editor’s note: emily’s piece kicks off our weeklong series, the stories of alaska: sustainability and resilience on a grand scale, from our storyfest 2018 winners, who traveled to alaska with lindblad expeditions and alaska airlines this summer. in emily’s story, you can explore alaska in storybook-like wonder, as she shows off the southern coastline that dances along the edges of its mountain ranges and ensconces temperate forests teeming with wildlife. see her full story — and her gorgeous photos — by clicking on the image below. we dare you to not fall in love with alaska’s beauty.

in an increasingly moral and technologically advanced society, he had great timing: 70% of millennials said they were more likely to pay extra for a product that contributes to a cause they care about, so when ecosia launched in 2009, it was extremely well received.

ecosia is a search engine that generates revenue from ads, like any other search engine. however, they use 80% of this profit to fund tree planting projects around the world. a certified b corporation, ecosia has had impact all over the world, working with organizations like the world wildlife fund and the the nature conservancy.

why trees? trees and humans have a long history together. trees, like humans, are the among the most complex of organisms. living up to 5,000 years old, they have profound impact on the surrounding landscape, shaping the ecosystems around them in intricate ways.

trees can be sources of food, can provide habitats for endangered animal species, can sequester immense amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air, and contribute to biodiversity and ecological health. they bring life back into the soil around them, due to mutualistic partnerships between tree roots and mycorrhizal fungi. and this in turn can stimulate other plant life and animal resources. trees are important for regulating water: they can act as buffers against flooding, but can also fight against desertification. trees also are important in creating good air quality.

ecosia estimates that every search on their web browser sequesters about 1 kg, or 2.2 pounds, of carbon from our atmosphere.

ecosia works with local communities in order to determine what these communities need. the diverse effect of trees on their environments can almost always be a part of the solution, but more than that, ecosia empowers local communities and stimulates local economic growth by getting passionate community members involved. while oftentimes working with big third party partners on the ground, such as the eden reforestation projects or the jane goodall institute, ecosia also works directly with small communities, sometimes one or two community members, who have a vision of restoring environmental health to their regions. by working directly with community members, ecosia generates local jobs, stimulates passion, and increases local economic growth.

this is evident in the san martin region of peru, which was largely deforested in the 1980s as it became a red zone for cocaine production. ecosia’s partners on the ground, pur projet, is working with community members, teaching them about forest management and sustainable harvesting, and providing local jobs planting trees. they are now growing cocoa instead of coca.

jacey bingler, ecosia’s head of pr and country director usa, joined the team in 2015. after completing a degree in journalism she had worked in communications and publishing, but felt that her work was unfulfilling and had no greater impact on the world. when she joined ecosia, she immediately felt motivated and supported by the people and mission surrounding her.

businesses with social missions are often more successful because the people behind them are passionate about what they do and believe in the mission. this is certainly true of ecosia, as jacey says, it is very uplifting and has a positive impact on her work to be around such “enthusiastic people.” she says that this kind of work environment can make it harder when something does not work out the way you wanted, because you believe in the mission so much, but it also provides a community of people that support you when things don’t work out.

ecosia has planted over 25 million trees already and has over 70 million users. they aim to plant 1 billion trees by the year 2020. partnering with bing and using the money generated from ads to plant trees, ecosia has an extremely scalable business model, with the success of having planted 25 million trees already, and the bright future of developing an even larger user base and generating more revenue to plant trees.

currently their user base is widely european, australasian, and south american, with only 10% of their users coming from the usa. they are hesitant, however, to spend money on ad campaigns when it could be spent planting more trees. this is territory that they are navigating thoughtfully, doing cost-benefit analyses in order to determine if their ad campaigns will generate more money than they cost, or at least break even.

another core value of ecosia is transparency. they publish monthly business reports and tree planting receipts and updates on ongoing projects, generating stories from their sites on the ground. in ethiopia they are making a difference on the ground, directly interacting with and influencing communities. in february, 2018, they generated 793,636 euros, 52% of which they invested in tree planting. minus operating costs, this equals 80% of their surplus. they funded tree planting projects in indonesia, tanzania, and madagascar.

in the future, ecosia wants to create an option for sustainable searches. because search engines influence behavior so much, this leverage point could be used in order to drive more sustainable behavior. when you search something on any search engine, the likelihood that you end up clicking, buying, or doing the first option is 42%. the likelihood of clicking the second option is only 12%. this power of convenience could be harnessed so that the next time you are looking to buy a washing machine, instead of the first result popping up being a new, unsustainably made washing machine from lowe’s, the first result could be an innovative, sustainable version of the washing machine from a new startup, or a used washing machine that someone in your area is selling. by making sustainable options accessible and easy, this idea has huge potential for changing the way that users think and behave, but most importantly, consume.

while this idea is in its earliest stages, the world needs a sustainable search engine function, especially when other search engines, like google, refuse to work with any charitable versions. ecosia originally partnered with google, however, google backed out of their agreement a few weeks after launching due to the fear that a search engine with a charitable cause would generate false clicks on ads. in order to protect their clients, google drew out and drafted a statement in their bylaws saying that they would not partner with charitable search engines in the future. in ecosia’s nine years of experience, there has been no data to support this assumption, according to bingler.

when you go outside, be mindful of the trees around you and take the time to appreciate all the work that they do for your local ecosystem. and next time that you go online, remember to install ecosia as your default browser; you can be a part of an important mission to improve lives and environments everywhere by planting trees.

the audience built anticipation as we waited for one of the three to open the envelope with the winner inside. find a list of all of our storyfest grand prize winners here!

the conference closed with all of our grand prize winners on stage, receiving a warm welcome from the lieutenant governor of the state of alaska, the beginning of their excitement for their expedition to alaska with lindblad expeditions in june.

see the finalists and all the storyfest 2018 entries here.

ted roosevelt iv, susan eisenhower, nick akins, president and ceo of american electric power, and denise fairchild, president and ceo of emerald cities, took their seats on stage. they discussed the politics of climate change and asked: where does the responsibility lie?

in the current political age, rules and regulations on the energy sector are few and far between, so what incentive is there for energy companies to move towards a greener future?

nick akins answered by pointing out that their company shareholders care whether or not they are moving towards renewable energy, and that as a company they have a responsibility to the community.

ted roosevelt told us about barclays latest initiative to lend out green mortgages. having discovered that people who invest in green houses have better credit, barclays will be offering mortgages at a lower interest rates to owners of “green” houses, meaning newer houses that have been built from scratch to be energy efficient.

the conversation continued, interweaving ideas of nuclear energy, for which ted roosevelt and susan eisenhower were proponents, business, politics, and the future of renewable energy.

do we have the energy to lead? these panelists seemed to think we do. ​

up next: storyfest grand prize announcement >

he applied for national geographic’s early career grant, and went to patagonia to photograph the biodiversity of these ecosystems. upon arriving back to d.c., he presented his work to national geographic, and proposed another story about parasites. he realized an immense challenge in this story, for he would have to get people to get over “their visceral aversion to parasites” and pay attention long enough to learn the fascinating science behind these interactions.

ultimately, his result was something uncannily beautiful. his inspirations were film noir, graphic novels, and japanese animation. in other words, hard lighting, dramatic backgrounds, and selective attention to detail. from japanese animation he learned that “not all details are equal”: for a human character, anime emphasizes the eyes in order to make characters more expressive, more emotionally appealing. varma had to figure out exactly what details were important in telling the beautiful, fascinating story about parasites he had in mind. in his photo of a crab infected with a parasitic barnacle, the important details were the millions of specks coming out of the crab: parasitic barnacle larvae. he didn’t care about the texture of the crab, or its color, but rather draws the viewers attention to the millions of parasitic offspring coming out of it.

similarly, when he was photographing bees for a different story, he realized that he had to find a new, fresh perspective that was interesting and engaging. he needed to find a different story about bees that had not been done before. after much experimentation, he zeroed in on the figures of bees emerging from their cells. he did a time lapse of bees developing, the first 21 days of a bees life condensed into 60 seconds, and the results were astonishing. varma has an ability to turn such essential natural processes that are normally hidden, hard to see, and hard to grasp into recognizable and beautiful processes.

the last piece that he showed us shocked me with a sense of wonder. he translated a hummingbird. the photo shoot was set up so that the hummingbird would fly through an artificial wind chamber, with a fog machine blowing visible fog so that you could see the air stream around the hummingbird. then the video footage was slowed down 100x so that the rapid pace of hummingbird life was suddenly translated into human time. the result was absolutely beautiful and breathtaking. i will remember the blinking of a hummingbird’s eye for the rest of my life.

up next: town hall: do we have the energy to lead? >

he captures the potential of this form of media in order to show people what the inside of a melting glacier in iceland or the deteriorating reef ecosystems of the south pacific look like.

giving a viewer a 360 degree experience complete with sound effects and movement provides a powerful communication platform with which to evoke emotions from the viewer and thus make that viewer care about these problems.

the future of ar/vr is incredibly bright and is developing rapidly with the power to make huge impact in environmental storytelling.

up next: the explorer’s story: sven lindblad >

these techniques are so important because they translate science and data into easily consumable stories.

while the story, “greenland is melting away,” includes a written article, the important information that appeals to the viewer’s emotions is in the infographic that combines the footage of a drone and satellite. the viewer can see the researchers’ tents set up near the river, and then zoom out and see that it is not just this one river, but many rivers melting greenland from the inside out.

this is layered with data, relaying all of the surprising and important facts about how much water each river carries, and the impact these rivers have on the land mass of greenland and salinity of the surrounding ocean.

up next: reality revolution: how ar/vr can create empathy, urgency, and a new sense of place >

the following panel consisted of policinski, beth stewart, creative directory for discovery’s in house ad agency, felecia nave, former provost of prairie view a&m, and roric paulman, owner of paulman farms in nebraska. chris mooney of the washington post listened to their stories, and then presented his findings to the audience: what would he choose from these characters’ work to write a story about?

stewart and discovery are partnering with the world wildlife fund in order to double the amount of wild tigers by the year 2022. mooney identified three different stories, each for a cause of the declining tiger populations. the story about poaching considers the question, why haven’t we stopped this problem and what are the challenges facing the end of this problem? the second story hones in on conflict with humans. he suggested pursuing a character who realizes that conflict is not the only way to live with tigers and then chasing the story based around this character. the third story would focus in on habitat loss.

mooney was interested in one of policinski’s problems in particular: how is dialogue failing to occur between farmers and the rest of the population and what are some examples? this story would focus on this problem and how to find a solution.

regarding nave, mooney brought to light the problems facing communication of science. the public will not always understand the point of scientific research if there is no clear result, if they do not understand how it is benefiting them. he says that it is crucial to link the science education and investment to innovation, company, product, and economic development. without a solid outcome it is hard to relate science to a public audience.

paulman’s story also played the role of bridge building. mooney wanted to know what made paulman different that he was willing to engage in conversations about sustainable agriculture and the environment, whereas other farmers were not receptive to such conversation. what needs to be communicated to other farmers in order to bring this kind of conversation to the table, how do we get other farmers to care about this issue?

up next: climate fwd: how the new york times is transforming environmental reporting >

storyfest finalist and planet 世界杯欧洲预选赛免费直播  olivia urbanski, of loyola university chicago, talked about the video she made while studying abroad at ol pejeta conservatory featuring sudan, the world’s last male northern white rhino, who died on march 20, 2018.

harrison watson, of jackson state university in mississippi, and a storyfest 2017 finalist and amazon traveler, talked about the use of language in storytelling — how words can take us to a deeper place than images and sounds, and his interest in the intersection of religion and environment.

anna sumi a recent george washington university grad, spoke of her adventures to siberia in summer 2017, and the challenge of translating science. one major issue for these arctic urban areas is the melting permafrost, for their infrastructure is built according to the permafrost layer, and its degradation will disrupt the entire foundation of these cities.

alaine johnson of yale-national university of singapore, a 2018 planet 世界杯欧洲预选赛免费直播 and storyfest finalist, talked about her studies, which have her looking at how patterns of urbanization are effecting the way we are linked with the environment. using yoga as an example, she said the instructor is telling you to feel the earth beneath your feet — but it’s kind of hard to do that when it’s 22 stories below you. 

zack smith of suny-esf, and also storyfest 2017 finalist, spoke of the magic of sound, and the power that vibrations have to transport the listener to a place.

up next: what’s your sustainability story? >

national geographic brought the photographers together. having collaborated on many projects, the pair decided to start their own organization to inspire a new generation of environmental photographers.

to explain how they got to this point, they started with their own stories: slides of pictures of them as kids, both growing up on farms and playing outdoors, and then getting interested in taking photos. jim won the county fair’s blue ribbon prize for his black and white photo of a dog looking whimsically into the distance. fast forward 30 years, and they were both working for national geographic, doing stories on the ogallala aquifer, soil health, and how to feed the growing the planet.

these pieces inspired the next series of photos, pictures of the same landscapes through time. the alberta boreal forest a blend of green trees blurring together and then the same picture, more recently, of destroyed landscape and oil sands, a story of demolition and destroyed biodiversity.

they posed the question: how do we address a rapidly growing world with skewed food, power, and economic privileges? will we lean toward a world running on stored sunshine, energy billions of years old captured in the form of coal and oil? or, will move toward a more beautiful and regenerative world of current sunshine?

up next: find your voice, raise your voice: student storytellers >