Natalie Wilkinson

Hey,

My name is Natalie, but you can call me Jo. I am a storyteller, earth lover, a caretaker of rescues, and an educator.

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Like many of my generation, I have felt the issues of climate change as a threat to everything I love about this planet. However, even with all the existential angst from the doomsday predictions, I occasionally come across rays of hope—people and events that hold promise for a better future.

 

In focusing more on hope than doom, I believe it's possible to alter the course of our collective future on this planet and, at the very least, to aid in bettering our mental health to cope and deal with the changes that are to come.

 

In 2022 I graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a Master of Arts in American History with a focus on Environmental History. At university, I worked as a teaching assistant and research assistant. My thesis was about the colonization of Yosemite National Park with themes of environmental history, colonial studies, native history, and the relationship between man and nature.  In my studies, I found it interesting how detached our culture has become from our environment, with most people of the opinion that humans can have no positive impact on their natural surroundings and that all past attempts have failed.  Perhaps this is a mindset that needs to change. Since then, I have been tutoring online, teaching reading and writing to K-12 students through my business Lit Tutors. Additionaly, I have been working with Environmental History Now, publishing articles and their first podcast. Currently, I am spearheading a virtual round to facilitate a meaningful discussion that connects student campus protests to larger global issues like climate change, social justice, and youth political engagement.

 

Everything I write serves one purpose: to foster a collective of hope. I do not write alone, for there are many like me who will agree that there is so much that can still be done and so much we can offer.