Climate Reality Leader

When I first realized that I had to write about my climate story I felt a bit overwhelmed, wondering what I was going to talk about. Although during my life I have been involved in the fight against the climate crisis, both through personal actions and in my professional career, I was not sufficiently aware that I had a strong story to tell. The life line exercise that Itzel Morales (Climate Reality Latin America) presented in the ‘Now Presenting: Mastering the Presentation’ skill-building session was mind-blowing and eye-opening to me, because it allowed me to comprehend the journey of events that have made me to worry about climate change and take action. Using an analogy, I would say that my climate story may be described as ‘a long-term exposure disease’. I will try to explain this in the next paragraphs.

Recalling on my childhood, I was able to find many situations that are part of my climate story: which I would say started in March 1986, without even being conscious about it. By that date I was starting my school stage in a small city in the North of Chile. A coastal desert area with very few green areas. So, all the new students and their families were encouraged to plant a tree, for both improving the green infrastructure of the city and to establish a cornerstone for the new school that was being created. To me this is the first milestone of my climate story.

As my life went by, my parents were eager for us to be in constant contact with nature, so weekends were perfect for short trips, to the desert or the beach. The former considered playing in sand dunes in the middle of nowhere and the latter considered fishing, one of our hobbies that remain until nowadays. This is an activity that has been passed from different generations in my family, always putting respect for nature first. I still remember that my father told us that small fish caught had to be returned to the sea, in order to maintain the growing cycle: he was teaching us sustainable fishing! As the beaches we visited were far from the city, 150 km distance, when we returned, we had to collect every single piece of garbage, no garbage was meant to be left at the beach: basic principle of waste management!

School days were always different and fun. In the lower and infant stages, one day as part of the science class we would visit the local beach for studying the endemic flora and fauna and other we would be doing a presentation about ecology in the city main square. At the days when nuclear testing was conducted in the French Polynesia, all the school would jump as the exact time of the experiment, as a way to protest and show disagreement to this practice. In the middle and high school stages, I remember having ́Ecology ́ classes, which were conducted by our headmaster, Mr. Timothy Richards. Week after week we were challenged to perform interesting research at our homes. By this we knew how much water we were using when showering, how much waste we generated, etc. There was also an ́Ecology ́ workshop in which we did our own compost and grew veggies. In the school anniversary week, activities related to the environment were organized. For instance, cleaning all the garbage at the local beach. As a teenager, there was a particular event that I would like to share. One day our neighbors came to our house because they wanted to discuss about the cut of a big Eucalyptus tree. Their son was very sad because my family was going to 'kill the tree', which in fact was only partially pruned.

Summer family vacations were more adventurous, as more than once, we drove 2,500 km south (doing stopovers of course). Due that no cellphones, tablets, and even internet were available, the main entertainment was to see the landscape, which changed dramatically from north to south, passing from a very brownish desert to a green rainforest, and everything in between. While vacationing in the South, we visited National Parks, which included lakes, volcanoes, springs and snow, something we had never seen before. Even something as simple as the rain mesmerized us, because our hometown was characterized for having no rainfall at all. During my adulthood there are three events that I would say defined and strengthened my climate story. First, in 2011 I lived and studied in Croatia, my ancestor ́s nation. Going back to the roots allowed me to understand where I come from and who I am. In some way this represents a pivotal moment in my life, because it gave me clarity for who I wanted to be.

Second, being a globetrotter. As the travel blogger Yolanda Edwards says, “traveling is a way of life. To perceive the moments and keep in your memory the colors, textures and smells. Is throwing yourself into a new and different state of consciousness”. To me, traveling is also a way of acknowledging the planet that we live in, through the exposure to biodiversity, people, cultures, climates, etc. I have been lucky enough to do a lot of travel, within my country and overseas. I have no doubt this has shaped my sensitivity towards the environment and the climate crisis.

Third, undertaking postgraduate studies in sustainability in Sydney, Australia. Through an academic perspective, in some way this reinforced all my ideas and also gave me the knowledge towards fighting against the climate crisis. Through a personal perspective, it was a life experience that allowed me to meet incredible people and observe at first-hand how developed countries tackle climate change. Michael Mobbs is one of the persons that I met and I think it is important to mentioned in this story. He is a self-declared off-grid guy who lives in a ́sustainable house ́ in Sydney.

I believe that becoming a Climate Reality Leader last September, was the second milestone in my climate story because it represents a spike, somehow a recognition to what I have accomplish so far. But it also represents a tremendous responsibility, a kind of rebirth, that is to say, the beginning of a new journey which I hope will be followed by many other rewarding events.