This post was originally published on Good on You
In her new book, Climate Is Just the Start, activist Mikaela Loach helps young readers understand the climate crisis and its implications. It comes at an important moment as a recent survey found that 78% of primary-aged children have eco-anxiety, and they’re not the only ones—it’s affecting adults, too. Here, Loach explains her inspiration for writing the book, alongside five hopeful thinking points from its pages. They make for essential reading at any age.
How Climate Is Just the Start took shape
Mikaela Loach was in a classroom named after her in London, UK, when she realised she needed to write her next book. Her name was on the door in honour of her action for climate justice, human rights, sustainable fashion, and social justice, and she’d been invited to speak to the students about those things.
Loach had been engaging children in schools like this for years, and one thing consistently stuck out: “Around the age 13 mark, there’s a shift in kids. They’re expected to stop feeling their big feelings and harden to the world. It’s not cool to care anymore. So I wanted to catch kids before that happened and tell them: your soft heart is the most important thing to hold on to. Being moved by things is so important. Caring about the world is exciting and transformative.”
Loach says another reason why such a shift occurs is that there aren’t enough resources to explain important subjects like the climate crisis, white supremacy, capitalism, and systems of power to young people. She had already written a book, It’s Not That Radical, to help adults understand these issues but felt it would be too much for children and teens, so she set about writing Climate Is Just the Start for them.
Caring about the world is exciting and transformative.
Mikaela Loach – author of Climate Is Just the Start
To understand what children need to be able to grasp such complex topics, Loach spent hours talking to them in schools and in her family, realising that drawing on personal stories and real-life anecdotes is key to engaging young readers.
The result is a book that, while perfect for readers aged 8-12, offers reassurance and hope to anyone struggling with eco-anxiety. “I think that worry and anxiety come from feeling like we don’t have any agency and we can’t do anything [to effect change],” Loach says. “But when we understand the systems of this world and we see how kids have been involved in past and present movements, that shows us that we do have agency. We do have power. We can actually change things.”
Here, then, are five texts from the book to inspire hope in people of all ages.
You can’t change the world without your feelings
If you are not moved by the world, you will not act to move the world. It’s that simple. So hold on to your soft heart. It’s the most important thing you can do! The world needs your soft heart. Allow it to break—but please don’t stay stuck in the heartbreak. Feel all the feelings, but don’t let them overcome you. Channel them. Find a way to transform them into something else. This book will help you learn how we can do this. Let’s find a way to make what moves us move the world. Together.
Fear can be a catalyst for change
I started turning my fear into action. I started meeting people—activists— who felt the same way I did, and we began working together. We organised rallies and occupations of government buildings; we challenged powerful oil companies and politicians; we planned campaigns to call out governments that weren’t doing enough; we used social media to raise awareness and bring more people on board; and we even took the UK government to court. It was in these spaces that my understanding of climate justice grew.
It felt so exciting. I could see the power we all have to change things. It was like if you don’t know you need glasses, and then you try on your friend’s pair and can see so much clearer and farther than before. I could see a better future, I could feel it, and I believed that we could build it. It changed the entire direction of my life.
Understand the hidden systems of power
Power works in a lot of ways. Some are obvious; others are trickier. Some you can see; others you can’t. Flip a light switch, and your room is suddenly brighter. Watch a wave crash around you, and suddenly you feel yourself swept along. These are physical forms of power. They generate real force, and we can see and feel them.
Other forms of power are invisible, but they generate just as much force and help dictate how we live. Where does this kind of power come from? Lots of places. It can come from ideas, or beliefs, or stories that lots of people choose to believe. When we create rules or practices based on these ideas, beliefs, or stories, we create something called a system of power. One example of this is racism. You can’t see or touch racism, but it has real power in impacting people’s lives.
Remember: every action matters
Our small actions matter. This showed me a few things:
- When you see something unfair, you don’t have to just watch and do nothing. You don’t have to be passive in the face of harm or injustice. You can decide to do something—no matter how big or small. You don’t have to let the heartbreak stay inside. You can take action to transform your emotions into something useful. Into something that moves the thing that moved you.
- Whatever you do matters. Doing something is always worth it.
- Taking action together has a much bigger impact than doing it alone. Getting more people involved means you’ll have the capacity to get more done and more ideas in the mix, which means your plans might expand beyond what you first thought; rather than being able to bake a dozen cupcakes on your own, for example, four people together could make forty-eight cupcakes. Also, the relationships you build with those you do this work with will bring you joy and keep you fighting for longer.
- Just because something happens far away, it doesn’t mean you should ignore it. We live in a global community, and we should respond when asked for help or when we see others in need.
Believe in the power of your imagination
Every system, structure, building, and institution in our world first existed only in someone’s mind. Their imagination was so powerful that it built this. (Imagine me gesturing at this whole world, the good and the bad, the prisons and the hospitals, the climate crisis and the carnivals.)
Imagination is not just make-believe; it is the beginning of all things. Capitalism is the result of someone’s imagination. White supremacy—in fact, the entire concept of race—is the result of someone’s imagination. Imagination has been used by those who hoard power to create systems for thousands of years. It is a powerful tool. It’s time that those of us who want a better, transformed world recognise that too.
If the imaginations of those in the past were strong enough to create capitalism, our imaginations—our ideas for the future—can be strong enough to make something we want. But it has to begin with us exercising our imaginations.
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