Running For Climate Optimism

This blog post was written by Victoria Huber, a 2025 Marine Plastics Ambassador.

A few years ago, I read The Climate Optimist Handbook by Anne Therese Gennari, and it changed the way that I saw climate activism. Many news articles, TV shows, and even nonprofits and governments use fear to provoke a sense of urgency in the hearts and minds of the world, often capitalizing on moral or self-preservation instincts.

These methods may be effective in the short term, but they will ultimately doom us to fail. The human mind, when faced with a problem that seems insurmountable, is biologically wired to shut down, which becomes the antithesis of climate action. Utilizing fear can truly only serve as short-term motivation for climate action and will ultimately fail to be a meaningful motivator for long-term change and a more sustainable future. To do so, we need to be aware of both the current seriousness of climate change as well as the potential we have to aid the planet and the actions that have already been taken to do so.

It is for this reason that I decided to start Running For Climate Optimism, which posts biweekly on Instagram about climate wins on both small and large scales, to try and inspire others to be a source of positive news for the climate and view the climate crisis in a new light. With an accompanying petition to express support for the future reintroduction of the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act and a call to action for others to share climate wins online, the project has currently reached thousands of people across platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Change.org.

I hosted an event for my high school’s annual day of community service, where I spoke about climate optimism and the project, and then held a kayak cleanup to help remove trash from our local lake. In just four hours, the group of around twenty students cleaned up 116.3 lbs of trash.

Victoria hosted a cleanup, collecting over 100lbs of trash, to raise awareness for her cause.

As per the project’s name, I will be hosting a virtual 5k as a final component of the project. As per the project’s name, running is an activity that, like climate optimism, has the potential to help people cope with the stress-filled world we live in today, due to the hormones the body produces when it exercises. The 5k is dedicated to climate optimism and expressing support for and desire to help the planet in a way that helps reduce stress.