Sharing personal stories about climate change action, emotions, values and hope is a way to co-create new narratives highlighting regerativity, decolonization and the power of collective action.

Climate Illustrated is a story and art project where we feature personal stories about climate justice and sustainabliity from people around the world. We believe that everyone has a story to tell. We pair these stories with colorful illustrations made by our amazing community of artists. We post these stories as a true collaboration between storyteller, our team, and the illustrators we work with.

The human dimension of climate change

Our stories highlight the human - and deeply emotional - dimensions of climate change. Climate change tends to be discussed in technical and futuristic terms, but it’s about so much more than CO2 emissions, electrical cars and future impacts.

Climate change creates deep losses for people all over the world as you are reading this. There is the loss of a predictable future, the loss of faith in our leadership to handle the most pressing issues of our time, and the loss of clean drinking water and a reliable harvest. Our storytellers write about these losses and show how climate change is already affecting people’s lives both physically and emotionally.

It is clear that the frontline communities in the global south will be the most affected by climate change. There are many people in the global south speaking up about climate action, but their voices are too often ignored. We want to be a platform where a diversity of voices from the environmental movement can be heard.

Art and stories that inspire action

A crucial part of partnering with artists and pairing these stories with an artist’s colorful and creative interpretation is to give people hope and inspire action. It is much harder to act on something that feels so far in the future – the personal stories serve to call attention to the immediacy of what we need to do.

People act on their values, and hearing the “why” behind other people’s engagement in climate action helps put things in perspective. Through art and color, we wish to instil a little boost of hope for the future. This helps motivate people, rather than contributing to a feeling of powerlessness and uncertainty that can paralyze even the most engaged activists.