Jacquelyn Gill, paleoecologist and assistant professor of paleoecology and plant ecology at the University of Maine, recently spoke with the digital news site Vice about her optimism in facing the climate crisis. She looks to the past to understand how species adapt and change through time.
“With the fossil record, the Earth is literally teaching us how to get through this,” she stated. “That makes me want to roll up my sleeves.”
Her approach to studying climate change acknowledges that it is man-made and a crisis but that with the information we have, ingenuity, and a will to change, there’s hope.
This will Gill refers to requires the need for city planners and policymakers to pay attention to this type of research. The Vice article goes on to share lessons learned through history: that positive change has come from past climate crises, specific lessons from past crises can be applied now, the “doom and gloom” rhetoric doesn’t help to motivate action, and finally, that the point of this is to launch innovation and change.
The full article may be read here.