Shalinee Kumari (She/Her) Editorial Assistant, The Third Pole ​ Shalinee Kumari is an editorial assistant at The Third Pole. Prior to this role, she worked as a trainee digital journalist with BBC Hindi. She is a postgraduate in Convergent Journalism from AJK MCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. During her post-graduation, she also worked as an independent journalist covering the environment. She can be reached on X here and on Instagram here.   You can also follow The Third Pole on X, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. With rising temperatures and ..read more

By Jason Davis, director of Climate Stories Project May is the height of seasonal drama in Massachusetts, where I make my home. The Earth thrums with a sensory overload of surging life: otherworldly pink and white blossoms erupt from magnolia trees, electric orange and black Baltimore orioles flash overhead, and mosses glow vibrant green after spring rains. I am especially attuned to the riotous soundscapes. The first-of-the-season “ee-o-lay..” of a wood thrush, or the ethereal chirping of spring peepers at dusk are quintessential sounds of the New England spring.  Wood thrush image by ..read more

This post is by Climate Stories Project Program Manager Kelly Hydrick. Climate change today is often considered from the point of view of the physical sciences and numerical data, but this data can often be difficult to connect to our daily lives. Unless we or people we know have experienced adverse climate change events then reports of shrinking sea ice, rising air pollution levels, or habitat loss might be easily dismissed. In my work for Climate Stories Project I have conducted numerous oral history interviews about people’s experiences and reflections on the Earth’s changing climate. I’ve ..read more

This blog post is by Jason Davis, director of Climate Stories Project. ​In the 2018 Yale Study Climate Change and the American Mind, researchers found that only 6% of Americans believe that we can and will take the needed actions to prevent the climate crisis. This finding is, to say the least, discouraging. We can’t confront climate change without a vision for a better future, or for reimagining our relationship with the biosphere.   Without question, urgent action is needed—we are decades behind schedule in tackling climate change. In May 2020, global atmospheric levels of carbon dioxid ..read more

This blog post is by Climate Stories Ambassador Kelly Hydrick: My name is Kelly Hydrick and I live in Worcester, Massachusetts with my family. I am a trained historian, although before volunteering as a Climate Ambassador I had no formal instruction in oral history. Currently I’m back in school, in my first semester of a library and information science degree program. One day, I hope to combine my library studies with climate change communication, although I’m not exactly sure yet what this synthesis could look like. As you might imagine, I love to read, and in fact it was my love of reading ..read more

This post is by Shilpita Mathews, a Research Assistant at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment who frequently writes about climate justice on her personal blog.     Having witnessed the aftermath of the Asian tsunami in 2004, I’ve been struck from a young age by how devastating natural disasters can be. Unfortunately, such natural disasters are becoming far too common an experience for today’s youth as a result of climate change. Growing up in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Jordan, I was always aware that climate justice is intrinsical ..read more

By Jason Davis, Director of Climate Stories Project ​During the past several months, many people have written extensively about the connections between the devastating Covid-19 pandemic and the climate crisis. The remarkable similarities between the twin emergencies include the dynamics of denial and delay, the false tradeoff between public and planetary health and the economy, the unveiling of profound societal inequities, and the pressing need for social trust and governmental action in finding solutions. ​However, while the climate crisis is evolving over years, the pandemic is unfoldi ..read more

By Jason Davis, Director of Climate Stories Project ​Recently, I rode my bicycle along the Norwottuck Rail Trail, a former railroad bed turned bike path, which links the towns of Northampton and Amherst, Massachusetts. Riding on the trail in early February felt weird: I had put my bike away for the season in December, despondent at the thought that I’d have to wait until spring to ride again, when the snow and ice would be gone. But here I was, zipping along ice-free pavement in what should be the coldest part of the year. Joggers passed by in shorts and t-shirts. Suddenly, a likely startled C ..read more

This blogpost is from Worcester Polytechnic Institute Global Studies professor Ingrid Shockey. A group of her students visited Himachal Pradesh, India in spring 2019 and recorded climate stories from residents there. ​Bringing STEM Students into Climate Change Conversation ​Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) is known for science and engineering education, but a key aspect of its curriculum asks all third-year students to participate in a project-based learning experience on a topic at the intersection of environment, technology, and society.  As a global studies professor, I have the u ..read more

It can be challenging to capture great audio for your climate interviews—I'm not a professional sound engineer and I've managed to make many mistakes over the years. I hope that sharing my errors helps you avoid these mistakes and make great audio recordings!   Mistake 1: Recording in a noisy room   Admittedly, this one can be a bit hard to control: You've set up an interview only to discover what you thought would be a quiet coffee shop is much louder than you expected. Or you're recording as part of a school workshop and many other interviews are going on at the same time. If possi ..read more