Hello my fellow voyagers 🖖! Last week, we kicked off our climate fiction book club with a cli-fi classic, The Ministry for the Future. This slow read will take place over the course of four months, and a small but cozy group has already gathered. If you’d like to join us, here’s the reading schedule. Also, there’s a weekly chat thread where we break down and discuss a set of chapters.
Although reading is a fantastic way to raise our climate awareness, I felt the need to take it a step further and pair the lecture with a climate-related daily life project. It’s about small but impactful ways to make a difference in your own life while reflecting on the themes of the book.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Plastic-free grocery challenge: Try shopping plastic-free for the next four months and prioritize recyclable options. I did this for three months last year, and it was a true eye-opener.
A no-shopping challenge: Buy only essentials like groceries and household products—everything else can wait. I started a one-year no-shopping challenge at the beginning of 2024, which I’ll extend until March 2025.
Create climate awareness: Commit to reading an article or piece of news about climate change daily for the next four months and sharing it on your social media.
A daily climate journal: As you read the book with us, commit to journaling your thoughts and reflections about living with climate change on a daily basis for the next four months. In the past years, we’ve seen devastating natural disasters, extreme droughts and heat. If you happen to live in affected areas, we’d love to hear your story.
Energy-saving habits: Check your annual kWh consumption on your energy bill and try to reduce it by turning off appliances when not in use, changing your light bulbs, and turning off the light when leaving a room. If you have a smart meter, you can check your daily electricity consumption. I live in a small apartment with my husband, and last year, we consumed 1700 kWh. This year, I switched to a new utility that provides 100% locally produced green energy.
Or come up with your project! Share your personal action plan with us, and let others find inspiration.
Every living organism on this planet contributes to the ecosystem by offering a service. But you’ll never find a bee wondering: What’s the use of pollinating a few flowers if I can’t pollinate all the flowers in the world? The bee simply does its part, having faith that other bees will also do their part, thus contributing to next year’s crop of flowers rich in pollen.
Our climate-related daily life projects will not save the world, but they will make it a better place. When thinking about a better future, we must start by imagining how a day in our lives would look in such a future. Will we continue consuming unlimited fast fashion? Will we shop for groceries in single-use plastic? Will we consume electricity from fossil fuels? Will we use a car every single day? We might not save the world by taking our lunch to work in a reusable Tupperware. But by doing that, we’re getting a step closer to the future in which we dream to live. And when we all dream together the same dream, we might just make it a reality.
Participants in our daily-life project are invited to submit a short essay about their experience. I'll select three to feature on Story Voyager. Interested? Publish your essay on your Substack by February 28, 2025!
Let us know in the comments what project you'll take on! We’re excited to see how you’ll make a difference.
Our book club is free, but if you’re able, upgrading to a paid subscription helps support our efforts. You'll get access to original climate fiction and be a part of making projects like There Is Hope come to life.
We have been gathering rainwater at our smallholding for 15 months … small steps but reducing the use of mains water. Despite our rural location, we cycle everywhere. Good for our health and hopefully the folk around us too. Keep up the positive messaging, Claudia.
I have enjoyed the book club and am preparing my Daily Life Project essay. I just wanted to confirm that all we need to do to submit is publish before the 28th? How can we ensure you see it and know it's a submission?