hvítserkur (ke-veet-sir-kur) was a giant troll who lived at mount bæjarfell (bye-yar-fet). one night, he was jolted awake from his sleep by an obnoxious ringing noise: a clanging church bell. hvítserkur knew that humans were making this sound — it was the men who had recently sailed to iceland. weeks and weeks went by, with hvítserkur’s sleep remaining broken because of midnight bells being rung by the men across the fjord. night after night, the sounds only got worse. it was particularly bad around winter, which was the giant’s favorite time of year. hvítserkur had had enough! to stop the awful noise, hvítserkur would travel to that house and destroy the bell once and for all.

trolls despised the light of day, turning to stone upon its arrival. hvítserkur was no exception. he decided to make the journey one evening, believing that he would make it to the bell before the following dawn. unfortunately, the fjord waters were deep and treacherous, making it very difficult to cross. hvítserkur walked and walked and then he began to run…. but the day was quickly looming. hvítserkur was still sure they could get to the house on time and break the bell before daybreak.

as he stepped over the mountain and into the sea, he looked eastward, just in time to see the sun rising. instantly, he began turning to stone. hvítserkur felt this happening, and with the last of his strength he sent his hammer….woooooosh. thump. a last-ditch attempt to destroy the bell by throwing his hammer at the building that housed it. however, he failed, as he heard the hammer hit stone and not the wooden house.

his body still stands over the vatnsnes (vat-ne-snes) peninsula, in northwest iceland as a giant boulder in the sea. it is believed that the hammer can be seen today in the eastern part of Þingeyrarsand, which can be accessed by visitors to this day.

a journey to the land of stories

iceland is known around the world and amongst its residents as a “land of storytellers”. the first settlers of iceland faced unimaginably harsh conditions. from unpredictable volcanic eruptions to freezing seas, and barren, infertile lands, early icelanders were incredibly busy just staying alive. and yet, medieval icelanders took the time to inscribe stories on precious calf hides that described the challenges and many facets of life that their people experienced on a daily basis.

“storytelling and the environment, it’s part of who we are,” said ragna arnisdottir, the secretary general of the althingi, the icelandic parliament. carried through centuries of oral and written storytelling is the icelandic spirit of resilience, connection to the environment, and respect for nature. you may have heard of the sagas, which is an old norse word that refers to the epic prose narratives written in iceland between the 12th and 15th centuries. the stories’ contents were diverse, covering the country’s history as well as legendary tales of ancient scandinavia.

“mountains became trolls, lava fields became ghosts, and elves lived in all the creepy and dangerous spots in between,” said aðalheiður guðmundsdóttir (a-thal-hey-dur guth-munds-dott-er), ph.d., professor of medieval icelandic literature at the university of iceland. 

“why is it incorporated that way?” i asked.

“well… if there is a dangerous place, for example, children to be…then we have legends about elves that are vengeful and will take the children…” guðmundsdóttir said.

“oh! i do think that’s a constant among cultures though… to use folktales to tell lessons… but in iceland, it seems it’s so deeply connected to the environment,” i said.

“yes, absolutely, that is something that is so unique to iceland,” guðmundsdóttir said.

folk stories or folk-histories?

nowhere is the icelanders’ historical connection to the environment more apparent than in the þjóðsögu (thee-yo-su-goo), or folktales of iceland. according to the writings of guðbrandur vigfússon, (guth-brand-ur vick-fu-sson) an 18th-century scandinavian scholar, the sagas and the þjóðsögu are ‘twin sisters’ as the folktales have risen and grown in the company of each other. these stories teach lessons about how to navigate a world of danger and change, which brings the struggles of medieval icelanders closer to our modern-day lives as climate change adds increasing environmental stress onto our bodies and communities. what can we learn from medieval icelanders about courage, inventiveness, and solutions?

the þjóðsögu tell stories about the famous huldufólk (hool-du-foth), or hidden people, which are best understood today as elves. these stories interweave the lived experience of medieval icelanders with ancient wisdom and a little bit of magic. “almost every hillock and boulder in the icelandic landscape has its own story,” writes olina thorvardardottir, author of spirits of the land. the þjóðsögu were particularly effective in communicating the danger of nature to children. when boulders in the distance could hide elven tricksters or awaken as fearsome trolls, you’d stick closer to your parents too. 

guðmundsdóttir analyzes literature by looking at the language of stories. she uses an analogy to explain this. “when you are learning words, you don’t learn whole words, first you learn the letters. eventually, those build into words. then you combine words and suddenly you’re learning about sentences. stories all have fundamental building blocks that you can study just as you would study the structure of poetry or sentences.” 

“do you think most people see stories in building block form?” i asked.

“oh no… not really…probably just those who pay too much attention. but it’s a shame because it really is so important. and people use… story-blocks every day,” guðmundsdóttir said.

“[stories are] a necessary language because we have the need to express [our] feelings and opinions. if we didn’t have stories, we would all need to go… to the psychiatrist… it’s so basic! we all need to tell stories and hear stories. they will always be renewing themselves.”

however, the ancient art of storytelling faces one catastrophic foe: the modern audience’s attention span. guðmundsdóttir notices the differences between audiences in ancient iceland and today. “the story world i know, it’s much slower than what [modern audiences] want. modern people try to make [sagas and þjóðsögu] appealing,” she said. “what were [medieval icelanders] able to listen to and find that we are not? today you need more speed, you need more relatability, you need funny animal sidekicks.”

“life moves pretty fast. if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

ferris bueller’s day off, dir. john hughes.

the pace of storytelling remained relatively consistent over many centuries relative to the wants of media-consuming society at the time. now, we’re seeing the ever-shortening attention span of the bombarded modern media consumer begin to accelerate nearly all storytelling at a breakneck pace. according to guðmundsdóttir, “the question is, will we change with it or will we change [storytelling]…fundamentally.”

with climate change impacting every part of the globe, we need stories more than ever. why? stories communicate meaning and emotion, which are the essential ingredients needed to motivate people to act. people don’t easily relate to issues, they relate to other people — in other words, to their stories. science supports the cognitive power of storytelling — showing that stories that elicit empathy in the audience have strong correlations with oxytocin releases in the brain which researcher paul zak calls, “the neurologic substrate for the golden rule.” by promoting reciprocity, story itself is the very fabric of connection.

“if you as a [climate] storyteller want to compete with the media, for the attention of people, it’s a question of if you want to go to the level of the media…which is speed and grandeur and fear. or are you allowed to go back in time? are you allowed to transport people back to an ancient structure that has followed us since the start of time,” guðmundsdóttir said. 

“yeah,” i said.

“for example, i watched laurence of arabia… an old movie… and i thought ‘there is nothing happening here! it’s so slow,’” guðmundsdóttir said. “and i thought, ‘should i even continue?’ but when it was first shown [in theaters], people loved it!”

“yes… i feel like people like the fast pace because we’re used to it, or it makes us feel good… but how much of that media are we actually remembering?” i said.

“right, right,” she said.

as we ended our conversation, i said, “i would love to see things be slower and more intentional… and i mean we don’t have to put all the media there, but when things are really important and really connected to your emotions… this older way… that could be so powerful.”

respecting nature and respecting slow speeds

spending time in iceland demonstrated to me the power of “slow” storytelling. this concept is a relative of other popular “slow” trends like “slow living” and “slow creating.” slow storytelling invites listeners to give their full attention to the creation of the story world — no chopping potatoes while listening to npr. slow storytelling allows for details to unfold, allowing the storyteller to tie and untie the knot — of plot —  at a speed that doesn’t try to match tiktok, reels, scrolling feeds, or snappy news apps. 

the history of slow icelandic storytelling has been shaped by the landscapes and people those tales were about. life on the island has long been dictated by freezing inky black winters, where stories and art were the only connection to the warmth of spring and gentler times. the intimate bonds that early icelandic settlers nurtured lent themselves to stories that took the time to embed themselves in all of the people, places, and events of the time. iceland’s deep connection to the environment has created stories that imbue respect and even stoke fear of the landscape they inhabit. 

the þjóðsögu, like the tale of hvítserkur above, shows how a return to slow, intentional stories can transform how humanity views nature and itself.

“i believe we can’t go back to dead traditions, but we can certainly make new things out of the old,” guðmundsdóttir said. “we must be able to go back to respecting nature and respecting slow speeds. i know we can find these solutions… because humanities’ stories have always been really in love with solutions.”

editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project.

in this video, storyfest winner halley hughes, of the university of arizona, reflects on the beauty, charisma, and dwindling populations of arctic puffins. 

a special thank you to lindblad expeditions for their continued partnership with planet forward and for sponsoring our storyfest winners as they traveled across the rocky coastline of iceland, interviewing experts, and creating their upcoming stories. an additional ‘thank you’ goes to icelandair for sponsoring the students’ air travel.

the santa cruz has a long way to go. urban rivers across the world are facing the same problem: trash. and a lot of it. trash impacts waterways, harbor disease, and pollutes water with invisible microplastics. something needs to be done, and at many scales, government policies to clean up or prevent trash pollution aren’t working. so, in a five-month endeavor to seek the truths about plastic pollution in my river, i came across an amazing untold story.  

reconciliation. restoring relations with the landscapes that sustain you. the idea of reconciliation with nature is not new. nor is it mine to profess. all my relations and interconnection is a central core of first nations, inuit, and metis worldviews and ways of knowing. some first nations sum this up with the phrase “all my relations”. this mindset reflects people who are aware that everything in the universe is connected. what is new, is the use of this mindset to insight into action and inspire change. on a local level in tucson, angelantonio breault is leading the charge to reconcile with the lands that sustain us. reconciliation as a climate solution is harnessing the power of empathy and has the ability to heal our planet, as well as ourselves.

in the face of breakneck innovation and rapid change, i propose a return to self. 

this story was featured in our series, slipping through our fingers: the future of water.

unlock the mysteries of a real-life butterfly effect through the puzzling concept of ecoclimate teleconnections. get ready to dive deep into the theory behind how we communicate complex scientific topics.

ecoclimate teleconnection is a concept that sounds abstract, but refers to something that everyone experiences. teleconnections work like a river. the policies of people at the headwaters of a river impact the water not only in their vicinity, but downstream as well. although the people at the mouth of the river and the end of the river may never have had contact, one tangibly affected the other. that is the core concept of teleconnections and a telecoupled world. 

my guest, jose soto, ph.d., has a unique perspective. he ponders intentionally and cares deeply. he suggested that we write a poem together for this piece. sometimes, it is equally important to talk about the ways in which we understand science, rather than the science we don’t understand.

science is only one way of attempting to understand the world. soto posits that people’s experiences shape how they view the world. our worldview (or our “phenomena of reality”) then affects how we view science.  

to all listeners of this podcast, be curious. let that curiosity guide you as we find solutions for a brighter and more inclusive future.

full transcript below:

soto: [00:00:00] because it’s the cornerstone of science. “we don’t know” is the cornerstone of science. you may prove something is not wrong, but you’re never correct. you never prove something is right. it’s not wrong.

hughes: [00:00:20] wait, say that again? the cornerstone of science is that…

soto: [00:00:20] we don’t know.

hughes: [00:00:22] we don’t know. and you never truly prove something right. but you can prove that…

soto: [00:00:27] that its temporarily not wrong.

hughes: [00:00:30] it’s temporarily not wrong.

soto: [00:00:30] yes.

hughes: [00:00:33] as a science communicator and a practitioner of science, i spend a lot of time thinking about new scientific concepts and new ways to think about science. my friend and fellow researcher, dr. jose soto, joins me on a journey of exploring our curiosities in the field of science. unlock the mysteries and insights of the butterfly effect come to life, through the puzzling concept of ecoclimate teleconnections. and along the why, get ready to dive deep into the concepts and theory behind how we communicate something so complex like teleconnections.

soto: [00:01:12] i am very, very profoundly curious about many things, but and here’s again, i’m taking myself…

hughes: [00:01:17] here’s the “but.”

soto: [00:01:18] i’m taking myself into absurdity. there is a boundedness to my curiosity in the sense that the problem of what seems to be the most important question of our organism, this aspect of climate change in the anthropocene and what we want to be.

hughes: [00:01:37] that is the voice of dr. jose soto. he is an expert in applied economics, a creator of curious tangents and a writer of poetry. he comes from nogales, sonora, which is a border town 70 miles south of tucson. he came to the university of arizona in 2017 as an assistant professor to work on a project on ecoclimate teleconnections. dr. soto and i agreed on a metaphor for the mechanism of ecoclimate teleconnections. it’s like the butterfly effect. in the case of jose’s research, the ecological conditions of one place can affect the climate of another very, very far away. they’re connected despite the distance. his work specifically looks at how much the loss of forests in the western united states would affect temperature and precipitation on agriculture in the mississippi river basin.

hughes: [00:02:32] so what are jose’s current curiosities?

soto: [00:02:36] curiosity about folks’ understanding of seemingly esoteric concepts or fairly new concepts if that is what this ecoclimate teleconnections are. understanding how is it that we that we can understand that in a way that is communicable to others. to many folks from many diverse backgrounds. and not only backgrounds and cultural backgrounds, but also various points of view of intergenerational sort of understandings of questions that are complex.

hughes: [00:03:05] what was the what was the spark that drew jose soto to this project in this space at this time?

soto: [00:03:13] i stumble a lot in life. and i’ve done it so much in life that i get curious.

hughes: [00:03:20] so your research group studying ecoclimate teleconnections is super interdisciplinary. why is that important to you?

soto: [00:03:28] you could start seeing problems from many points of view. there is texture to problems that could only be understood from multiple points of view.

hughes: [00:03:39] this interdisciplinary team is combining two very complex models to try to understand teleconnections. one model is an earth systems model that predicts climate changes and variables like precipitation and temperature. the other is a partial equilibrium model that predicts land use change and economic welfare. what is complex, and perhaps strange, is that these predictive models can turn global scale changes in the west into very precise rain and temperature effects. then another model can take those hazy predictions and spit out how that change affects each u.s. county in dollars. i’ll let him continue to explain it in a way only he can.

soto: [00:04:20] yes, we can produce models that are, well, estimates on economic welfare and now… how is it that we present that estimation? that is, again, a bounded calculation on the climate modeling side. and that bounded calculation is being put into a giant model that is really cool, but it translates into into something that looks very concrete, which is dollar signs of economic surplus that is going to be put into this other model of very tangible things. but they only seem like that, in terms of the dollar signs perhaps. but in order for me to present that in perhaps a survey of preferences, and (ask) “would you understand that if we explain this to you?” how is it that we present them in the way that we are as transparent as we can (be)? so you take this sort of haziness of what i’m talking about, and then all of a sudden we have this sort of, perhaps a- what i’m anticipating- and what i’m very curious about, a cognitive dissonance between maybe trying to explain that haziness or that bounded calculation in this, although with as much caveats as we can, but also in a way that we are presenting the uncertainties.

hughes: [00:05:26] the haziness that jose’s referring to is the uncertainty that models have inherently. there’s a lot of error, complexity and variables that go into these kinds of models. jose’s role in the research team is to develop a survey to better understand how people understand teleconnections. jose is toying with the idea of being vulnerable with those he surveys and explaining that these models and even the scientists have uncertainties about their results. even though the science may be uncertain and the concepts quite hazy and difficult to grasp, they are still essential to communicate to people. jose’s team has narrowed down their guiding questions to the following two.

soto: [00:06:09] but would they get it?

hughes: [00:06:11] “it” is referring to teleconnections.

soto: [00:06:14] and would they want the government to do something about it?

hughes: [00:06:17] “they” is referring to the citizens of the united states.

soto: [00:06:20] how is it that we make something of this? something useful? there’s important questions. perhaps the most important question, which is this sort of perhaps climate change in the anthropocene. how is it that that this can become useful?

hughes: [00:06:34] the two of us always bob and weave in our conversations, but end up forming compelling connections between topics. at this point, we began talking about why the creation and interpretation of this survey jose’s creating may not be as simple as many would think.

hughes: [00:06:51] and something i’m really digging into in my science communication comes from a phrase that you use often used in class, with the “phenomena of reality.” i i’m thinking more and more that scientists, with their hazy understandings of models, have a different understanding of the phenomena of reality. and we expect people to take the same information we have and then perceive reality the same way. i think that maybe we as scientists have an altered phenomena of reality that is somewhat shared, which is why we understand each other. i often think we also place others’ view of reality below our own and say, “well, if you don’t understand it, because our phenomena of reality is what is what is right.” even though we don’t really understand these models. right? so that’s the interesting thing about the way you’re approaching these questions, because you are doing away with a little bit of the just ask it to them. and if they don’t get it, they don’t get it. it’s really interpreting other’s view of reality in their lived experience as equally valuable, just different.

soto: [00:08:01] i stumbled into the literature of education. one of the problems that we have in trying to create an educational system that doesn’t exclude people is to not do it.

hughes: [00:08:14] not do what?

soto: [00:08:15] exclude people!

hughes: [00:08:16] oh! to not do it!

soto: [00:08:20] so this is a mechanism dbir, design based implementation researchm is mechanism to “not do it.” so in there, they identify one of the biggest hurdles. they’re kind of trying to educate people from backgrounds that are not represented in the historical institutions that were developing under the context of exclusion. when you’re trying to do that, there’s something called “epistemic injustice.” discarding somebody’s entire background without even noticing. maybe a professor that is teaching a class, i don’t know, in forestry. maybe that professor would be teaching the class and that would have like a perhaps a quechua or what they call an inca student, a student from quechua communities in maybe peru, what they call peru now. and they see reality is a deity, nature as a deity. they call it pachamama. suppose that student isn’t there and the student wants to share something, and they phrase it in the way of a deity. “oh pachamama and…” suppose they say that and immediately the professor would say, “that is a comment that is not appropriate for this class because it’s not a class on theology, it’s a class tree rings or something. and that person then perhaps feels that their entire background was discarded. it muffles their curiosity. and maybe that person was really sharing something that was profoundly insightful and appropriate, but phrased in a way that that’s the language they use. maybe that they have a relationship with the environment that is different. that little comment that might have been sort of nonchalant by the professor, trying to keep to the curricula and to the syllabus. but the one person perhaps that said that and whose background was kind of discarded in this pachamama way, that person is deeply impacted, perhaps in at least how it’s impacting the field of education from the little bit that i know. this dbir stuff, the design based implementation research, it starts from understanding that we have inherent biases and when we go and engage with people from other backgrounds other than our own. they are scientists too, in that the questions need to start being developed from what they are scientifically understanding, in their way of understanding their surroundings. maybe it could be a like an inner city, sort of low income community, or it could be a sort of a someone from a native, the original peoples of somewhere. but they have their own scientific ways, you know, and that is really cool.

hughes: [00:10:42] it really is exactly what you’re getting at in why it’s not just so easy to ask these questions in a survey.

hughes: [00:10:51] this idea about the concept of science and how we interpret it keep bouncing around between the two of us. we begin to wonder why ecoclimate teleconnections are so complex in the first place and why all science communication beyond this topic is so difficult.

hughes: [00:11:07] i think as a science communicator, i was recently talking about how most people’s view of the concept of science is different than scientists because a lot of non-scientists there, their science education stopped very early. and the science that they’re learning is thousands of years old. things that have been studied for a very long time seem settled. when in fact science is anything but settled. and there are so many things that we don’t know and so many things we are unsure about, but we end up communicating everything but our own uncertainty. i don’t know why science needs to have this facade of of truth behind it. when we are communicating to each other as scientists, we will fully admit what we don’t know.

soto: [00:11:54] that totally resonates with me because i posit that humans are very intelligent. yeah, if we approach them, maybe the folks that don’t have formal education, if we approach them like they are otherwise, they get it. they see what you were saying.

hughes: [00:12:10] what would you say is your message to others about what you’ve learned?

soto: [00:12:14] it’s a call to science, a call to mass education. and that i think, should be driven by the curiosities of the people that are going to be affected most in their way of thinking of themselves in the future, in time and space, which are the young people. all the humbleness that the folks that are maybe pontificating and to be be led by the younger generations that are that are seeing this in clearer ways.

hughes: [00:12:38] i think it’s beautiful. i think that we can continue, not even ‘continue’ because it’s almost novel… we can communicate science as unsettled and it won’t lose authority. like, i feel like maybe scientists are afraid that as soon as we lose that appeal to authority, that people won’t believe in science. but i almost think it’s the opposite, where because we seem so bulletproof, when it is called into question and proved wrong, it’s almost like the concept of science is proved wrong, as opposed to just the natural process.

soto: [00:13:12] and i suspect you’re correct about it in a very, very keen way. because, again, you know, if you’re presenting something that is right in language like, “this is right,” when it was actually-.

hughes: [00:13:25] “there’s no other interpretation.”

soto: [00:13:25] yes, that’s right. and for highly intelligent beings, the sentient beings of our species, of our organism, this is a very, very difficult moment of the most important question in human history about the anthropocene. if their perceptive of that, they catch on because they’re very smart. so i think your absolutely-  your critique is spot on. i mean, i need to reflect a lot in this conversation.

hughes: [00:13:48] curiosity is beatiful.

soto: [00:13:49] oh, yeah. it’s amazing.

hughes: [00:13:51] through the process of learning about a complex scientific topic, we learned about how we can think about science itself. we learned that everyone is a scientist and it is critical that our education systems recognize that. science isn’t useful unless it’s communicable. to underestimate the layperson’s importance in understanding would be fatal. jose and i’s combined curiosity in this impromptu conversation revealed that before we think of solutions, we must think of who is making these solutions, how we representing them, and why they would be important to those they affect. jose is a deeply curious and interesting scientist and person. we look forward to the results of his research coming out soon.

hughes: [00:14:35] jose soto’s solutions?

soto: [00:14:36] oh no, no, no.

hughes: [00:14:38] humbleness. mass education.

soto: [00:14:41] no no no solutions. curiosity. bounded curiosities.

hughes: [00:14:47] bounded curiosities.

“sorry i kept you waiting!” said a slim man in a worn baseball cap, jeans, and a t-shirt, as i approached the gate. i was here to meet moses thompson, the director of the community school garden program (csgp) in tucson. his laid-back appearance and friendly demeanor was like a breath of fresh air. 

gardening + community + education = impact

the community school garden program, led by moses for the past two years, is run by the university of arizona’s school of geography. under his leadership and the guidance of the founding director sallie marston, it has become an internationally recognized program. its mission is to enable tucson teachers and the community to develop and sustain gardens at school and at home. focusing on the culture and politics of food, the program connects students to their communities and the world around them. it has trained more than 700 tucson unified school district k-12 educators and has produced over 8,500 hours of service. they estimate to have impacted over 600,000 students. 

moses is the heart of the program. his authenticity, humbleness, and kindness have cultivated a phenomenal csgp team, many of whom grew up in the communities they now serve. moses began his career as an elementary school counselor who integrated his love of nature into his counseling. he typically conducted sessions in an outdoor space at his school where the therapeutic qualities of nature made his students feel safe and at ease, allowing them to feel vulnerable and connect with him. 

what made moses — who had no previous gardening experience — take the leap from being an award-winning school counselor to running an equally awarded garden program?

“i knew close to zero about gardening before i started working with the csgp,” he said. the project’s founder sallie mentored him, and that expanded his idea of who he could be. her advice to him was, “what you want now might not be what you want in five years,” which opened his mind to the idea of leadership.

i asked him how he handles the mantle of leadership and he said, “it feels heavy at times and i doubt myself, but the garden has taught me that skill sets aren’t static and with support and persistence i can navigate challenges. and at the end of the day, my love for the work and my love for the people i work with tamps down the fears and anxiety.”

going for the mari-gold

walking around the garden beds, it was hard to miss the big bushes of marigolds that demanded attention. “we plant a lot of marigolds,” moses said, because the flowers prevent root pests, attract important pollinators, and deter caterpillars. these multitaskers are also beautiful.

reflecting on my time in the garden, i realized that the program is just like the marigolds. the program produces crops, addresses social injustice, and encourages connection with heritage. the garden program is a source of food security, community knowledge, and a safe place for students and teachers. it also has the magical beauty that green spaces provide. it is a multitasker — just like the marigolds. moses and the garden open doors to the most vulnerable among us and teach them to care for the earth and themselves.

“how did you build all this? what is moses thompson’s mission?” i asked.

“what gnarly questions,” he said. 

he leaned on his shovel and took a minute to think and then said, “i think when you get in a garden, something profound can happen. growing food and eating consciously can make you feel different physically, and make you feel different about yourself. there is an unmatched capacity for change in a garden and i want to harness that by making gardening accessible to as many people as possible.”

i couldn’t help but smile.

“that’s incredible. did you prepare all that in advance?”

“oh god no,” he said, with a humble and embarrassed chuckle.

a solution for a hungry nation

the community school garden program is not something that can only bloom in tucson. moses emphasized that this program is a framework, one whose frame can be copied, rebuilt, and placed in other food-insecure areas looking to reconnect with their cultural heritage. moses said the csgp’s methodology is “throwing gas on a grassroots fire.” if the program expanded, it would be seeded with the unique heritage of that new place. a foundational part of the program is that each garden is rooted in the community so that when it develops its fruits, they are useful and familiar to those local to that place.

what is abundantly clear about moses is that he cares deeply about our youngest generation. we talked about the climate crisis, how to fight it, and how to stay joyful doing it.

“having no agency and feeling hopeless can make you paralyzed,” he said. “here in the garden, you learn how to grow your own food, and sustain your own life, in harsh and demanding conditions. that gives you agency. it gives you self-confidence and self-worth. from a young age, you can see biodiversity and its benefits here, you can see ecosystem services.” 

moses’ philosophy seems to be working. many of his students have gardens at home, too. he believes that the physiological and community benefits of gardens will build resilience and fight climate change.

slideshow by halley hughes

moses also gave me one of the kindest gifts i’ve ever received: the csgp’s 2022 almanac. however, this is no normal farmer’s almanac. it is an anthology soaked in the heritage of the sonoran desert and community love. every page, every drawing, and every inclusion is so intentional in delivering cultural and ecological knowledge. moses and his team knew they didn’t want the almanac to be a top-down intellectual product from the university of arizona. he wanted kids to use the almanac, and to see their moms and other relatives in the pages. 

that beautiful almanac now sits on my coffee table so that my home’s visitors can soak up the beauty of sonoran heritage. what the csgp has accomplished can be accomplished anywhere. by connecting with their communities and food, the generation that will experience climate change more prevalently than any other will be the navigators who lead us toward a hopeful future. moses taught me that gardens are tools that can sow a generation of empowered children. 

we were three-quarters of a mile away and yet the glacier stood as a towering monument that was almost too large to comprehend. our boat’s collective silent awe broke when a sudden thunderous pounding traveled down the canyon like a booming heartbeat “ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum.” 

“did you all hear that?” naturalist tim martin asked excitedly. a large chunk of ice breaking off the face of a glacier caused the sound — in an event called a “calving.” in addition to being a naturalist for lindblad expeditions, martin teaches geology, astronomy, art, and earth science at elon university. he has 20 years of experience in his field and i was grateful he was our guide on the zodiac that afternoon in tracy arm. being with him in that hallowed place of geology was an inspiring experience. 

my time in alaska taught me that rocks are our eldest knowledge holders. understanding ice, glaciers, mountains, and rocks is like understanding the language of the earth. after this trip, i believe that when we understand and connect personally with the earth, we are more deeply inspired to protect it. 

building and destroying the southeast alaskan mountains

“geologically, southeast alaska is a confusing place,” martin said. “southeast alaska’s mountains are like a conveyor belt at the grocery store that doesn’t have a cashier or bagger. all the material moves and then piles up at the end, tumbling and rolling over each other.” the tectonic activity (the large plates of land and ocean that make up the earth’s surface) in southeast alaska is strange and unique. it has produced some of the most beautiful and complex landscapes in the united states. southeast alaska has all three standard types of rock, sometimes several occurring in the same rock face. however, alaska has an iconic fourth kind of rock.  

“you know,” martin said, as he threw his whole upper body over the bow of the zodiac. “ice is a rock too!” martin popped back into our zodiac holding a 30-pound chunk of crystal-clear ice that had been floating in the fjord. he passed the hefty ice cube to me, and as it melted on my lap i listened to him tell us about the power of ice.

if rock built alaska, ice carved it. more specifically, ice was the vessel through which rock carved rock. the last ice age, which was 115,000 years ago, brought massive deposits of snow, creating vast snowfields across alaska with ice a mile thick. as these massive glaciers advanced and receded in cycles, they scraped huge amounts of fine rock material –– like the world’s heaviest piece of sandpaper –– across the great mountains of southeast alaska over and over and over. 

because of the glacier’s erosive power, the fjords and bays of alaska have a distinctive u-shape. in contrast, rivers carve canyons in sharper v-shapes like the grand canyon in my home state of arizona. the u-shaped chilkat valley can be seen clearly from about 3,000 feet on an airplane.

of ‘quartz’ rocks can speak!

martin and i first bonded over our shared love of rocks and outdoor rock climbing. i found kinship with the only other person on the expedition who would respond to the phrase, “it’s just a rock,” with a shocked and confused, “it’s just a rock?!” 

as i asked martin more questions about tracy arm’s unique geological features, i came to a profound and simple realization. once you understand the clues, places like tracy arm become storybooks. you can read a 100-million-year-old story written by earth herself. a rock’s type, age, magnetism, location, contents, shape, and composition are all bits of information one can use to determine the details of the place you are. 

i practiced this when i was walking with martin on the beaches of iyoukeen bay. he began to pick up the clues of his surroundings — the rocks began speaking to him. he noted the abundance of limestone and marble and the beach’s location in alaska and in relation to the pacific coast. he confidently said, “this was the bottom of the sea floor long ago.” i was amazed.

i wanted to get in on the conversation, so as any good budding geologist would, i had my eyes glued to the ground during our hike down the beach. i spotted a very peculiar and enchanting rock, and of course, i took it right over to martin for identification. “halley picked up fossilized coral,” he announced to the group. realizing i had picked up a piece of ancient history, i took my time admiring its smooth surface, its patterned grooves, and its dragon-like scales. the picture of the ancient sea bed was becoming clearer. 

martin then spotted more fossilized coral, and this time he was able to make an identification. he told me one of the fossils was that of a horn coral, an organism that existed only in the devonian period, making that fossil a minimum of 350 million years old. 

martin’s knowledge and my curiosity were the keys that unlocked a deep well of ancient knowledge. by reading the clues that earth left us on that beach, we were able to transport ourselves to a land before our time. it was a humbling experience to put myself and my life on the geological time scale of earth. it made me think about the blip that is all of human life compared to the forever of earth. the earth has always and will continue to leave clues for us to understand her. the earth speaks. rocks speak. we just have to know how to hear them. if humans spend less time talking and more time listening, we might just be able to make our profound effect on the earth a positive one. 

it is a magical experience to be able to read the earth in her native language in alaska –– it is a way to connect and engage with the natural world. that connection to the natural world is critical right now because it is what inspires us to fight for the health and safety of earth’s wildest places. martin said the reason he loves exploring alaska is that “…coming to wild and unaltered places is the way we can read the story of life on this planet.” i couldn’t agree more.

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editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project. read all the stories from the expedition in our astonishing alaska series.

my intellectual curiosities were stoked by the seemingly endless knowledge of the many naturalists on board. the naturalists had incredible presentations about geology, glaciology, marine ecology, and even squid physiology (complete with a on-deck dissection of a squid we found on a beach)! i found myself falling deeper in love with the natural world and finding new exciting disciplines — like geology. i’ll be writing my story about the language of rocks — so stay tuned!

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editor’s note: lindblad expeditions, our planet forward storyfest competition partner, made this series possible by providing winners with an experiential learning opportunity aboard one of their ships. all editorial content is created independently. we thank lindblad expeditions for their continued support of our project. read all the stories from the expedition in our astonishing alaska series.

the rebirth of the santa cruz river in tucson, arizona is an ecological miracle. the santa cruz river flowed year-round until human intervention dried its banks more than 110 years ago. recently, the city of tucson decided to pump water back into the river. 

after only two years of consistent flow, the river has bloomed to support dozens of mammal, amphibian, and insect species, 135 bird species, 149 plant species, and one very special endangered minnow. 

the growing interest in the river has sparked reconnection with tucson’s heritage. the city is expressing renewed interest in native ecosystems, sustainable gardening, and water conservation.

the southwestern united states is entering its 22nd year of a megadrought, making water resources more valuable and more scarce than ever before. lawmakers, scientists, agencies, and governments alike face the challenge of finding innovations to use the smallest amounts of water for the greatest total benefit. a solution to this major challenge flows through the heart of tucson. 

water conservation in the desert 

in 2001, arizona received its first delivery of colorado river water through the central arizona project canals, allowing the city to move toward more sustainable water use by using less groundwater and investing in stormwater.  in 2013, wastewater treatment plants began releasing reclaimed water into the santa cruz north of the city as a groundwater reclamation project.

reclaimed water is a way to recycle the water that comes out of a city as sewage. water treatment plants clean the water with chemicals and release it so it can soak back into the ground to recharge as groundwater.   

the water in the santa cruz is cleaned further by natural processes and eventually soaks into tucson’s aquifer. the city of tucson says that groundwater recharge with reclaimed water is a safeguard for drought for tucson. it’s a water bank for times of need.

in 2016, the director of tucson water, tim thomure, pitched a new project –– expanding the existing santa cruz recharge effort. he wanted another pipe to release reclaimed water in the heart of downtown tucson.

the idea came to life three years later as the santa cruz river heritage project.

sciences elevate the river’s health

the dragonflies weren’t the only surprise attendees at the “opening day” of the heritage project. organizers projected the event to be tiny; it was barely even advertised. there was one small tent with one crate of water bottles. more than 300 people –– and a mariachi band –– came to celebrate water returning to the river.

“it’s a trickle of water really, but such a small amount of water has created such enormous change,” bogan told me.

he wasn’t kidding; the santa cruz outflows about 1,500 gallons per minute as of 2022. for comparison, the mississippi outflows around 266,159,000 gallons per minute.

bogan and his team do continuous monitoring through species counts, species abundance surveys, and remote monitoring, which provide resources to the city of tucson to keep it healthy and prosperous. almost in disbelief, he said that, “after only 2 years of continuous flow, we’re seeing an incredible amount of biodiversity.” the rapid recovery of the santa cruz river is a beacon of hope to ecologists and citizens alike.

it seems to me that the santa cruz river has had a certifiable field of dreams moment –– with michael bogan as ray kinsella. except, in our desert narrative, the iconic line goes, “if you water it, they will come.”

the cultural significance of the heritage reach

the base of sentinel peak (known more often as “a-mountain”) has been sustaining life for over 4,000 years, making it one of the oldest sites of continuous agricultural activity in the country. the tohono o’odham and their ancestors, the hohokam, have been stewarding the land for uncountable generations. 

in 1910, businessmen drilled 20 wells at the base of sentinel peak, drying up the river completely in just five years. deprived of water, the trees that stood sentinel along the banks of the santa cruz for hundreds of years perished. for 100 years, the santa cruz has been dry and forgotten, its once-raging waters are now caged in a narrow channel of concrete. it remains as a dry scar on the landscape, like an artery with no blood to pump. 

the heritage project chose the new pipe location based on the rich history. but why is the return of water to the santa cruz called the “heritage project” and not the “recharge project”?

“returning water to the river is just one part of what ‘heritage’ means,” kendall kroeson told me as we walked the grounds of mission garden together. to kendall, the heritage project will be complete if the people, food, and history that santa cruz supported for centuries are highlighted along with the ecological success of the river.

the history of tucson’s birthplace is kept alive by the spirit of resilience and the hardworking volunteers at mission garden.

“tasting history”

kendall is the outreach coordinator for mission garden, a living agricultural museum of heritage fruit trees, traditional local heirloom crops, and edible native plants. it stands on the 4,000-year-old agricultural site.

as i spent time in the quiet walls of adobe around mission garden, i spotted hawks soaring in the crisp morning air and petit gambel’s quail scuttling under the underbrush. native habitat met flourishing gardens in a brilliant display of desert beauty.

it felt like a sister location to the santa cruz –– a sister that is upholding the heritage, biodiversity, and sacred knowledge of crop cultivation alive as she waits patiently for the river to flow again. 

mission garden is more than a connection to the past, it is an active facilitator of the future. kendall showed me a fallow plot that would become “the garden of tomorrow”.

“we need to make more food, with less land, and less water,” kendall told me. “it’s a huge challenge.”

the garden plans to showcase drought-resistant plants and drought-tolerant garden practices. it will be an example of sustainable urban agriculture for tucson and the southwest. they educate people on how to grow food themselves. backyard gardening makes food more nutritious, decreases the use of pesticides, and decreases carbon dioxide emissions.

“it is important to know what happened in the past to know what is possible for the future,” says kroeson. “here at mission garden, we’re here to help people ‘taste history.’”

generational change in tucson

“four to five generations of tucsonans have disengaged with the river,” luke cole told me.

luke is the director of the santa cruz project at the conservation nonprofit, the sonoran institute. he and dr. bogan expressed the same sentiment when i asked them, “what’s one of the most important impacts you’re seeing from the santa cruz?” they both answered that it’s the community change they’ve seen.

i talked to charles giles, a lawyer, and avid cyclist who has lived in tucson for more than 70 years. when i asked him about the santa cruz, he immediately responded that “oh, it had been dead for quite a while.” he’s right. before the heritage project, tucson’s relationship with the water that once sustained it was all but gone.

new generations of tucsonans will come to know the river as a place to learn about the value of biodiversity and the importance of water conservation. dr. bogan revealed to me that he is approved to create a program that will build a curriculum for educators of all grade levels in tucson and train 30 teachers over the next three years. he will endeavor to reconnect the newest generation with the river through the power of science and cultural awareness.

the soul of tucson

as the world faces massive challenges stemming from climate change, it is more and more important to find the most impactful solutions that need the least resources. the brilliance of the santa cruz project is that by adding water, a multitude of benefits have sprouted. cole noted the importance of this in urban ecosystems, telling me that we need to ”celebrate the multi-uses when they’re there.”

the santa cruz heritage project is making tucson more drought resilient, conserving water resources, supporting critical biodiversity, connecting a city to its heritage, and educating a new generation. the flowing river is changing the heart of tucson.

something about the sound of water in the desert sings the song of survival to the human soul. massive change can come from the tiniest of sources, just as a mighty river can be reborn from the smallest trickle. 

instead of slapping sustainability vigilante brad lancaster with a fine, the city of tucson listened to rallying cries of support from the members of the neighborhood and granted him an audience with the city planning division. the city used his expertise and example to rewrite the laws and begin a stormwater infrastructure program in tucson, arizona. this grassroots sustainability project was handed to tucson clean and beautiful, a local non-profit, who then championed the spirit of renegade sustainability in several water harvesting projects. 

one of the most successful projects is green stormwater infrastructure (gsi). the epa states that “green infrastructure filters and absorbs stormwater where it falls.” gsi can range from rain barrels in backyards, trees placed in a basin along a street, roundabouts to collect water, or a rain garden. 

now, nearly two decades after lancaster carved tucson’s very first piece of gsi into a curb, the southwestern u.s. faces unprecedented climate conditions––and the development of gsi is as pertinent as ever.

my home state of arizona has been in an intense state of drought for 20 years (as long as i’ve been alive). human-caused climate change has exacerbated a natural cycle of drought into a historic mega drought, making the southwest the driest it has been since 1500 ce. i live in a water-limited environment, where the conservation of life’s most important resource is always at the forefront of planning decisions.

arizona currently sources its water from the colorado river through the central arizona project (cap), as well as several small running rivers, groundwater, and rainwater.  the colorado river gives 5 million people in arizona water, providing for a whopping 80% of the population. daily life in tucson relies so heavily on the river that it was a crushing blow in august 2021 when lawmakers called an official drought on the colorado river–– a historic first for the colorado basin. lake mead, the reservoir fed by the colorado, hit critical and historic lows, triggering the drought. consequently, water allocations must be cut for colorado, nevada, utah, arizona, new mexico, tribal nations, and mexico.

the first round of cuts will mostly be to the agricultural sector and may not affect the average city dweller; however, arizona’s drought is predicted to get worse in the face of rising temperatures. 

as arizona looks to options for redressing this life-threatening change in water availability, tucson may prove to be an oasis and an example to other cities.

nichole casebeer, the newly appointed gsi project manager at tucson clean and beautiful (tcb), says she came to tucson because it “…is a leader for water conservation in all of the southwest, and maybe even in arid lands globally.” she is striving to continue the legacy of community-led development and leading the charge to expand the underutilized, incredibly affordable, sustainable, and beneficial alternative of stormwater harvesting. even more than past leadership, casebeer is shifting tcb toward a less top-down approach.

casebeer spoke to me about drawing up the new strategic plan for tcb. she wants to target divested neighborhoods, which are those that have historically not been allocated resources from the city for development. she told me that, “(they’re) taking early steps to prevent gentrification and ensure that the positive effects of green stormwater infrastructure and beautification benefit the people who have historically lived in those neighborhoods.” these benefits include passively irrigating trees to create greener neighborhoods, reducing flooding, calming traffic, making streets safer, creating tree canopy to cool streets, and beautifying neighborhoods to create more vibrant communities. 

tucson’s sustainable water use is largely thanks to citizen behavior. tucson citizens have cut water use with practical solutions like up-to-date fixtures, including faucets and toilets, and ecologically conscious lawns. however, tucson’s population is growing, and as lake mead lowers, we will receive less and less water. 

“on a net balance level, 100% of tucson water’s use is colorado river water,” said tucson water’s superintendent of public information and conservation, james macadam. so when our river allocation gets cut, so does our use, if we don’t want to deplete our precious aquifer. 

while the drive for sustainable water use in tucson grew organically, driven by grassroots projects, it is now also being championed by the city government, which plans to make stormwater a larger part of tucson’s water allotment. in march of 2020, the city passed a tax on water use to help support new green stormwater projects.

the tax will collect about 3 million dollars every year to distribute to communities. green stormwater infrastructure has immense social and economic benefits, and it’s now accessible to everyone in any neighborhood across the city. 

casebeer is excited about the future of tucson’s leadership in water sustainability, both to help fight the effects of climate change and to improve the lives of people. 

“the increased pride in neighborhoods that receive gsi is one of the greatest benefits,” she said. “it’s amazing what increased connection and uniting our urban fabric around such a vital resource can do.” 

author’s note:

stormwater may be an especially important resource to those of us in arid climates, but rainwater is an essential part of every natural and human ecosystem around the country. the arizona municipal water users associations outlines essential actions that every citizen can take to make their rainwater clean and to make stormwater more efficient at the local level. follow the actions outlined here to help reduce pollution and make water safer for humans, animals, and the environment.