Episode 101: Music, Literature, and Climate Action
Episode 101 of Citizens’ Climate Radio highlights two powerful voices shaping the climate conversation: Elise Silvestri, a college student and musician passionate about climate justice, and Linda Sue Park, an award-winning author using storytelling to inspire young activists.
Elise, who has worked on the Citizens’ Climate Radio team for six months, shares her journey through eco-anxiety, activism, and music production. She believes that addressing the climate crisis requires radical imagination — envisioning the world we want to create rather than just reacting to the crises around us. Elise also introduces us to Linda Sue Park, whose latest book, Gracie Under the Waves, follows a young snorkeling enthusiast as she discovers the urgent need for ocean conservation.
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Facing Eco Anxiety with Imagination and Action
Elise Silvestri knows firsthand the overwhelming anxiety that can come from thinking about climate change. Like many young activists, she has struggled with fears about the future, moments of paralysis, and the emotional weight of the crisis. In this episode, Elise shares how she transformed her eco-anxiety into action — first through climate organizing with the Sunrise Movement, and later through audio engineering and music production.
“I consider the climate crisis a crisis of imagination. We are stuck in a status quo that hangs us high and dry. We must be bold and imagine a world that we are excited to wake up in.” —Elise Silvestri
By blending her passion for music with climate activism, Elise has found ways to build resilience for herself and the communities she works with. From powering live sound stages with solar energy to using podcasting as a medium for climate storytelling, Elise exemplifies the power of creativity in climate advocacy.
Linda Sue Park on Finding Your Climate Passion
Newbery Medal-winning author Linda Sue Park joins the conversation to discuss Gracie Under the Waves, her latest book for young readers. Inspired by her love for snorkeling, the book follows Gracie’s growing awareness of coral reef degradation and its broader implications for the health of our oceans.
“Gracie’s journey parallels my own. At first, I just wanted to snorkel. Then I realized that the coral reefs were imperiled, and I had to do something.” —Linda Sue Park
Linda encourages young readers to find their own path into climate activism by connecting their passions to climate justice. Whether through art, science, writing, or community work, she believes that the most effective advocacy comes from personal investment.
“There are many ways to help our planet. The most effective way is to connect it to something you already love because then your enthusiasm is genuine, and you won’t get tired of talking about it.” —Linda Sue Park
The Power of Community and Collaboration
Elise and Linda
In their conversation, Elise and Linda emphasize the importance of community in climate activism. Linda notes that for too long, Western culture has celebrated rugged individualism — but collaboration is essential when it comes to the climate crisis.
“For a very long time, children’s books emphasized the idea of solving problems alone. But that time has passed. We are stronger when we work together.” —Linda Sue Park
Elise echoes this sentiment, recalling how her work with Sunrise Movement helped her feel less alone in her climate anxiety. By finding a community, she could channel her fear into tangible action.
Join the Conversation
What motivates you to take climate action? How have you navigated eco-anxiety in your own life? We’d love to hear your story!
Email us at radio@citizensclimate.org
Call or text our listener voicemail line: (619) 512-9646
Follow us on Instagram, X, LinkedIn, Facebook, and TikTok (@citizensclimateradio)
Listen to the full episode now!
Transcript
Peterson Toscano: Welcome to Citizens’ Climate Radio, your climate change podcast. We highlight people’s stories, celebrate successes, and share strategies for effective climate conversations. I’m your host, Peterson Toscano, and this is episode 101.
In today’s show, you will meet Elise Silvestri. If you’ve listened to any of our Hot Mess podcast series, you may have already heard Elise’s music and voice. She wrote and performed the theme music and read out the closing credits. Elise has been working with the Citizens’ Climate Radio team for six months and recently decided to stay on for another six months. A student at NYU, Elise is passionate about music theory, podcasting, and climate justice.
In this episode, Elise shares her personal audio introduction. Then, we’ll hear an interview she conducted with author Linda Sue Park about her new book, Gracie Under the Waves. In both segments, Elise created original music to accompany her recordings and edits.
Elise Silvestri: Facing Eco Anxiety and Finding Community
Elise Silvestri: What kind of world do you want to live in? Let’s imagine it together.
My name is Elise, and I’m a college student. I’ve been a climate activist for four years. I see the climate crisis as a crisis of imagination. We are stuck in a status quo that leaves us high and dry. We must be bold and imagine a world that excites us to wake up in.
Maybe it’s a world with major investments in green jobs, where you’re guaranteed a job when you graduate. Maybe it’s one where you receive a stipend to make your home more resilient against climate threats. Maybe you can read on your commute thanks to a robust, clean public transit system. Dare to get your hopes up—if you can dream it, you can make it happen.
That mindset has been necessary for me. I’ve struggled with the overwhelm of eco anxiety. Maybe you have, too. Perhaps you’ve had racing thoughts that won’t let you sleep at night without picturing your family in a storm. Maybe you feel an unsettling uncertainty when making future plans. Or, like me, you feel an urge to visit Venice before it goes underwater.
In high school, I tried to outplan my eco dread with a climate emergency plan. I imagined running away from Pittsburgh to live on a mountain in Vermont, installing hydropower and growing my own food. But it wasn’t a dream—it was an escape from the dread. No matter what I planned, my future felt gray with uncertainty.
Then, I found Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate organization. There, I met people who shared my fears and hopes. I found community. Together, we organized, educated our neighbors, and successfully passed climate legislation in Pittsburgh. Seeing my work lead to meaningful change gave me proof that our efforts matter.
Music, Organizing, and Climate Justice
Outside of organizing, I love music production. It’s my major, and my job. Last summer, I worked in live sound, powering concert stages with solar energy. It was incredible.
Audio engineering gives me a sense of balance between logic and creativity. And, just like climate organizing, it teaches resourcefulness and resilience—two values I carry into my climate work and into this podcast.
Linda Sue Park: Finding Self-Interest in Climate Action
Elise Silvestri: What motivates you to act?
In climate activism, we talk about self-interest—the combination of personal and global reasons that drive us to care. To explore this idea further, I spoke with Linda Sue Park, a Newbery Medal-winning author and the founder of Alita Books, an imprint of HarperCollins. Her newest book, Gracie Under the Waves, follows a young girl who loves snorkeling but slowly realizes the coral reefs she loves are in danger.
A Passion for Snorkeling Turned Into Advocacy
Linda Sue Park: I knew I wanted to write a book about a girl who loves snorkeling—just like me. To make it authentic, I traveled to Roatán, Honduras, one of the best snorkeling destinations in our hemisphere.
I didn’t snorkel as a child. The first time I did, I was in my twenties. But within ten seconds of putting my face in the water, I was hooked. I saw colors and creatures I never imagined. Right then and there, I decided: I will do this for the rest of my life as often as I can.
Elise Silvestri: Your book isn’t just about snorkeling—it’s about climate awareness. How did that shift happen?
Linda Sue Park: Just like Gracie, I started snorkeling purely out of love for the experience. Then, I realized that the coral reefs were imperiled. At first, I thought, If the reefs aren’t beautiful, that will ruin my snorkeling. But quickly, I learned it was much bigger than that.
The health of the oceans affects all of us—even if you live far from the coast. Everything is connected.
Encouraging Young Readers to Take Action
Linda Sue Park: I see my role as an author as helping young readers see the climate crisis in a personal way. The best way to help the planet is to connect the fight to something you already love.
Do you love hiking? Planting things? Biking? Cooking? There are countless ways to contribute. When your advocacy is linked to your passion, your enthusiasm is genuine—and you won’t get tired of talking about it.
The Power of Community and Collaboration
Linda Sue Park: Unless you are a bonafide hermit, you live in a world with other people. We need to learn to share space—even with those we don’t always agree with.
For decades, Western culture has glorified individualism. But we need to shift towards collaboration. That’s something I push for in my writing.
Many children’s books have protagonists who solve problems alone. But in reality, we are stronger when we work together.
Elise Silvestri: That’s a powerful lesson. Thank you for sharing your journey.
Join the Conversation!
How do you balance eco anxiety with action? What passions fuel your climate work? We’d love to hear from you!
Email us at radio@citizensclimate.org
Call or text our listener voicemail line: (619) 512-9646
Follow us on Instagram, X, LinkedIn, Facebook, and TikTok (@citizensclimateradio)
Listen to the full episode now!
The post Episode 101: Music, Literature, and Climate Action appeared first on Citizens' Climate Lobby.
Drought and heatwaves occurring together – known as “compound” events – have “surged” across the world since the early 2000s, a new study shows.
Compound drought and heat events (CDHEs) can have devastating effects, creating the ideal conditions for intense wildfires, such as Australia’s “Black Summer” of 2019-20 where bushfires burned 24m hectares and killed 33 people.
The research, published in Science Advances, finds that the increase in CDHEs is predominantly being driven by events that start with a heatwave.
The global area affected by such “heatwave-led” compound events has more than doubled between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, the study says.
The rapid increase in these events over the last 23 years cannot be explained solely by global warming, the authors note.
Since the late 1990s, feedbacks between the land and the atmosphere have become stronger, making heatwaves more likely to trigger drought conditions, they explain.
One of the study authors tells Carbon Brief that societies must pay greater attention to compound events, which can “cause severe impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and society”.
Compound events
CDHEs are extreme weather events where drought and heatwave conditions occur simultaneously – or shortly after each other – in the same region.
These events are often triggered by large-scale weather patterns, such as “blocking” highs, which can produce “prolonged” hot and dry conditions, according to the study.
Prof Sang-Wook Yeh is one of the study authors and a professor at the Ewha Womans University in South Korea. He tells Carbon Brief:
“When heatwaves and droughts occur together, the two hazards reinforce each other through land-atmosphere interactions. This amplifies surface heating and soil moisture deficits, making compound events more intense and damaging than single hazards.”
CDHEs can begin with either a heatwave or a drought.
The sequence of these extremes is important, the study says, as they have different drivers and impacts.
For example, in a CDHE where the heatwave was the precursor, increased direct sunshine causes more moisture loss from soils and plants, leading to a drought.
Conversely, in an event where the drought was the precursor, the lack of soil moisture means that less of the sun’s energy goes into evaporation and more goes into warming the Earth’s surface. This produces favourable conditions for heatwaves.
The study shows that the majority of CDHEs globally start out as a drought.
In recent years, there has been increasing focus on these events due to the devastating impact they have on agriculture, ecosystems and public health.
In Russia in the summer of 2010, a compound drought-heatwave event – and the associated wildfires – caused the death of nearly 55,000 people, the study notes.
The record-breaking Pacific north-west “heat dome” in 2021 triggered extreme drought conditions that caused “significant declines” in wheat yields, as well as in barley, canola and fruit production in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, says the study.
Increasing events
To assess how CDHEs are changing, the researchers use daily reanalysis data to identify droughts and heatwaves events. (Reanalysis data combines past observations with climate models to create a historical climate record.) Then, using an algorithm, they analyse how these events overlap in both time and space.
The study covers the period from 1980 to 2023 and the world’s land surface, excluding polar regions where CDHEs are rare.
The research finds that the area of land affected by CDHEs has “increased substantially” since the early 2000s.
Heatwave-led events have been the main contributor to this increase, the study says, with their spatial extent rising 110% between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, compared to a 59% increase for drought-led events.
The map below shows the global distribution of CDHEs over 1980-2023. The charts show the percentage of the land surface affected by a heatwave-led CDHE (red) or a drought-led CDHE (yellow) in a given year (left) and relative increase in each CDHE type (right).
The study finds that CDHEs have occurred most frequently in northern South America, the southern US, eastern Europe, central Africa and south Asia.
Threshold passed
The authors explain that the increase in heatwave-led CDHEs is related to rising global temperatures, but that this does not tell the whole story.
In the earlier 22-year period of 1980-2001, the study finds that the spatial extent of heatwave-led CDHEs rises by 1.6% per 1C of global temperature rise. For the more-recent period of 2022-23, this increases “nearly eightfold” to 13.1%.
The change suggests that the rapid increase in the heatwave-led CDHEs occurred after the global average temperature “surpasse[d] a certain temperature threshold”, the paper says.
This threshold is an absolute global average temperature of 14.3C, the authors estimate (based on an 11-year average), which the world passed around the year 2000.
Investigating the recent surge in heatwave-leading CDHEs further, the researchers find a “regime shift” in land-atmosphere dynamics “toward a persistently intensified state after the late 1990s”.
In other words, the way that drier soils drive higher surface temperatures, and vice versa, is becoming stronger, resulting in more heatwave-led compound events.
Daily data
The research has some advantages over other previous studies, Yeh says. For instance, the new work uses daily estimations of CDHEs, compared to monthly data used in past research. This is “important for capturing the detailed occurrence” of these events, says Yeh.
He adds that another advantage of their study is that it distinguishes the sequence of droughts and heatwaves, which allows them to “better understand the differences” in the characteristics of CDHEs.
Dr Meryem Tanarhte is a climate scientist at the University Hassan II in Morocco, and Dr Ruth Cerezo Mota is a climatologist and a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Both scientists, who were not involved in the study, agree that the daily estimations give a clearer picture of how CDHEs are changing.
Cerezo-Mota adds that another major contribution of the study is its global focus. She tells Carbon Brief that in some regions, such as Mexico and Africa, there is a lack of studies on CDHEs:
“Not because the events do not occur, but perhaps because [these regions] do not have all the data or the expertise to do so.”
However, she notes that the reanalysis data used by the study does have limitations with how it represents rainfall in some parts of the world.
Compound impacts
The study notes that if CDHEs continue to intensify – particularly events where heatwaves are the precursors – they could drive declining crop productivity, increased wildfire frequency and severe public health crises.
These impacts could be “much more rapid and severe as global warming continues”, Yeh tells Carbon Brief.
Tanarhte notes that these events can be forecasted up to 10 days ahead in many regions. Furthermore, she says, the strongest impacts can be prevented “through preparedness and adaptation”, including through “water management for agriculture, heatwave mitigation measures and wildfire mitigation”.
The study recommends reassessing current risk management strategies for these compound events. It also suggests incorporating the sequences of drought and heatwaves into compound event analysis frameworks “to enhance climate risk management”.
Cerezo-Mota says that it is clear that the world needs to be prepared for the increased occurrence of these events. She tells Carbon Brief:
“These [risk assessments and strategies] need to be carried out at the local level to understand the complexities of each region.”
The post Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 6 March 2026: Iran energy crisis | China climate plan | Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ wind turbine
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Energy crisis
ENERGY SPIKE: US-Israeli attacks on Iran and subsequent counterattacks across the Middle East have sent energy prices “soaring”, according to Reuters. The newswire reported that the region “accounts for just under a third of global oil production and almost a fifth of gas”. The Guardian noted that shipping traffic through the strait of Hormuz, which normally ferries 20% of the world’s oil, “all but ground to a halt”. The Financial Times reported that attacks by Iran on Middle East energy facilities – notably in Qatar – triggered the “biggest rise in gas prices since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine”.
‘RISK’ AND ‘BENEFITS’: Bloomberg reported on increases in diesel prices in Europe and the US, speculating that rising fuel costs could be “a risk for president Donald Trump”. US gas producers are “poised to benefit from the big disruption in global supply”, according to CNBC. Indian government sources told the Economic Times that Russia is prepared to “fulfil India’s energy demands”. China Daily quoted experts who said “China’s energy security remains fundamentally unshaken”, thanks to “emergency stockpiles and a wide array of import channels”.
‘ESSENTIAL’ RENEWABLES: Energy analysts said governments should cut their fossil-fuel reliance by investing in renewables, “rather than just seeking non-Gulf oil and gas suppliers”, reported Climate Home News. This message was echoed by UK business secretary Peter Kyle, who said “doubling down on renewables” was “essential” amid “regional instability”, according to the Daily Telegraph.
China’s climate plan
PEAK COAL?: China has set out its next “five-year plan” at the annual “two sessions” meeting of the National People’s Congress, including its climate strategy out to 2030, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. The plan called for China to cut its carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 17% from 2026 to 2030, which “may allow for continued increase in emissions given the rate of GDP growth”, reported Reuters. The newswire added that the plan also had targets to reach peak coal in the next five years and replace 30m tonnes per year of coal with renewables.
ACTIVE YET PRUDENT: Bloomberg described the new plan as “cautious”, stating that it “frustrat[es] hopes for tighter policy that would drive the nation to peak carbon emissions well before president Xi Jinping’s 2030 deadline”. Carbon Brief has just published an in-depth analysis of the plan. China Daily reported that the strategy “highlights measures to promote the climate targets of peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030”, which China said it would work towards “actively yet prudently”.
Around the world
- EU RULES: The European Commission has proposed new “made in Europe” rules to support domestic low-carbon industries, “against fierce competition from China”, reported Agence France-Presse. Carbon Brief examined what it means for climate efforts.
- RECORD HEAT: The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said there is a 50-60% chance that the El Niño weather pattern could return this year, amplifying the effect of global warming and potentially driving temperatures to “record highs”, according to Euronews.
- FLAGSHIP FUND: The African Development Bank’s “flagship clean energy fund” plans to more than double its financing to $2.5bn for African renewables over the next two years, reported the Associated Press.
- NO WITHDRAWAL: Vanuatu has defied US efforts to force the Pacific-island nation to drop a UN draft resolution calling on the world to implement a landmark International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on climate, according to the Guardian.
98
The number of nations that submitted their national reports on tackling nature loss to the UN on time – just half of the 196 countries that are part of the UN biodiversity treaty – according to analysis by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Sea levels are already “much higher than assumed” in most assessments of the threat posed by sea-level rise, due to “inadequate” modelling assumptions | Nature
- Accelerating human-caused global warming could see the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C limit crossed before 2030 | Geophysical Research Letters covered by Carbon Brief
- Future “super El Niño events” could “significantly lower” solar power generation due to a reduction in solar irradiance in key regions, such as California and east China | Communications Earth & Environment
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 fell to 54% below 1990 levels, the baseline year for its legally bind