Zahra Biabani

Though they differ in origin, both have the ability to paralyze action and prevent progress.

And though things are bad, they're far from over.

So how do we find hope when things feel hopeless?

And how do we communicate the inextricable link between hope and action?

To answer this, let me take you back to March of 2020, absolutely no one's first choice of when to time travel to.

Many of us were quarantined in our homes.

People had stopped going out and socializing, yet the stream and virality of bad news certainly had not stopped.

I was finishing up my semester at home, as well as working to move my activism online when I was hit, not only with COVID, but also with burnout.

I began to question the efficacy of my work, my passion for environmentalism, and the purpose in studying what I was studying.

I knew I needed something to inspire me.

I was scrolling on social media, and I saw a friend who had been sharing positive news stories.

I paired this with the Rise and Feel Good dance videos that had really emerged on TikTok and started a series called Weekly Earth Winds.

So at first, this felt really, really silly.

I mean, what did dancing have to do with climate action?

And what good was sharing good news when everything felt so bad?

But then I began to receive people's feedback.

People told me that these videos really helped mitigate their climate anxiety, that they looked forward to these videos week after week, and that these videos helped turn their anger and anxiety into action.

So I continued making them.

In the process of finding good news stories to share, I began to pick up on trends.

Week after week, institutions were divesting from fossil fuels.