174 - Stuart Gibbs

FINALLY an episode of the Cultures of Energy podcast that is for once totally wholesome and family-friendly and appropriate to listen to with your kids! Cymene and Dominic share their own thoughts about talking to children about climate change. And then (13:51) we welcome an author that will be well known (especially to listeners aged 8-12 and their families), Stuart Gibbs, the author of the very popular FunJungle, Spy School and Moonbase Alpha middle grade series. Stuart has thematized both climate change and animal conservation in his books and we talk to him about how readers have responded to those interventions, about his writing process in general, and why he thinks it’s important for adults to talk to children honestly about our environmental challenges. If you happen to be in the Houston area on April 30th, please check out Stuart’s reading at the Blue Willow Bookstore, deets here: https://www.bluewillowbookshop.com/event/stu-gibbs-0

PS And, as promised, here are some solid online resources for teaching especially younger kids about climate change and climate action: http://climatechangeconnection.org/resources/climate-friendly-schools/resources-for-schools/; https://www.commonsense.org/education/articles/4-free-tools-to-teach-about-climate-change; https://www.earthguardians.org/50simplethings/; https://thinkprogress.org/how-to-talk-to-a-5-year-old-about-climate-change-ef8ec30b1bd1/