From the Editor

We’re thrilled to present the Spring 2023 issue of Waves, an issue celebrating optimism and action in the face of the climate crisis. We hadn’t planned on a themed issue this spring but were inspired by the serendipitous affinity between our featured authors. Alexandra (Alex) Hess and Isabela Tagala use non-academic forms of environmental writing to advocate for conservation and protection, teaching us how to combat eco-paralysis by taking manageable steps that add up to consequential change.

Last week, when smoke from Canadian wildfires had stained New York City’s skies an otherworldly mustard, we scrolled through headlines like “Orange skies are the future. Prepare yourself.” The news cycle can exhaust us and climate projections can petrify us; doomscrolling can sap us of that vital impulse to do something about the problems that scare us.

While Hess and Tagala take sobering looks at complex environmental challenges we face, they also remind us just how resilient, creative, and adaptive humans can be. And their public-facing pieces—Hess’s autobiographical essay and Tagala’s policy brief—model how environmental activists can explain the urgency of climate science for stakeholders and policymakers in order to catalyze meaningful action.

If too much doomscrolling has immobilized you, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the scale of the problems in your newsfeed, start local.   

Tagala’s policy brief, for example, explains the importance of water quality management for protecting the health of Florida’s aquatic ecosystems and humans alike. Floridians are all too familiar with the noxious impacts of algal blooms: the rusty hue of the sea, the dead fish scattered along the beaches, the aerosolized toxins carried by the sea breeze into our lungs, the struggles of family business owners on Florida’s coasts. Addressing her brief to state policymakers, Tagala breaks down the calamitous effects of heavy water pollution from industrial and agricultural activity, making a persuasive case for tighter regulations and enforcement to prevent further harm to human health and “irreversible damage to Florida’s natural waters and the aquatic biodiversity residing in them.”

Hess’s essay advocates for conservationist efforts on a national scale, but it is filled with accounts of small-scale solutions that became models for parks around the country. Weaving in autobiographical reflections on her experiences exploring America’s sublime forests and mountains, Hess reflects on some of the creative solutions implemented in Grand Teton National Park. To combat the environmental degradation wrought by overtourism—the hordes of tourists drawn to “Instagrammable” spots like Leigh Lake, for example, or the proliferation of “tourons” caught on camera harassing wild moose and bison—the Jackson Hole Travel & Tourism Board developed an influential practice, generic geotagging, which entails posting a picture without location information and using a generic tag such as “Tag Responsibly, Keep Jackson Hole Wild.” Hess celebrates generic geotagging as a feat of modern conservationism—an opportunity for influencers “to educate their viewers on responsible social media sharing and showcase nearby environmental conservation efforts.”

We thank our Spring 2023 authors for giving us a healthy dose of hope along with blueprints for making environmental science actionable. Now more than ever, we must look for ways to bring research, policy, and practice closer together. Hess’s and Tagala’s pieces make environmental expertise available to a broader audience—an audience with the power to learn, organize, influence, and act.

—Emily Bald, Editor-in-chief

Protecting America’s National Parks

The Grand Gestures for Our Planet, by Alexandra (Alex) Hess

The Importance of Water Quality

The Future of Florida’s Natural Waters, by Isabela Tagala