The Warmest Years on Record
an oral history for our early, warm years
Thanks for listening to conversations in the archive of The Warmest Years on Record.
Interviews from 2021 are centered around Brooklyn community gardeners, in partnership with NYC Parks GreenThumb and sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council. Some questions in these interviews were inspired by Guy Schaffer’s Climate Consciousness Raising Groups curriculum developed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Interviews taken during June and July of 2019 were done in partnership with The History Center in Tompkins County.
And Interviews taken in June 2018 were done in partnership with The Nut Island Creative Colony on Governor’s Island.
“Plant more! Plant more! Plant more trees, plant a tree!”
Member of Red Shed Community Garden, East Williamsburg, Brooklyn
June 20, 2021
52:06
“It’s kind of like being on a treadmill of always checking in with myself, like ‘is this doing enough? Is this doing enough? Oh no! I used too much cling wrap today! Is that doing too little? It’s mentally exhausting, keeping up with everything. The goalposts seem to keep on changing but that’s because everything keep accelerating. You know, like the enemy of good of perfection, but it almost seems like we need to be perfect in order to actually make sure that we’re going to stay alive for the next 50 years.”
Monica, Red Shed Community Garden, East Williamsburg, Brooklyn
June 20, 2021
01:03:22
“I was just thinking about my childhood. It was in communism, but it was more healthy than now — the food, and the nature was more present in our lives. Even though it was a terrible system that doesn’t protect much.”
Doubrrava, Red Shed Community Garden, East Williamsburg, Brooklyn
June 28, 2021
40:11
“How are you going to say, ‘Oh we want to fix the environment, yes we’re farming. Kids that live in projects are farming’ — look around us, there’s construction … this little piece of Earth, yes it’s something but in the bigger picture it might just be nothing if all this construction is going on and — they’re talking about crisis but they’re adding to the crisis, not making it better.”
Sonaya, Red Hook Farms, Red Hook, Brooklyn
July 10, 2021
38:13
“Not to be mean or anything, but like, my parents — or like the older generation — they did stuff that wasn’t really beneficial for the environment. Like maybe for them it was like, who cares, it’s not going to impact us. But for me it’s like, we care because it’s going to impact us and our future families.”
Michael, Red Hook Farms, Red Hook, Brooklyn
July 17, 2021
25:17
“Maybe we think that we’re just living life here, but there’s certain things that we’re doing that can contribute to the fact that global warming is increasing, so it’s just scary to know that we’re just trying to get by day to day, but at the same time we’re worsening the Earth that we live on.”
Josaiah and Laura, Red Hook Farms, Red Hook, Brooklyn
July 17, 2021
15:50
“I’m not a climate change skeptic, but sometimes I am, only because I don’t need another crisis.”
Gita, Red Hook Farms, Red Hook, Brooklyn
July 10, 2021
23:14
“What I do notice is, when it doesn’t snow as much, it just feels empty and cold. Physically and it can also be emotionally too. It’s just blank. Everything is just dead.”
Alex, Red Hook Farms, Red Hook, Brooklyn
July 10, 2021
18:35
“But dangit I miss snow! I enjoy snow! I really like snow!”
Traci, Prospect Heights Community Farm, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
July 17, 2021
01:28:02
“The garden is doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s just that open space that the neighbors have come to really appreciate. And what I love to also promote is the shared space between wildlife and us, as people.”
“I want to buy a house, but I’m not sure how I’m going to do it because I heard that water levels are rising and other things could get effected. So I can’t make the decision, should I buy a house here or in a different state? Yeah, that’s a little confusing for me.”
Rini, Ashford Learning Community Garden, East New York, Brooklyn
September 11, 2021
31:06
“I think we’re at a tipping point. And it’s one of those tipping points where you can’t put a day on it, but we know we’re close we’re in the general vicinity. We know action needs to be taken and we know it needs to happen relatively soon. At least those that acknowledge that we have a problem.”
Kofi, Ashford Learning Community Garden, East New York, Brooklyn
September 11, 2021
47:18
“I recently went back to California to a place that I used to fish when I was 7, and I recently went back for the first time, it’s been over 20 years. And I was so sad to see that that place is just not what it was.”
Julie, Thomas Greene Park, Gowanus, Brooklyn
June 26, 2021
14:57
“How do you two know that it used to snow more and that it snows less now?” “History class.”
Two Kids at Thomas Greene Park, Gowanus, Brooklyn
June 26, 2021
06:03
“Have you ever seen white lighting in the snow? It happens. In the 80’s it happened. I was so scared, because it was a heavy snowstorm. Outside was dark. And it was some lightning like from hell. I swear to god the Earth was going on destroyed. Bad, bad lightning.”
Raymond, Phoenix Community Garden, Ocean Hill, Brooklyn
September 25, 2021
54:10
“It’s terrifying. It’s gonna get worse before it gets better. I hope I’m not here.”
Member of Phoenix Community Garden, Ocean Hill, Brooklyn
September 25, 2021
40:25
“Normally we are supposed to start growing from end of February beginning of March, but it’s changed, now we can’t do anything until May.”
Laboni, Myrtle Village Green, Bed Stuy, Brooklyn
November 13, 2021
32:57
“That year it was tremendously hot, and nothing happened. I was very upset about it, it brought me to tears. Because I was thinking, ok this is a one off. Then the next year, I realized, ok this isn’t a one off. That in order to get the crop, I’m going to have make my own weather, per se.”
Diana, Myrtle Village Green, Bed Stuy, Brooklyn
November 13, 2021
18:44
“We used to think about the future as never ending. Just laid out in front of us, forever. And we could continue to reimagine it. I think what the climate crisis has done is say, the future is not never ending. There’s an end to this.”
Shonaugh, Java Street Community Garden, Brooklyn
June 19, 2021
01:03:24
“I needed food. I needed something because of health issues that were not — food just didn’t taste good to me. I couldn’t stomach this and I couldn’t stomach that. And I said you know what? I’m going back to the old way. I’m going to put some seeds or something in the ground.”
Ms. Johana, Herbal Garden of East New York, Brooklyn
September 18, 2021
01:02:09
“We try and go about our lives, we try to go to school and work, and the power can go out at any minute, and you’re trying to work and there’s ash coming in through the windows and the doors. So it’s like — you’re trying to live normally in a situation that’s not normal. It’s like ‘oh boy, I guess this is just how the world is, I guess we just have to deal with this now.’”
Lindsay, GreenThumb Harvest Fair, New York
September 18, 2021
10:09
“It’s a suffocating feeling.”
Danielle, GreenThumb Harvest Fair, New York
September 18, 2021
07:44
“In Katrina, my family was there. My husband literally was with my two sons and when they look back, they were closing the 26 mile bridge — they literally looked back and they had closed. So he just made it out from New Orleans to New York during that time. And you know the price gauging with the gas, hotels. What takes an 18 hour trip from New Orleans to New York took them over 30 hours. So that was heart wrenching.”
Carmen, GreenThumb Harvest Fair, New York
September 18, 2021
12:17
“As you get older you will know that the Earth is changing because you’ll start to see things that you have never seen before. The way the weather moves, the way insects behave, the way birds behave. It’s real.”
Gregory, Gregory’s Garden, East New York, Brooklyn
October 18, 2021
01:08:23
“And this helped me to open up to widen out, get up in the morning, prayers, bible reading and meditation. And those are the three things that got me on my feet. And most importantly was this garden.”
Carleta, 462 Halsey Community Farm, Bed Stuy, Brooklyn
October 11, 2021
35:16
“I used to make maps and be like, this is the United States, here’s all the fracking wells, here’s the oil pipelines, here’s the hurricanes, here’s the tornados. And at the end of the day I think I’m lucky to live in the North East where you’re like, ok being far north and inland is a good bet. But I don’t know! There’s like, zero guarantees, and I think that’s why it’s really important to be like, I have to be rooted in making good decisions for today, while watching the future, and it’s not easy.”
Alice, 462 Halsey Community Farm, Bed Stuy, Brooklyn
October 11, 2021
57:27
“I guess I’m a very hopeful person, I’m very optimistic. So I do believe we’ll find a way to cope with the crisis. But I also believe in doing little things every day to do my part in trying to help. And I’ve made peace with the idea of, I don’t have to be out there doing big things, I just need to apply it to my life personally, and that still makes a difference.”
Sirin, 61 Franklin Street Community Garden
July 11, 2021
43:46
“You don’t see a person walk through and pour a can of gasoline into a river, but corporations can dump all their excess oil into rivers, or into oceans. We’re drilling all this oil out of the ocean and it’s like, The Gulf of Mexico last week was on fire, and it’s like, that is the biggest part and reason for climate change — the greed and want for money. It’s not so much the little person that’s the issue. And politically and economically we are pushed to think that we are the solution to climate change when I feel like as the solution we are 5%.”
Austin, 61 Franklin Street Community Garden, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
July 11, 2021
34:57
“I’m just thinking about, the activism that comes from this whole idea, that if we’re going to grieve something that we’ve lost and we’e lost it because this is what we’re doing to the world, than the new experience becomes changing that. And maybe it’s going back to basics. Which no one in a digital world is willing to slow down long enough to figure out what that looks like or could feel like.”
Beth, 61 Franklin Street Community Garden, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
July 11, 2021
42:30
“But yeah it’s terrifying. This is a crisis greater than anything that our species has ever faced and when I look at the social crisis, the political crisis, the financial crisis that are all crashing down at the same time, I think, it’s climate change that’s making it now or never. Because the financial stuff has been hard before and then we’ve changed things or we’ve had a revolution or we’ve elected someone else and we got it back a little bit. Or the financial stuff, the social stuff we think, all right it’s hard right now but we’ll make progress, but the climate stuff? There’s no second chance. This is the end, so I think it’s pushing us to look at things much more starkly and making it hard to say, oh but it’s hard now but it will be better later, no! This is it. This is our chance. This is our one chance we have to do it now, we can’t put it off any longer we only have maybe 11 years. And that’s like, nothing.”
Anne Rhodes, Ithaca, NY
July 1, 2019
48:07
“I feel no pull to go travel the world. There is so much to learn right here, right at my doorstep. There is so much to watch and observe and everything is changing, there’s so many different pressures on the land. And there’s so little time to deal with it!”
Christianne White, Ithaca, NY
June 30, 2019
01:27:38
“I just remember getting on the toboggan and the snow was piled up so high that I couldn’t see our house. That stuff does not happen. No way, that’s gone.”
Anna Kelles, Ithaca, NY
June 29, 2019
01:36:14
“A loss always hollows you out, grief hollows you out and it just resides there. And then you have to find a way to fill it back up. And for me, my most reliable friend has always been nature.”
Gay Nicholson, Ithaca, NY
June 28, 2019
01:14:05
“There was a time when I was much more optimistic about our ability to deal with it. Now I say I’m not optimistic but I’m hopeful. And to me the difference between hope and optimism is — I mean hope is just part of the human condition, if you give up hope then you’ve lost something that’s essentially human. And even if we’re building these sand castles, knowing that high tide is going to come in and sweep them out, we still have to do what we can do.”
Peter Bardaglio, Ithaca, NY
June 27, 2019
01:11:14
“When the Soviet Union broke up, one of the things that happened is the state run farms were disbanded. And people died of starvation in the cities. The people who survived were the people who survived were the people who knew how to put the seed in the ground, grow the crops, save the seed for the next year. The people in the cities starved to death unless they had enough money to import or to go away. That’s going to happen.”
Marie McRae, Ithaca, NY
June 26, 2019
01:10:11
“It’s made swimming better and gardening worse.”
Krys Cail, Ithaca, NY
June 25, 2019
01:25:40
“The idea that the time of reckoning is coming, has crept — the line keeps moving closer to our own moment. To the point now where it’s racing toward us.”
“I’m now in my 30’s so the two questions that my husband and I get asked all the time are when are we buying a home and when are we having children. And part of me thinks that’s a really perverse thing to ask when we might be on the edge of total ecological collapse. And our country is sinking into fascism. So where do I hope to see myself in 20 years? Alive I hope! Living in a democratic country I hope!”
Sarah Pickman, New York, NY
December 19, 2018
01:28:46
“The hurricane was something where I watched a city that I always figured had remarkable infrastructure and could withstand anything other than a terrorist attack, which is out of nowhere. But I figured, New York could handle it, New York has systems in place. And to watch it totally being brought to it’s knees and not serving its people and not being a provider in that way, was really a crisis. And it happened in exactly the same way that the person in my life who is also the infallible provider, like the strong person in the family was also similarly just taken out.”
Caitlin Burke, New York, NY
December 3, 2018
01:15:52
“And I asked him, ‘Do you think we’ll be ok? We’ll figure it out?’ And he’s like, ‘Oh no, it’s way too late. We don’t have room for 6 million refugees. Let me just say I’m glad I didn’t have kids.’ I litterally felt my temperature spike, I was flush. And I had to excuse myself and left for the day, and had a full blown panic attack on the 2 train.”
Danielle Shepard, New York, NY
December 1, 2018
01:37:46
“I’m annoyed that our parents generation took our lives from us. This could have been different, and they just didn’t care about us. And they just didn’t care what our lives would be like.”
Johnson Henshaw, New York, NY
November 12, 2018
01:04:03
“I’ve been trying to think of it like we’re already in the post-apocolypse and it gives me more hope, to think that we could rebuild something, as opposed to that I have to save something. Because I feel a lot like it’s gone…mother earth as we knew her…”
Nisse Greenberg, New York, NY
November 8, 2018
01:06:45
“I guess it feels like the later stages of an empire. You’ve acquired and conquered everything within your reach and the society doesn’t have anything to do anymore so it turns in on itself and it has these structures and functions that serve to perpetuate themselves and don’t keep things running in a long term sense. “
Matt Hoffman, New York, NY
November 3, 2018
59:40
“I love bad weather, it informs my work today. What I love about extreme weather is that it’s something that forces people to be really present. And so even today if there’s an impending storm everybody’s talking about the weather and feeling ever increment of change — whether it be the temperature, the wind of whatever.”
Nancy Manter, New York, NY
October 30, 2018
52:18
“I think I’m more terrified than I understand. That I can’t look at it and know as much as I want to know. That I have resistance to learning the details of what is happening now and what is going to happen. [If I were to look at it] I really don’t think that I wouldn’t be able to live my life. I don’t think that I would be able to do anything else. And maybe I just know that I can’t afford to do that because I need to pay my bills and pay my debts and there are other things I care about.”
Janelle Tryon, New York, NY
October 23, 2018
01:16:00
“It’s kind of changed my relationship, like I used to really enjoy watching nature shows like Planet Earth. And I can’t even watch those shows anymore, it just upsets me too much. To think about how that kind of beauty and that kind of amazingness potentially might be completely changed within my lifetime.”
Rachel Frank, New York, NY
October 18, 2018
38:01
“I think that things are going to get 15% shittier.”
Rhett Dupont, New York, NY
June 13, 2018
44:02
“Time seems to be missing when I look back through the last couple of months because it was cold for so much longer than normal, that March and April are strange months in my mind because it wasn’t typical weather events in those months. It was really cold in March and for much of April, when really that should have ended.”
Elizabeth Gallo, New York, NY
June 10, 2018
25:07
“I went through a period of my life where I was inflicting a lot of guilt and blame on myself for being part of the problem, and I think I’ve learned there’s a happy medium to be had. Yeah we can all do better, but we do still live in a system where it’s challenging.”
“For someone like me who comes from an American middle class family where I had a very secure childhood, there. Was a sense of stability to the world that really was always illusory but climate change really drives home how illusory that is. Part of grappling with climate change is grappling with the fact that the future is not secure and it’s not stable and the life that you life right now is not — there’s no necessary permanence to it. In fact actually the life that we live is kind of inherently, has the seeds of its own destruction. So there’s a grief to that.”
Genevieve, Red Shed Community Garden, East Williamsburg, Brooklyn
June 25, 2021
01:02:01
“The climate crisis is a corporation crisis, it’s a political crisis, it’s a human crisis that we know the answer to, we just choose not to do it.”
Dwane, Red Shed Community Garden, East Williamsburg, Brooklyn
July 16, 2021
57:26
“I don’t even think I want to have kids. I don’t want to bring them into this world. I’d rather adopt! I’m like, why would I want to bring a kid — when in 10 years there’s a chance this world could probably end. I’m not trying to scare anyone or believe in the four horsemen are going to come down and end the world, that’s not what I’m talking about. This world is on time, we’re all on time, on borrowed time. We’re all on borrowed time. And we have to understand that there might not be enough time left.”
Ozzie, Red Hook Farms, Red Hook, Brooklyn
July 10, 2021
38:10
“Definitely got to start small. I feel like people won’t see the bigger picture until they see it in a smaller thing.”
Justin, Red Hook Farms, Red Hook, Brooklyn
July 17, 2021
57:35
“Even though I came from a part of Africa that is hot, but this heat wave is out of control.”
Jean, Red Hook Farms, Red Hook, Brooklyn
July 10, 2021
33:29
“Hurricane Sandy wiped this entire farm out. We had to rebuild this entire farm.”
Fa-Tai, Red Hook Farms, Red Hook, Brooklyn
July 10, 2021
56:38
“I didn’t have children — I’ve been thinking about climate change for a very long time. I specifically did not — I made a choice back when I was 30, so 30 years ago, I was not going to have children, because I was not going to have my child die in a lava flow, or a catastrophic event. I didn’t want to overpopulate the world, I thought the world was getting too hot, big business is too bad, it’s gonna be worse — and I was right!”
Virginia, Prospect Heights Community Farm, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
July 17, 2021
49:50
“I remember my mom being concerned because she started noticing some birds weren’t migrating anymore. They were just, like, hanging around! Like, what are the robins doing here? Why are they still here? They’re supposed to leave. Some of them stay now. It’s weird.”
Brian, Prospect Heights Community Farm, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
June 29, 2021
01:26:32
“It can be disorienting, but the thing is, we have to adapt if we’re going to survive.”
Nayda, Ashford Learning Community Garden, East New York, Brooklyn
September 11, 2021
01:08:54
“It all starts with the people — they have to try and work together, but that doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen. But you know — there’s hope.”
Teenager at Thomas Greene Park, Gowanus, Brooklyn
June 26, 2021
10:24
“I feel like I’d like to see it if it happens. Either the collapse or near collapse to our civilization. Because that actually might be our only way forward, for a planet where there may be less people — because unfortunately people will die, just like they did in the great plagues. Maybe that might be, unfortunately what it takes to have a future into the coming millennia.”
Martin, Thomas Greene Park, Gowanus, Brooklyn
June 26, 2021
27:21
“It just feels sad I guess, I guess for me I can get too melancholic about it. And just feel like we’re in a season of decline in some way.”
Ben, Thomas Greene Park, Gowanus, Brooklyn
June 26, 2021
11:35
“I feel that we gonna lose something, I feel doom, doom, something doom is coming, I feel there’s going to be a breaking point, like there’s gonna be a domino effect. Which we see some of it now, but I just got this sense that we’re going to reach a point of no return.”
Pat and Vernice, Phoenix Community Garden, Ocean Hill, Brooklyn
September 25, 2021
01:33:27
“There isn’t much that I can do about it as an individual, but working as a group, say with this garden, and the way that we grow food, the way that we handle our waste products — I try and do my part that way.”
Marcia, Phoenix Community Garden, Ocean Hill, Brooklyn
September, 2021
33:00
“I think hoax, and I think scam. And I feel it’s a tragedy, it’s a rip off of humanity because I think it’s very far from the problem. Carbon is a life fuel!”
Neenah, Myrtle Village Green, Bed Stuy, Brooklyn
November 13, 2021
23:03
“Hope is just finding new ways of creating a space for you to be in.”
Elba, Myrtle Village Green, Bed Stuy, Brooklyn
October 9, 2021
01:05:1
“I think about the plants and the vegetables, you feel like you’re going to lose something.”
Cesar, Myrtle Village Green, Bed Stuy, Brooklyn
November 13, 2021
23:46
“It makes me sad because what’s going to happen to my grandson, he’s only 5 years old. Can I protect him? Not anymore, not the way things are going.”
Manny, Java Street Community Garden, Brooklyn
June 19, 2021
58:58
“I am not afraid.”
Renardo, GreenThumb Harvest Fair, New York
September 18, 2021
13:03
“It’s not up to me, I try to do something but I can’t. Really the only thing that I can do is that I recycle. That’s all I can do. There’s nothing meaningful that I can do.”
Reverend Gonzalez, GreenThumb Harvest Fair, New York
September 18, 2021
14:21
“I think maybe trying to stop doing things that contribute towards it, such as burning fossil fuels is one thing that’s a central cause. And also wasting food. So I think not doing these things are ways that climate change can be stopped. Or at least that you can show that you care about climate change being stopped.”
Alex, GreenThumb Harvest Fair, New York
September 18, 2021
06:06
“It’s scary because not everybody gives a shit about how it’s going to effect our lives or the fact that we might not even be able to have lives because of it. If everybody just did a little bit it would make a big difference. It’s really scary when you really think about it so I try not to think about it.”
Clair, 462 Halsey Community Farm, Bed Stuy, Brooklyn
October 11, 2021
29:59
“The attitude that I’ve been thinking about lately that alleviates my anxiety in some way is that I don’t think that it’s reversible at this point. So I see my place in it as just like, ‘how can we reduce the amount of harm that’s going to be done to the people that are around us?’ And I think of children specifically because that’s who I spend most of my time with. So like, what are the small things I can do to maybe slow down the harm or reduce the harm, because it feels too bit to me to think about reversing climate change or stopping it. It just doesn’t really feel like that’s the project anymore.”
Bryn, 462 Halsey Community Farm, Bed Stuy, Brooklyn
October 11, 2021
34:56
“It’s a little nerve wracking because I have a 5 year old and I want him to have space to enjoy. And even as he gets older and if he decides to have a family I want generations to come to have the space. So there’s always this constant anxiety of what will 10 years look like from now, or 20 years look like from now.”
Ameria, 400 Montauk Avenue Community Garden, East New York, Brooklyn
October 22, 2021
54:31
“Even for myself, you can forget, it’s like you push it down the urgency of it. But I think it’s really frightening, and it’s only getting worse and worse.”
Lori, 61 Franklin Street Community Garden, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
July 11, 2021
48:40
“It brings me a lot of anxiety because I feel like a lot of pressure is put on the individual to fix this — you need to bring your reusable bag, you need to bring your reusable water bottle, if you get that paper or plastic bag from the store, I personally am filled with dread every time I have to get a plastic bag because I forgot my bag. And then I was just sharing with my partner, I just read somewhere that it actually costs or takes a lot of resources to create this reusable bag that’s never going to decompose either. And so I’m like what am I doing? Do I bring the reusable bag do I get the paper bag? You’re just constantly in this flip flopping of trying to do the right thing…that into my day to day life I’m constantly thinking about it in my head and I can’t stop, and there’s a lot of guilt that goes with it….it brings a lot of big feelings for me in terms of anxiety and sadness and guilt where I feel like I shouldn’t be feeling that because it’s a lot bigger than us as individuals.”
Jenn, 61 Franklin Street Community Garden, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
July 11, 2021
47:35
“There’s more to teach about climate change than just talking about the science. There’s also listening to people and understanding that it can take time for people to change their minds. That if you work with people respectfully that they may come over some interval of time to decide huh, I guess this is actually something that we need to pay attention to.”
Robert Ross, Ithaca, NY
July 1, 2019
54:29
“I think if there’s ever no food in the grocery store, I’m going to get seriously fucking anxious!”
Mike Moritz, Ithaca, NY
June 30, 2019
01:07:46
“Every action does start with an individual person. We’ve actually made a fair amount of progress with renewable energy for generating electricity. We’re doing ok and we’re on the right track. And so you can say those are societal-scale actions, maybe they were nudged by government. But those all came down to individual actions too. It was someone in the government who cared about this and went for it and did it. Or people who are engineers or entrepreneurs who are starting out solar and wind businesses. Like it all comes down to individual actions, even the grand global actions, they all start out with some individual actions. So it has to start there. It doesn’t just come out of a vacuum.”
Ingrid Zabel, Ithaca, NY
June 29, 2019
01:12:29
“Some of the rain events have been inordinately impactful. Roads, bridges, culverts, things just getting regularly washed out, that we didn’t have to deal with previously.”
Rich DePaolo, Ithaca, NY
June 28, 2019
01:03:07
“For me every tree is a success. And if you get people to plant one tree, and then watch it, take care of it, measure it. Watch it grow. And figure out how much carbon your tree is taking out of the atmosphere. And if you actually see your tree grow, you’re not powerless you just did something! And maybe it was small, but plant another tree, and get your neighbors to plant trees. Of course if you’re one voice in the wilderness you’re not going to have a big impact. But you still will have an impact. And that’s not nothing. Every change that you make, every piece of the problem you solve, makes the big problem that much smaller“
Alexandra Moore, Ithaca, NY
June 28, 2019
49:38
“And I think the other thing that’s sad about climate change is that I think the general idea and thinking at this point in 2019 is, ‘we’ve gone over the tipping point, there’s nothing we can do, we’re here as long as we can be here.’ So it’s almost like we’ve failed — that’s the messaging, that’s how we’re being portrayed.”
Eric Shatt, Ithaca, NY
June 27, 2019
01:21:06
“I think some people will say, why do this or that, we’re going to be dead in 12 years. And it’s really hard, but to say no, that’s not a given, none of this is a given. We have to do something and if you don’t like that, that’s your prerogative, but I’m not going to sit back and just let this happen because I don’t think it’s inevitable. And I think that climate change is already happening and we’re not dead yet — we still have time to do something. “
Noa Shapiro-Tamir, Ithaca, NY
June 25, 2019
01:00:08
“I’ve been studying climate change and environmental issues pretty in depth for about 7 years…and have been pretty immersed in the data and especially now, and I’m pretty convinced that it’s ‘too late’ and what I mean by that is, I don’t think it’s too late that we can’t do anything to slow down or reduce the impacts, but it does seem that global industrial civilization cannot survive the century.”
Jeremy Jimenez, Ithaca, NY
June 25, 2019
01:09:45
“We haven’t created spaces for these conversations to transpire, language around it. Even words for feelings to process this reality don’t quite exist.”
Sara Kiener, New York, NY
December 8, 2018
58:19
“I genuinely think that our civilization might collapse in my lifetime…it feels so big and abstract that I’m not preparing for it in anyway because I can’t fathom what that preparation would entail. Part of my think that I’m an idiot for not selling my expensive NY apartment, learning how to drive, leaning inland…practical feed yourself clothe yourself skills. And the other part of me is like, that’s so not how I want to live my life and I want to be happy for right now, at least.”
Liz Dresner, New York, NY
December 1, 2018
01:04:19
“In my body, as a human animal — Oh yeah, the Earth is dying. You feel it in the air.”
Carolyn & Adriana Castiglia, NY, NY
December 1, 2018
01:15:04
“It makes me uneasy and weirded out when my friends announce that they are pregnant because I don’t feel good about what it’s like to have a child 18 months from now ad have them grow up starting in 2020. Because there have been observable, discreet changes in the climate, in my communities and they are all in the wrong direction. And it’s really scary. It sounds like pessimism and to me it feels like pragmatism.”
Rick Herron, Plattsburg, MO
November 20, 2018
01:29:29
“I think that there is a mischaracterization of the crisis as a discreet event. Like it’s not like the crisis is going to happen or not happen. It is happening and the results will be somewhere on a continuum between bad and unspeakable. And our role is to drag it from the unspeakable to the merely bad. And once you think about it in a more spectrum way, then everything that we do does drag it that way. And for me that relieves a bit of the ‘save the world, accomplish the thing, blow up the death star!’ Mentality, which is daunting, because that requires the gesture.”
Patrick Robbins, New York, NY
November 10, 2018
01:27:31
“I think I’ve absorbed a subconscious sense of what the weather should be from my parents. Like my mind has a conception of when things are abnormal, like especially this fall I had a feeling that it was warmer than usual for September. But I don’t know if that is based on my experience or the comments that I hear and register from the outside world.”
Harry S., New York, NY
November 4, 2018
48:59
“I think about the slow loss of familiarity.”
Zoe Holmes, New York, NY
October 30, 2018
01:10:12
“I think it’s one of those moments when something you’ve been anticipating — you look around and it’s there. And you have this visceral understanding — oh right, 20 years is past and we haven’t addressed the root problem in any substantive way. It feels like the future is coming.“
Lisa Kraushar, New York, NY
October 23, 2018
55:21
“The smell of autumn. It smells damp but not moldy, or a good mold, I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s a smell that invites you, wants you to stay. “
Greg Mailloux, New York, NY
October 20, 2018
01:05:19
“A feeling that I’ve had that I think there should be a word for, which is when you have a gorgeous day that you are really enjoying and you know that it’s happening because of climate change. And that mixture of delight in being t shirt weather in late October or January, and the awful undercurrent that comes with that, of feeling like, I’m getting this beautiful day because we’ve so thoroughly fucked everything up.”
Hondo Weiss, Richmond, NY, NY
June 15, 2018
49:53
“When that happened it really shook me up and it made me realized that outside of my little world where I’m trying to make things work there are things beyond my control happening and they affect everyone.”
Maiken Wiese, New York, NY
June 13, 2018
01:02:1
“What I feel mostly is what it does to nature, to the animals, to the bees to the flowers, to the rhythms that are being upset, and how are they going to adjust to that?”
Myrella Triana, New York, NY
June 12, 2018
12:54
“For me, I’m on my way out. For you guys, you guys have to worry about it. I’m already 60, so how long am I going to live? I’m on my way out. It’s for the new generation of people to take care of the problems.”
Eddie, New York, NY
June 10, 2018
00:39:22
“That puts me on this strange edge, like what’s going on here? Like we’re drinking sparkling water from fancy restaurant and yet, are we going to be able to turn on the tap in 20 years?”
Martina Mrongovius, New York, NY
June 13, 2018
20:07
“I went through a period of my life where I was inflicting a lot of guilt and blame on myself for being part of the problem, and I think I’ve learned there’s a happy medium to be had. Yeah we can all do better, but we do still live in a system where it’s challenging.”
Max Shron & Walter Scarborough, NY, NY
June 9, 2018
01:18:51