Christa Avampato's Blog, page 14

Governor Tim Walz made Minnesota a climate action powerhouse

Image from Sierra Club

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has spent the better part of the last decade instituting climate policies that make economic sense and help all Minnesota residents live healthier, happier lives. Let’s dive into what he’s done in Minnesota and how this could help the entire country. 

1.) Minnesota is a clean energy leader

Like many states, Minnesota was long powered by coal. Today, 50% of the state’s power comes from wind, solar, and nuclear power, thanks to Walz. It’s one of the fastest transitioning states in the country. In 2023, he signed the Minnesota Clean Energy Bill into law, ensuring Minnesota is fossil fuel-free by 2040. (If you want to see how all U.S. states stack up with their energy sources, check out this cool interactive created by Nadja Popovich.) 

2.) Minnesota is a climate policy leader

On Walz’s watch in 2022, Minnesota launched the Climate Action Framework. This plan is preparing the state for climate change impacts, taking immediate and near-term actions to make the state “carbon-neutral, resilient, and equitable.” To-date, this plan has prompted the Minnesota Legislature to approve over 40 climate initiatives across industries including energy, health, agriculture, construction, and transportation. 

3.) Minnesota policies connect everyday local concerns with climate solutions 

Minnesotans have acutely felt the impacts of climate change over the past 5 years — drought caused economic losses for farmers and ranchers, wildfire smoke inundated cities and towns leading to health challenges, and a lack of snow and ice caused economic losses in the fishing and winter tourism industries. The state’s climate policies focus on climate solutions that create jobs, protect land and water vital for farmers and ranchers, reduce energy costs for consumers, and improve air quality to improve the health of residents, particularly children, the elderly, and those with existing health conditions. 

Walz’s simple, straightforward, optimistic, and solution-oriented communication style unites people, makes them feel hopeful, and connects the challenges they face with policy solutions that will directly solve those challenges. This makes him wildly popular with constituents across the political spectrum. People trust him because he’s helping them. This has helped turn Minnesota into a climate action powerhouse. Using his playbook, we could do this for the entire country. 

Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund creates economic opportunity and protects the planet

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is a powerful climate finance policy in the U.S. that hasn’t gotten enough attention. It effectively leverages blended finance, creating an effective model for future policies. Here’s the deal:

With the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Vice President Kamala Harris announced a $20 billion investment in climate and clean energy projects: three under the $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund and five under the $6 billion Clean Communities Investment Accelerator. They will create a national clean financing network for clean energy and climate solutions across sectors, ensuring communities have access to the capital they need to participate in and benefit from a cleaner, more sustainable economy.

Together, the eight selected projects will deliver on the three objectives of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund: reducing climate and air pollution; delivering benefits to communities, especially low-income and disadvantaged communities; and mobilizing financing and private capital. As part of this collective effort, selected applicants have committed to the following:

Fund projects across sectors that will reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions

These projects fund net-zero buildings, zero-emissions transportation, distributed energy generation and storage, and the decarbonization of agriculture and heavy industry.

Reach communities in all 50 states, the 6 U.S. territories, and Tribal Lands, with a particular focus on low-income and disadvantaged communities

$14 billion funds low-income and disadvantaged communities that need it most, ensuring that program benefits flow to the communities most in need and advance the President’s Justice40 InitiativeOver $4 billion to rural and energy communitiesNearly $1.5 billion to Tribal communities

Mobilize private capital at an almost 7:1 ratio over the next seven years, with every dollar in grant funds leveraged for almost seven dollars in private funds

This is a significant point because a sustainable world requires private investment. This means $20 billion in U.S. government funding activates an additional $130 billion in private capital from banks, asset managers, and individual investors for a total of $150 billion. (This is known as “blended finance” — investments from different sources are combined to achieve a common goal.)

Fund community lenders and partners who are already working in communities across the country to deliver investments quickly

1,000 community lenders are lending in low-income and disadvantaged communities, including Community Development Financial Institutions (including Community Development Loan Funds, Community Development Banks, Community Development Credit Unions, and Community Development Venture Capital Funds); low-income credit unions, and green banks.

Hundreds of thousands of good-paying, high-quality jobs, especially in low-income and disadvantaged communities

Create hundreds of thousands of good-paying, high-quality jobs, supported by a number of local, regional, and national labor union jobs

Vice President Harris has spent her career standing up for people and the planet. She’s not resting on her laurels. She’s moving us forward toward a healthy, sustainable world for all. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is a cornerstone of a set of policies that create economic opportunities while protecting the planet we share.

Mine for metal with plants

Metalplant co-founders Laura Wasserson, Eric Matzner and Sahit Muja with the Albanian farming team.
Image: Metalplant

Plants like sunflowers are viable nature-based solutions that remove heavy metal from polluted soil through the scientific process of phytoremediation. The term is a combination of the Greek phyto (plant) and Latin remedium (restoring balance). Simply, brilliantly, and quickly, the plants take up the heavy metal in large quantities and store them in their fatty tissues. This causes no harm to the sunflowers, nor to the land. They also thrive in hot, dry climates. What a wonder for a world wracked by pollution and climate change impacts. 

Now imagine taking this incredible adaptation even further. What if we extracted the metals from the plants and use these metals in our technology so we didn’t need to mine for them? 

This is exactly the mission of Metalplant, a startup in Albania transforming some of the most degraded land in the world into a lucrative venture. This idea of phytoremediation isn’t new. Many have tried. Metalplant added another step to their process. While mining with plants (a process they call phytomining), they also remove CO2 from the atmosphere by spreading large volumes of rock dust on their farms. That rock pulls carbon out of the air. This process is known as enhanced rock weathering.

I worried about the impact of the rock dust on the soil and the life within that soil. Thankfully, enhanced rock weathering is a regenerative practice, using mycorrhiza and other fungi fostered by the roots of the plants absorbing the metal from the soil. 

Curious and want to learn more? Metalplant would love to hear from you. Get in touch with them at https://metalplant.com/contact/.

I submitted my dissertation to the University of Cambridge

It is written. It is submitted. In the wee hours of Monday morning, I submitted my dissertation to the University of Cambridge. I’m proud of it. Every cell in my body is passionate about the topic and I think it can help to make this world a better place.

There are many people who helped make this dissertation what it is. The anonymous marking criteria precluded me from thanking them by name in the acknowledgements of the dissertation so I’ll thank them here.

My advisor Dr Candice Howarth provided support and encouragement from the start. 

Louise Drake was enthusiastic about my topic from the point I submitted my proposal and provided early materials that helped me on my journey. 

My first year tutor Angus Morrison-saunders sharpened my writing and research skills to make the writing of this research project possible. 

The staff at Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) always warmly welcomed us in Cambridge, answered our many questions with kindness and grace, and created the space to make this phenomenal experience possible. There is so much work that happens behind the scenes and the staff is to be commended for all they do. 

My friends and classmates Milly Moore, Alasdair Martin, Patricia Minogue, Aaron Hemsley, Mark Champkins, Barbora Kotoun, Laura Hillis, Mitch Reznick, CFA, Iuliia Takhtarova, and Aonghus Kelly read my work at various points (some more than once, you kind souls!) and provided feedback that made the work much better than it would have been otherwise. 

My close community of friends and relatives cheered me on throughout this two-year adventure and provided support for my studies in so many ways. 

Many people graciously and generously gave their time so I could interview them for this dissertation. Your insights and perspectives made this research possible. Thank you for your honesty, candor, and enthusiasm for the work. 

I love being a part of Cohort 13 and I’m inspired every day by all my wonderful classmates and friends. You taught me so much, not only about sustainability but also about life. I’m a better person for knowing you. Thank you for everything. 

While we all now wait for our grades and the confirmation of our graduation celebration in 2025, I’m filled with gratitude and love for two fantastic years. Onward now to save the planet.

Can ecofiction inspire climate action?

Created by Christa Avampato using AI.

While on vacation I wrote my first full piece of ecofiction for a climate fiction writing competition. It’s a short story (5,000 words) that provides a slice of life in New York City in the year 2200, and grew out of the research I did for my University of Cambridge dissertation.

It’s told through the eyes of a journalist walking his dog who by chance meets the 90-year-old former mayor who galvanized the rebuilding of NYC after it was destroyed by floods caused by climate change. Biomimicry figures prominently in it. I tried to incorporate humor, heart, and redemption alongside the heartbreak, loss, and destruction. Ultimately, it’s a story about leadership, community, and vision.

No matter the outcome of the competition, I enjoyed writing it and plan to do more with these characters and in this genre. The predominant channels and messages we’re using for climate storytelling now are not generating the scale and speed of the changes we need. Fiction can play a bigger role is painting the picture of what a world transformed can look like, what it will take to get there, and how we might work together to make it so. The fandoms around fiction can be a unifying force for good, which is exactly what we need, now more than ever.

(I created the images below with AI, inspired by the story I wrote.)

Celebrating National Cancer Survivors Month

Superpower by Brian Andreas

This year I learned June is National Cancer Survivors Month. I ended active treatment (for me, that was the end of primary surgeries, intravenous chemotherapy, and radiation) at the end of May 2021 so it perfectly coincides with my official cancer-free anniversary. 3 years on and I’m feeling terrific!

Being a survivor is daily work. Diet, exercise, medication, meditation, mindfulness, sleep, and stress-reduction are incredibly important parts of my routine helping me stay cancer-free. It can sometimes be a lonely road. Unless someone has walked this path themselves, it’s difficult to understand how it feels. My body does not look nor feel the way my pre-cancer body did. It never will. I’ve had to make peace with a new normal, scars and all. I miss my pre-cancer body and I’m grateful for the one I have. We can simultaneously carry mourning and gratitude. I carry them every day.

What I never lose sight of, not for a single moment, is that I’m extraordinarily lucky to be here at all. Even luckier still to be living a life I love and to be healthy. 2024 thus far has been challenging for me — personally, academically, and professionally. The world is a difficult place. My corner of the world is difficult, too, albeit for very different reasons. And still, I’m finding and cultivating beauty, wonder, joy, and love every day, in my work and in my life.

It’s a beautiful coincidence that this morning Brian Andreas, one of my favorite artists, posted this image that he created called Superpower. I’ll be buying this one to hang in my bedroom. It’s me. My superpower is waking up every day constantly amazed at being alive. Long may it continue.

Fun at the Jazz Age Lawn Party on NYC’s Governor’s Island

A banner adventure day in New York for me and one of my nearest and dearest friends at Governor’s Island’s Jazz Age Lawn Party. Long may the 1920s roar!

Everyone looked amazing and the music was stellar. I love how open, welcoming, and friendly everyone was. It was a gorgeous day with a joyful, relaxed, diverse crowd that reflected just what a fantastic city New York is. We danced, laughed, ate, chatted, and had so much fun in our period dresses. Ashley is a stellar dancer and used to do competitive swing dancing so she was absolutely in her element.

Next year is the 20th anniversary of the party, and we’re going to get a group together to go. We hope you’ll join us. And we’re already thinking about ways we might pitch a storytelling show to be part of the fun!

I’m a guest on the nature podcast, Unearthing Wild Wonders

Nature inspired — home, healing, and biomimicry with Christa Avampato

A few months ago, I met Nicky Jenner, a gardener, conservationist, and nature lover who lives in Devon in the southeast of the U.K. Though I’ve only known her a short while, the moment we met I knew she was a kindred spirit. 

She told me she was starting a podcast called Unearthing Wild Wonders about the wisdom and wonder of nature, and how we bring about positive change in our deeply troubled world. I was honored when she asked if I’d be a guest and I immediately accepted. Our episode, Nature inspired — home, healing, and biomimicry with Christa Avampato , is out now. Unearthing Wild Wonders is beautiful, uplifting, and hopeful, and each episode leaves me newly inspired to continue my work to protect the planet. Also, Nicky’s voice immediately puts me at ease. 

In our conversation, Nicky and I talk about how the challenges I’ve faced in my life and with my health ignited my passion and commitment to make a difference for all beings on our precious planet. We talk about biomimicry and how the most unlikely species have inspired phenomenal innovations that we now use in our daily lives. We chat about the many languages we need to speak to bridge the divide between science, conservation, business, and finance.

I talk about my University of Cambridge dissertation that uses storytelling to connect climate entrepreneurs developing nature-based solutions with family offices looking for new investment opportunities that deliver a financial return and have a higher purpose.

I also share stories about my journey to overcome cancer, and how learning to heal my own body helped better prepare me to heal the planet. One of them I’m sharing publicly for the first time — how lying in a hospital bed seriously ill from chemotherapy helped me realize the immensity of the plastic waste problem and made me even more determined to do something about it.

I’m so grateful to Nicky for having me on the podcast. Our conversation happened just days after the passing of my sweet soul dog, Phineas, one of the worst losses of my life. Talking to Nicky helped me begin to heal and honor him. I’m so grateful for that. Let us know what you think of the episode.

I’m excited for the day when I’ll get to Devon, give her a hug, and walk through her garden with her. Nicky has a wonderful website and newsletter at https://www.hawksdawn.co.uk/ that I highly recommend. You can also find her on Instagram @nickyjenner_hawksdown posting gorgeous pictures of nature along with inspiring quotes and stories.

I became a monthly donor to 15/10 Foundation

Honoring Phinny through 15/10 Foundation. Painting of Phin under the cherry blossoms by Ashley Semrick.

My rescue dog, Phineas, was my writing buddy and he inspired the character of Friday in my Emerson Page novels. To honor him as part of my book launch, I pledged to make a donation to 15/10 Foundation for every person who attended the launch party. Because you packed the room, I became a monthly donor to help shelter dogs who have medical challenges get the care they need to restore their health and be adopted into their forever homes. I know Phinny would be so happy to help other rescue dogs like him. Every time that monthly donation happens, his spirit will shine a little brighter. Learn more about 15/10 Foundation and the incredible dogs they help at https://15outof10.org

The single best thing you can do to help book authors

My New York City book launch party for Emerson Page and Where the Light Leads. Photo by Jane Bakes Baczynski.

I’m truly horrible at asking for help so please bear with me on this post. The support and love that poured out of people on Friday night for the book launch party has me smiling so much that my cheeks hurt! All night people kept asking me how they can help. So here goes! The most helpful thing for any book is a star rating or review on Amazon. The more rating it gets, the more likely Amazon is to recommend the book to people. If that’s something you’d be willing to do, I’d be beyond grateful. Here’s a direct link: https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/edit?asin=B0CTG9P6GM

My heart and spirit are so full after an incredible book launch event and weekend. Friends and readers from far and near arrived by trains, planes, and automobiles to be there and I’ll never be able to thank you enough for all your love and support. You are all a gift and I’m beyond grateful for every one of you. To have people from every chapter of my life altogether packed into the space overwhelmed me in the best way.

A big thank you to Matt Misetich for being my conversation partner.

Thank you Jane Bakes Baczynski for this photo. I was so focused on making sure everyone at the event had fun that I didn’t take a single picture!