattle where she’s taught at the University of Washington for the past 12 years.

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