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In this episode, Messellech “Selley” Abebe sits down with award-winning filmmaker, author, and educator Suzie Hicks — also known as the Climate Chick — to explore how climate change shapes the world children are growing up in. Together, they discuss why climate education is often avoided, how fear and misinformation impact kids and adults alike, and what it looks like to talk honestly about the planet without overwhelming children. The conversation highlights the power of storytelling, emotional literacy, and community action in helping kids understand climate change not just as a crisis, but as a challenge they can face together.

To learn more about Suzie Hicks and their work, you can visit the Suzie Hicks The Climate Chick and Sprout website, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. 

Want to keep digging into the real-life impact policy decisions have on children? Here’s some of what First Focus on Children has published recently:

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Transcript

Speaker 1  0:01  

Do you know what climate change is?

Child 1 0:05  

If the temperature, and like some places, drastically change and it could harm the environment, because it’s not normal.

Speaker 1  0:14  

How do you feel about climate change?

Child 2  0:17  

Not good. 

Speaker 1 0:21

Do you feel like you know how to like, curb it or do things to like slow climate change down?

Child 1 0:25  

No. 

Selley Abebe  0:26

What if saving the planet starts with convincing kids it’s even still possible. Hey, ambassadors, welcome back to Speaking of Kids. It’s Selley. Today we’re talking about the planet, the future, and the kids growing up in the middle of both. It’s a big job. Not only do they have to grow up work hard and all that jazz, but they have to look into the future and contemplate things that we all never had to think about, like climate change. Sure, every generation faces a challenge, but this one, they’re getting set up in a world that’s literally changing beneath their feet. Today’s guest is Suzie Hicks, also known as the climate chick. They are an award winning filmmaker, author and educator who’s teaching kids through songs, puppets and stories that climate change isn’t just a crisis, it’s a challenge we can face together. Suzie’s show, Suzie Hicks The Climate Chick and Sprout have been called a kind of Sesame Street for the climate era, full of joy, emotion and realness, and as you’ll hear, they’re not just helping kids understand the science they’re giving them language for the feelings that come with it, and the tools to turn those feelings into action.

Selley Abebe 1:54  

Suzie Hicks, welcome to Speaking of Kids. My kids and I love your show, really. Oh my god, I’m so excited to be here. It’s so great to have you here today. Awesome. Okay, you recently premiered Suzie Hicks the climate chick and sprout at the climate Film Festival. How did that go? Oh, what was the reception?

Suzie Hicks  2:14  

It was so great. It was so cool. I mean, super weird to see my face on, like, basically an IMAX screen that was wild. I was like, Thank God I didn’t have any boogers in my nose or things in my teeth. But it was really exciting. And there were so many kids there, and I was like, Thank God there are children here. But it was really awesome. We ended up winning best kids programming at the film festival. So a huge, huge milestone for us in the show. I’ve been working on the show for the last seven years, so to finally have it out in the world and finally have, you know, real kids watching it and connecting with the content was really important for me.

Selley Abebe  2:49  

Wow, congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, it’s hard to get kids attentions too. So I feel like that’s a home run for real. Why do you think there is a lack of communication around climate change, education and children shows. What do you think the disconnect is?

Suzie Hicks  3:06  

A lot of teachers and kids media doesn’t don’t talk about it because they don’t want to get it wrong. They don’t want to mess anything up. And because we aren’t taught high level climate science, and we aren’t taught all of the different intersections of this topic, it’s hard to say, let me communicate that to kids when I don’t even really understand it myself. So that’s part of it. But then also, people are scared to talk to kids about it. It’s a really scary topic. Adults themselves don’t want to think about it because it kind of takes everything out of context. Of like, my hopes and dreams are not possible without a stable climate. The relationships I aim to have are not possible without a stable climate. It’s scary to think about a future where you aren’t able to live the life that you imagined, and it’s even scarier to say that to someone that’s for but it’s important to say that because we are able to show them not just the things that are wrong, but we’re able to show them the things that are right, the climate solutions, so that they can focus on those rather than spiraling into, oh my god, the whole world is ending.

Selley Abebe  4:11  

I have three little ones, and I’m always on the hunt for good educational content. And so can you we just pause for a second? Can you tell listeners a little bit about the show?

Suzie Hicks  4:21  

Absolutely, yeah, I’d be happy to so Susie Hicks, the climate chicken sprout aims to be like the welcoming committee for climate science, climate emotions, climate solutions and climate role models. So our job is to teach kids about climate science and say, Here’s how the earth works. It’s so exciting that we live on a planet that supports life, and the systems that are there to support life are really fragile, and when we go out of balance, weird stuff starts to happen. And so we have a show that is a 22 minute episode, but it’s also on YouTube at seven chapters that are about three to four min. Each Oh, wow, yeah. So we’re trying to play with what is happening to the media landscape right now as well. So in the film festivals, we have the 22 minute cut, that’s what just premiered at the climate Film Festival. But on YouTube, we have the episode, which is a narrative arc. We go and we meet climate role models. We talk to a really amazing company called Grid Alternatives, who do solar energy, and we talk about how energy from the sun can create electricity for us. And we have a saying that says we work together to create climate solutions, and also solutions are everywhere, especially when we work together. And so in that episode, sprout, who’s a puppet, she’s a sunflower, but she’s too little to bloom yet, so she’s just green. Learns about the world that she’s growing up in, and she’s excited and she’s confused and she’s curious and she’s a little obnoxious, but she also gets really overwhelmed when we talk about the fact that life is getting harder for plants and animals all over the world, including humans. And she’s like, wait, I’m a plant. Is life going to get harder for me, and we sit in those moments of discomfort of like, yeah, it is going to get harder, and we’re able to take a moment and regulate our emotions and say that adults like me are always there to keep her safe and to take care of her. And also, there are people working all over the world, using their big hearts and creative minds to stop this problem, and that she can become one of those two. So that’s the episode. But we also have an entire YouTube channel of additional content. So we have meditations for kids that are feeling dysregulated. So it’s like walk through a forest with Suzy, sit and watch the clouds with Suzy, we have a bedtime story series where we talk about climate success stories, because I think we need so many more stories of success. Because when you think about environmentalists and you think about the news cycle, you’re like, ah, something bad happened to the environmentalists, or the environmentalists are mad about something. And we’re trying to disrupt that narrative by saying environmentalists are incredibly brave, resourceful, creative people that are saving problems that keep everyone safe. And then we also have climate Word of the Week. We have a Did You Know series, and we also have a bunch of different videos of us just kind of being silly and talking about climate because a lot of early childhood climate literacy is just vocab. So, yeah, that’s what we are working on on our YouTube channel.

Selley Abebe  7:25  

So mine are three, six and nine. At what age do you typically see kids really engaging in your work? I know that you had mentioned you threw out a four year old, but like, at what point do you really see them digesting this and really taking it on? 

Suzie Hicks  7:39  

Yeah. So for me, I teach at a school, and I teach four to 14 year olds, so I’m seeing them run the gambit of pre K through eight, and I’m able to kind of scaffold that information to what the developmentally appropriate vocab and lesson plans are. So for three to five year olds, it really is. How incredible is it that we live on this world, and how incredible is it that we are nature and that we are connected to nature, and that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, and that human beings are not superior, human beings are not different, human beings are not separate from nature. So that’s mostly what I’m communicating when I’m communicating to three to five year olds, because they are just learning where they are. They’re like, I live in this town, I live in this state, right? And I live on Earth, which is the only planet that you can see your friends on. It’s the only planet that you can drink water on. Starting with that reframe of immense gratitude is awesome. And then the six to nine year olds are kind of like my sweet spot. They’re my target audience. I love them. Yeah, my show itself is for four to seven year olds. But when I teach, I love teaching six to nine year olds, and that’s when we get to be like, here are all the systems that create the way that Earth is and nature is. So here’s the carbon cycle. Here’s how carbon travels through plants and animals and goes down into the ground and becomes fossil fuels, but when we burn them, it goes up into the atmosphere and creates CO two. And so we dive a little bit deeper every time of saying like, here’s a problem, but then also here’s a solution. So instead of being like, everything is terrible, here’s why everything is terrible, here’s the deep reasons why everything is terrible, which people you know fear when they talk about climate. We’re like, Okay, here’s the problem. We have too much CO two in the atmosphere. Here’s the solution. We stop using fossil fuels and we plant more plants, boom. And then you can get more granular as you get older and older and older.

Selley Abebe  9:36  

And I love shows like this, because it is such a good recap of like, basic science that I may have just forgotten.

Suzie Hicks  9:42  

Absolutely most adults read at sixth grade reading level, and most adults don’t have time to dive into something like an IPCC report or go into all of this high level science that has that’s so gate kept by jargon and acronyms. And so my job essentially is both. Who’s going to tell the kids and also explain it to me, like I’m five, because with this age group, it’s mostly co viewing. So not only are we teaching the children, we’re also teaching the adults.

Selley Abebe 10:09  

I was about to say, I think you’re giving me credit when you say at a sixth grade level around science, I don’t know, but yeah, you’re right. Like, it’s good to just have that reminder, and then these little sound bites and little clips that you can reinforce with your kids.

Suzie Hicks  10:23  

And also, adults need the emotional resilience as well, because no one came to climate change in the same way. Some adults learned of it when they were in college. Some adults learned it when they were in middle school or elementary school. And some adults didn’t learn about climate change till they were in their 60s, and they’re like, whoa. What is this massive global problem? And it’s really important to say it’s going to be okay if we work together and to have that kind of trusted adult speak to your inner child as well as your child. Because normally when people are introduced to climate change, it’s a narrative of fear, of guilt, of shame and of like, existential terror. And that’s not how we want to teach a topic to anyone of any age. And something that gives me a lot of joy in my work is being like I’m speaking to the soul of an adult as they are an inner child. And that feels really important to me.

Selley Abebe  11:22  

After the break, Suzy talks about what happens when grown ups actually listen how teachers, parents, even whole communities, are finding new ways to talk about climate change without fear. Stick around. Welcome back to speaking of kids. Before the break, Suzy Hicks was talking about how climate education isn’t just for kids. It’s also a way for adults to heal our own fear and guilt around the planet we’re leaving behind. So I asked them, What happens when you take that approach out into the real world? How are teachers, parents and even kids themselves, responding to the show you know you work and live at the intersection of schools, families, media, activism, how have educators, parents, grandparents, the broader community, how they’ve responded to the show and just your work more broadly?

Suzie Hicks  12:14  

Yeah, it’s been great. Honestly, I feel really grateful that it’s had such a positive response, because it could have a pretty negative response. We’ve gotten very little hate mail, but the main response that we get is like, Oh, thank you so much. Now I don’t have to be the one to talk to my kid about it. This isn’t new, like, what I’m doing isn’t new. PBS and children’s television has been doing this for decades and decades and decades, and that’s kind of how I came to it, where I was like, wow, Sesame Street and Fred Rogers are able to talk to children about really, really hard topics like death and divorce and community violence. Why haven’t we done that for climate change yet? Because it’s proven that this model works and it helps kids grow up with a certain set of literacy and priorities that will make them way more equipped human being to live in the world.

Selley Abebe  13:05  

Those are great points. I mean, I was always a huge I’m even now, like, I love Sesame Street. I just love PBS programming, just broadly, great, great, great shows and just safe for parents, right? Like, you know, of at least up to a certain age when you can get them engaged and keep them engaged. Yes, absolutely. You know, young people sometimes say stuff I know in my house, kids, my kids say stuff that sometimes are like, Oh, wow. Like, I didn’t think about it that way. They say things that are unexpected. Has a kid’s question or insight ever shifted the way you’ve approached your work or your perspective on things?

Suzie Hicks  13:37  

Oh, absolutely. Everything that I do is led by the kids that I work with. The first piece of children’s media I ever wrote was a children’s book called Zaina the great and the giant plastic monster. And that’s because I was working at a preschool, and I was teaching environmental science to preschoolers of being like, here’s how the ocean works and here’s what whales do, you know, basic environmental science. And I had this student look up me, and she went, I’m the queen of nature. And I went, absolutely you are. And then I wrote an entire children’s book about it. But I also something that I like to do when I’m teaching in the classroom with kids is I always start with an exercise where I ask them and I ask, do you think humans are bad for the environment? Because there is this narrative that’s like, all of humanity is terrible. We are the problem. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but indigenous people have lived sustainably for 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of years, and I’m just interested to see, like, where my kids are at when I start teaching this, these kind of topics. And the first time I did that, I was blown away, because they had so much wisdom in them, and they said, No, humans are not bad. What are you talking about? We’re making bad choices, but we’re not inherently bad. And I think that’s so. Powerful that a child is able to say, I as a human being, am not bad, but the choices that people have made before me are harming us now, and so that that was something that absolutely now, I ground everything in because also that’s something that kids are learning at home, where they’re like, I’m not bad because I didn’t clean up my room. I’m not bad because I, you know, threw a tantrum or something, I made a choice that now has negative consequences, and that developmental milestone is perfect for being like, yes, and we did that with climate change, and the kids are like, Oh, yeah. That totally makes sense. But what doesn’t make sense in where the cognitive dissonance comes in, is that they’re like, the people that are doing that, they’re in timeout, right? Like they’re being punished, and we’re gonna fix that. And then I have to be like, no, no, they’re making so much more money than they ever have before. And then that’s when the kids are like, What the heck? And I’m like, Dude, I know we got to do something about this. And so they are like, not computing that the consequences are not happening for the fossil fuel executives and for, you know, big ag and pharma that are destroying the planet. And so that’s where I get to be like. And here’s the role models that have fought against these people, so that there are consequences, and so that we can make better choices and that the better choices exist, we just need more people learning about them, doing them, funding them, you know, implementing them.

Selley Abebe  16:29  

I love that. It’s pretty remarkable how kids just don’t get enough credit for what they know and their perspective and what they bring to a conversation. But usually it’s probably because it’s grounded in logic and fairness, yep, and that’s not sometimes, you know what translates as we get older?

Suzie Hicks  16:45  

Yes, children are incredible arbiters of justice. And I had this really funny experience happen where I was teaching kids about meat, which is, you know, very controversial for adults. And I was talking about just because I’ve tried really hard not to editorialize. I try to just be like, here’s the information. You know, I’m not telling you what to do with it, but just do it. And I was showing them the top ranking causes of deforestation, and the number one cause of deforestation is for cattle ranching. You know, we talk about the Amazon rainforest being cut down, and everyone always blames paper. And they’re like, oh my god, stop using paper that is like low down on the cause of deforestation. The number one source is for ranching and cattle farming so that the cows have the feed because they need to eat the grass. And so it’s just acres and acres and acres of forest being cut down for that. And also beef has the highest CO two output, so it’s the most polluting in terms of carbon, and it’s also the number one cause of deforestation. And I had a student go home and, like, refuse to eat dinner because of that, and then, and then I had to, like, talk to her and be like, I know that this is what’s happening. And sometimes you got to eat what your parents are giving you. And it was wild seeing a nine year old like experience cognitive dissonance for the first time. Because she was like, Wait, this is so clear in my mind. The logic of this does not add up, the fairness of this doesn’t add up, and yet, you’re telling me to exist in a world that doesn’t make sense. And I was like, Yeah, welcome. It’s weird out here.

Selley Abebe  18:17  

Welcome to adulting. Yeah, seriously. You know, shifting gears a bit, but to kind of bring back the last points that we were just talking about is, you know, the EPA, for folks listening, the Environmental Protection Agency, which is the United States federal agency really responsible for protecting human health, and you know, the environment through regulations, enforcement and funding. You know, the EPA funding is often a political football, right? And sometimes, some years it’s expanding, other years it’s being cut. Recently, EPA funding has faced deep proposed cuts roughly about 54% overall. These budget cuts really target science and State community programs, which are down about 88% beyond proposals. You know, the administration has really canceled or clawed back about 20 $29 billion in climate and clean energy grants, you know, reducing staff. How do these fluctuations in resources actually show up on the ground. What does this mean for everyday people?

Suzie Hicks  19:24  

To put it really simply, which is my job? Our water is going to get dirtier, our air is going to get dirtier. Disasters are going to be more harmful to communities, and there’s going to be less resilience overall. It stinks, because it’s stuff we don’t think about a lot, where it’s like, Oh, of course, I’m breathing cleaner, of course, like, there’s not going to be poop in my water, of course, that the food that I’m eating is healthy and has nutrients. And those are the things that are are being targeted. Where it’s like, companies the regulations that stop companies from polluting. Thing are being rolled back, and we don’t see that on a day to day basis, so we think it’s fine. But with these proposed cuts, and with the lack of staffing to monitor these things and the lack of staffing to prevent these things, big companies basically have a free pass to do whatever they want. And again, with the kind of we are nature. We are connected to nature. Anything you do to water, you do to humans. Anything you do to air, you do to humans. And so it becomes less of even just like, Oh no, the birds, we’re gonna have to wash them off with Dawn soap to I’m gonna get cancer in 20 years because of this. And if anyone is interested in storytelling about that, the movie. Erin Brockovich.

Selley Abebe  20:44  

I was just thinking that I just love that movie. Oh, my gosh, incredible. It’s such a good movie. It’s such a good movie. Julia Roberts, right? Yes, it’s your 25th

Suzie Hicks  20:53  

anniversary right now. So the climate Film Festival did a re screening of it. Oh, it does a great job of being like, here’s how, you know, opaque regulations for big companies that are behind chain link fences seep into communities. So that’s kind of what’s happening right now, and they’re also firing anyone who would call them on it right now. So it’s, it’s big companies have a free pass to do whatever they want to the air and water, and we have to reap the, you know, consequences of that.

Selley Abebe  21:21  

On this point a little bit, there are always, like, new issues that kind of emerge for a variety of different factors. And so in my mind, now I’m thinking of like, AI, yeah, there’s a lot of conversation around that. And you know, when we hear conversations around its carbon footprint, massive energy use for data centers, but it’s also being framed as a key tool for climate solutions. And so again, sometimes it’s hard to make sense of how to navigate things and how to process them. You know, how might this fundamentally change the way we think about energy systems and even climate policy design over the next few decades?

Suzie Hicks  22:00  

That’s a really fantastic question. And I think that the introduction of AI is, for me, is very similar to the plastics industry, where they are like, here’s this massive solution, and we are putting it 100% on the consumers to figure out how to be like, quote, environmentally friendly about it, which is not how that should work. They should be figuring it out on the systemic level of how to make this more sustainable. But it’s really convenient to say, hey, you human being who doesn’t know how this thing is made or what systems go into processing this, you should be the one that is making the decision about this, because it takes the accountability away from the major companies and the people processing it, and it turns us against each other. It pits us against each other. Of saying, Oh, my God, you use chatgpt for that, how dare you. And again, the narrative of environmentalists being weird Debbie downers comes back. And so with AI, what I am interested in, and again, I’m not the authority on all environmentalists. I am the authority on me as a climate educator trying to help kids understand. The thing that I really talk about is that AI uses only clean water, which is a fraction of a fraction of the water we have on the planet, because in order to run the water through the cooling systems, it has to be clean, and so it’s taking our drinking water, and we already don’t have enough water to drink. And so personally, I’m not a big user of AI. I understand its necessity like I understand the necessity of plastic for the medical industry. Do I think this is a new gold rush where people are just rushing at it because they see profit, and that’s going to cause immense amount of harm?

Selley Abebe  23:50  

Absolutely. Wait. Go back. Why is AI using clean water?

Suzie Hicks  23:54  

In order to cool the systems, the monitors of the AI, because they’re using so much energy that it’s just heating up and heating up and heating up. They use water to cool it down so it doesn’t overheat. Okay, I may be getting this wrong, so if you need to fact check me, please do. No, no, there’s a little bit of game of telephone, but they have to just kind of like, continually pass it through so there can’t be any mold, there can’t be any bacteria. It has to be like, immaculately clean water, or else there’s going to be some kind of bad thing happening. And so they have to use drinking water, quality water. So when we see Memphis being like, oh my god, we don’t have drinking water because of this giant AI facility, they’re not being dramatic. They’re not being facetious, like it’s literally taking their drinking water away to have a middle schooler ask what’s unique about her for a school project.

Selley Abebe  24:45  

So fascinating, I did not know that. 

Suzie Hicks  24:49  

Yeah, it’s wild and but we’ve seen this before, like with the industrial revolution, oil and fossil fuels became this thing that people were like, Oh, my God, it’s a cat. Cash cow. We need to take it out as much as possible, and we need to make everyone reliant on it. With the gold rush, we saw California completely change. We’re called the Golden State because of this gold rush that decimated indigenous communities, that caused basically a genocide. And that now is, you know, gold is the standard of economics, once people realize that something is a cash cow, like plastics, they need to make sure it is completely necessary for people to function so they can keep making money, and they try to pit us against each other, rather than looking up at the people that are producing it. 

Selley Abebe  25:38  

Wow. You know, sorry, taking on big topics like this, and inviting children into this conversation isn’t easy. How do you navigate the thin line between education on the severity of this and the solutions? And I know you talked about this earlier in our conversation, but like, how do you navigate that?

Suzie Hicks  25:59  

The short answer is stories. We tell stories, and we have told stories for generations and generations and generations. So for specifically, AI, something that I’m working on right now, a project that I’ve been in development for, is a bunch of magical climate activists go to summer camp, and then an AI facility is on the same lake as them and is working on their aquifer for this camp that they love. And so really it’s it’s talking to kids through character of like, these kids are scared and they’re being brave and they’re fighting to protect what they love, and they’re building relationships, and there’s drama and there’s heartbreak. And through all of this, you are able to see that it’s possible to band together and to create a better future. So navigating through fiction is easy, because you can be like and they all lived happily ever after the end. But navigating through nonfiction, I think, is equally as important, because you see someone in real life, in the real systems that we’re working in succeed like there’s a girl named Nayeli Kobo in Los Angeles that when she was nine, worked to shut down a gas facility that was poisoning her neighborhood when she was nine. So the thing that I do is I really focus on solutions and role models, because there is enough content out there about how bad it is. I’m not adding anything by saying how bad it is, and kids are going to be exposed to that by experiencing it firsthand, seeing it on the news and seeing other forms of kids media that are talking about how bad it is. That’s not my role as an educator. My role is to say, yes, we have this really big problem. It’s really bad. Here’s what we’re going to do about it, and here’s how you can get involved.

Selley Abebe  27:46  

I love that. You know, sometimes it can feel like we’re fighting a five alarm fire with a garden hose. And so, you know, when we really do start to talk about climate solutions for parents and families who want to do more around this issue, what are some real steps that they can take?

Suzie Hicks  28:03  

I recently was on like, a very credible website of being like, climate change information, and then it was like, What can we do to fight climate change? And I actually have a screenshot of it on my laptop, because it makes me laugh every time. Because I’m like, Are you kidding me? It’s like, what you could do to fight climate change is reduce, reuse and recycle. And I’m like somebody, let me edit that website, please. What I am really interested in is getting families connected to their communities, because every community has a role model that’s doing something. And so for me, something that we’ve done is we create these sprouting Bright Futures festivals where we identify every climate role model in an area, and then we bring kids and families in to meet them, because I don’t know what’s up in rural Arkansas and how climate change is affecting them, and who’s fighting it, and what like utility they have, but there’s this really great phrase that says, Think globally, act locally. So we are thinking globally, but we don’t have to act globally. So another example is my dad lives in New Jersey. He’s retired, and he is working really hard to get a community solar project in our hometown, which is when a bunch of people buy in to solar power, so that they all have, like buyer owned solar that they can use in their homes. Is that changing the entire grid of the United States? No, is it changing the grid of my hometown? Yes, if one person in each town spearheads a project like this, we are transitioning to renewable energy. And so it’s, again, it’s looking up to say, hey, it’s actually not okay that you guys do this and putting that pressure on them and boycotting and protesting and doing whatever you’re comfortable with, to say, I will not stand for this. I’ll cancel my Disney subscription, XYZ. But also, then on the grassroots level, saying. I’m going to look into my local utility. For folks in Los Angeles, you can opt into 100% renewable energy with La DWP, and it’s about $6 more a month. So my roommates and I, all of the power in our apartment comes from renewable energy, and it was literally so easy to just be like, bonk, renewable energy and Santa Monica, the city next to us, is already 100% powered by renewable energy, but that came from years and years of people working and fighting and thinking that it wasn’t going to do anything. So the short answer of all of this is to connect with your local community. Connect with the people that are trying to change the utilities, connect with the people that are trying to do waste reduction and waste streams, and learned how to plant plants with people at your local library or the local nursery, because they know what native plants are in your area, how to do drought resistant planting, landscaping, all of that. So it’s like, fight the big guys in whatever way you can through your wallet, through your voices, through your letter writing, through your postcards, however you want to engage in that, figure out how to make your world as sustainable as possible and make friends, because friends and neighbors are what is going to get us through these crises. These are the people we call in emergencies. These are the people that are going to take care of us, and who we are going to take care of. I always say, as climate change gets worse, we’re going to need other people more, and so my big philosophy is connecting with other people as a climate solution.

Selley Abebe  31:32  

Wow, that was a lot of really practical and sound advice. Thank you. One thing I just wanted to follow up and ask is, if somebody wants to get tapped in, did you say it was sprouts festivals?

Suzie Hicks  31:44  

Yeah, sprouting Bright Futures festivals, then, like, someone can just go to the website and if there’s a chapter in their state or in their city. So it’s something that we just created. Oh, okay, we’ve done it in Los Angeles, and we have another one planned in Palo Alto. But similar to what you’re saying, There are chapters of environmental organizations all over the country. Some that I love are the Climate Reality Project, which has chapters at local meetings, and those are the people who are going to know what’s going on. So you can get trained on climate science. That’s what I did when I was first starting my career in 2019 I went to Minneapolis and got trained by Al Gore to talk about climate change, and it’s free. You could go for free. And then there’s local chapters that have meetings. I would also say the Sierra Club is a great place to get started. I love the Sierra Club local chapter. They’re doing amazing fire resilience here in LA. But also my aunt and uncle met on a Sierra Club hike, and that’s how they fell in love. So again, it’s like, yes, it’s the cause and everything, but it’s also humanity, like my aunt and uncle fell in love because they were on a Sierra Club hike, building community. So I would say the Climate Reality Project, the Sierra Club and for young people, the sunrise movement is amazing. That’s how I’ve done a lot of my activism and a lot of my storytelling work. So those are some, just some places to start. And then once you get connected to those folks, they can connect you to other folks. If you’re specifically interested in water or you’re specifically interested in plants, there’s this whole wonderful ecosystem of climate resilience that you can tap into and also make a ton of friends along the way. I love

Selley Abebe  33:19  

your excitement. I’m thrilled. Yeah, you know, with so much misinformation out there, what gives you hope right now, where are you seeing families, scientists and communities come together in ways that matter? I know that you just, you know, listed off a lot of different options and opportunities, and so if it’s that, then that’s you know. But what are some ways that you’ve seen folks combat some of this misinformation.

Suzie Hicks  33:44  

I have been working at the local PBS station since I was 22 and I still work there. And so as much as public media is under threat, the work continues. Public media organizations, libraries, specifically, are incredible climate resilience hubs and are keepers of information. And so even though we’re getting less money, even though it’s harder, even though we’re getting put on lists like nobody is quitting, and we’re going to keep going to make sure that people have accurate information. So places that I love that do really great vetting of information are PBS, NPR libraries are really fantastic places. And then Common Sense Media is an organization that views rates accuracy, fact checks. They are a great kind of gatekeeper of content to say if the things that are being communicated are real and are credible. So there are folks doing really good work around this. And you know, even though I’m on YouTube, which is kind of a cesspool of misinformation, we are doing the same thing that PBS did in the 70s, where they were like, wow, TV is a garbage heap. Let’s. To sell children the alphabet instead of selling them candy. And let’s make it really high quality programming. So I’m doing that in my own way of going onto YouTube and being like, here’s really high quality fact check information about climate to combat this weird AI video that says that climate change doesn’t exist.

Selley Abebe  35:19  

And on that note. You know, we have speaking of kids playlist. You know, we ask all of our guests, what’s the one song or one album that really lifts you up and keeps you going?

Suzie Hicks  35:29  

I love this question. There’s a really fantastic song called it’s a good day to fight the system. And the song starts with, it’s like, I woke up feeling great. The birds are in the trees, and then it’s like it’s a good day to fight the system so joyful resistance.

Selley Abebe  35:50  

I love that song, and I love your rendition of it like that. I’m fighting for my life, but nobody’s right now. No, it was, it was tight. Susie, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for being here. This was great.

Suzie Hicks  36:02  

Thank you so much for having me.

Selley Abebe  36:04  

Listening to Suzie, I kept thinking about how often we underestimate kids, and how much lighter the world might feel if we learn to talk about hard things the way they do, honestly, hopefully, without pretending. It’s all fine, but that’s what real resilience looks like it’s not about denying the fear. It’s about finding community and courage inside of it. If today’s episode got you thinking about how we talk to our kids about the planet we share, send this to a friend. Speaking of Kids, is a podcast by First Focus on Children. It’s produced by wind Haven productions and blue jay Atlantic. Elizabeth Windom is the supervising producer. Julia Windom is the editor. Jay Woodward is the Senior Producer. For more information about this episode, visit first focus.org.