Finding one's voice in climate action can come in many forms. Author and activist Taylor Brorby grew up in Center, North Dakota as a fourth-generation member of a fossil-fuel family. He struggled to find his place as a young gay kid who loved art, music, nature and poetry. Over time, he turned that tension into writing that challenges the fossil fuel industry, makes space for others stuck in a broken system, and inspires a more just future.

Suzie Hicks felt the weight of climate concerns but after college, didn’t know what to do with those feelings. After doing an internship at the New England Aquarium, they realized they could merge their love of performing with a career focused on climate. With the help of a sunflower puppet named Sprout, Suzie created a children’s show that teaches kids about climate change through a frame of possibility and hope, not doom and gloom.

Guests

Taylor Brorby, Activist, Author, “Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land”

Suzie Hicks, Climate Media Maker and Educator

For show notes, transcript, and related links, visit ClimateOne.org/podcasts.

00:00 – Intro

02:20 – Taylor Brorby describes the N.D. town where he grew up

05:00 – What he learned from the prairie landscape

07:30 – Other queer writers from the Great Plains

13:30 – Influential environmental writers

17:00 – Writing optimistically rather than dystopian narratives

20:00 – Getting arrested protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline

25:30 – Why we need to be supporting rural writers

30:00 – Project Tundra, a carbon capture project near Center, N.D.

34:00 – Origins of Suzie Hicks, the Climate Chick

36:30 – It’s okay to have complicated feelings about climate change

40:00 – Working with kids' existing love for nature in educating them about climate change

42:00 – Why introduce kids to climate change? Because it’s already happening.

47:00 – How Hicks sees their role as a positive storyteller around climate change

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ENCORE: Taylor Brorby and Suzie Hicks Tell The Stories We Don’t Always Hear