My introduction to climate work started with a pretty eye-opening discovery in my middle school cafeteria. As part of our sixth-grade service learning project, my classmates and I had to identify a problem impacting our public school and come up with a solution. My team and I figured we’d tackle something environmental — we had just learned about “global warming” courtesy of Bill Nye the Science Guy and “reduce, reuse, recycle” was all the rage.
As we did our research, looking around our school for environmental issues and talking with students, staff, and teachers, we came across something bigger than we expected. We learned that our school cafeteria was throwing away hundreds of pounds of food scraps every day, all heading straight to the landfill, a huge driver of climate change.
So we decided to start a school composting program. We worked with the janitorial staff and our principal to figure out where to put it, what kind of composting setup to use, how to actually collect food scraps after each lunch period, and keep the whole thing running. We created a video to help recruit our peers, explaining why food waste was an issue, how composting could help, and how they could get involved. For a couple of months, everything was going great — until the school year ended and the program died with it.
That taught us the hard way that having a good idea is only the first step; you also need a plan to keep it going.
Looking back, I was already using a lot of skills that are crucial for climate policy advocacy: working with teams, figuring out what the science tells us and the community needs, getting decision-makers on board, thinking creatively, and pushing for solutions. But I also learned that lasting change needs more than just good intentions — it needs systems and ongoing support.
As I start my new role as Community Energy Resilience Policy Manager at The Climate Center, I’m excited to build on those early lessons with the policy experience I’ve picked up in graduate school. While that composting program might not have lasted, that experience ignited my passion for climate work and remains a crucial milestone in my journey to becoming a climate policy advocate.
