Editor's Note: This story is part of our series, Sacred Earth which examines the intersection between climate change — and faith, worldview, philosophy, psychology, and the creative arts. This series is sponsored by the Fetzer Institute.

Are the children paying attention? Do they see the climate changing around them? Do they care? 

These are questions that had Lydia Wylie-Kellermann wondering — to the degree that she soon found herself writing a book. "This Sweet Earth: Walking with our Children in the Age of Climate Collapse," published by Broadleaf Books in 2024, has quickly captured the attention of both young and older readers. 

Turning to her own two children with these questions, Wylie-Kellermann received a firm response from her eldest son, Isaac, age 11. 

“I am both hopeful and scared,” Isaac says. “It just seems like the end. It’s important. It is leading to the end of humanity. We must help the world heal itself.”

Wylie-Kellermann is a writer, editor, and activist. She is the executive director of Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center in Bangor, Pennsylvania. She is also the editor of "The Sandbox Revolution: Raising Kids for a Just World" and has contributed to other books and publications. When she took on this sensitive and sometimes controversial topic and began writing "This Sweet Earth," however, Wylie-Kellermann nearly tossed the project. 

“I think that is part of the process of writing for most people,” she laughs. “There are moments of why am I doing this? Is this just for me or is this useful for a larger community? There was this moment of thinking, ah, I should just let this go. Luckily, I had someone who read it, just a piece of it, and said, no, you need to write this book — and I’m so glad that I did.”

Wylie-Kellermann says she wrote the book from the perspective of a parent, thinking it would be most useful to young parents, yet she has discovered the book has engaged all generations. 

“We need to think of family as wide as our imaginations can stretch,” she says. “All of us are wrapped up in intergenerational relationships and love kids in one way or another and worry for their futures. It starts with this sense of anxiety and grief, naming that, and I hope [the book becomes] company so that we know we are not alone and that we need more collective spaces to hold these feelings. It wrestles with what a lot of folks are trying to decide if we can even have kids at this moment. What does it mean to hold that question?”

Zinta AistarsJoanna Parzakonis, this is a bookstore/Bookbug store owner, introduces author Lydia Wylie-Kellermen.From anxiety and grief, "This Sweet Earth" moves on to embrace a sense of hope. The author offers suggestions and advice on how we can talk to our children about climate and how we can teach them to care about the earth. She encourages speaking openly and honestly to children because they are not easily fooled when adults sugarcoat what is happening around us. Take them out into nature to nourish relationships with the world around them, she says. Teach them the names of plants and animals. 

Wylie-Kellermann paraphrases a quote from Baba Dioum, a Senegalese environmentalist: “You can’t save a place you don’t love. You can’t love a place you don’t know. And you can’t know a place you haven’t learned.”

“I love that,” she says. “To think of some of the most radical work we can do is to help our children learn the ecosystem where they are. That learning of a place becomes knowing, and knowing becomes loving. Once you love a place, you can’t not put your body in the way when you see harm coming. That means learning the names of birds that come into our backyard, learning the names of insects and trees and plants. That feels so simple. We can do that!”

Zinta AistarsLydia Wylie-Kellermen reads from her book, "This Sweet Earth" at this is a bookstore in Kalamazoo.Over three billion birds have already gone missing since 1970, Wylie-Kellermann warns. With the disappearance of creatures, we are also losing the language to name and describe them, and she encourages us to pay attention, learn those names — and love and protect those creatures remaining. 

At the author’s recent reading and question and answer session at this is a bookstore/Bookbug in Kalamazoo, introduced by store owner, Joanna Parzakonis, Wylie-Kellermann drew an eager and enthusiastic audience representing more older than younger generations. 

“The climate is an emergency,” Parzakonis said. “But that is a word that can make us freeze up and feel paralyzed. The younger generation reminds us to see the beauty around us, to wonder, to be curious. How can we maintain that curiosity? We need to take care of each other and our world.”

The author reminded the audience to nurture hope and joy, even as we see climate crises increase in severity and frequency. 

“Joy is crucial in this moment,” she said. “Joy becomes a matter of survival. My hope for all of us is to feel calmer and braver. Writing this book, in fact, made me feel more hopeful.”

Audience members expressed shared grief and worry. Pamela Rups, a retired instructional graphic designer and coordinator of the Instructional Technology Center at Western Michigan University, joined the audience out of her sense of grief, she says. 

“I have had a dark outlook on what is happening around us,” she admitted. “I’ve been dealing with grief and a sense of loss — so much loss of biodiversity. Even though I have no children, I needed this book to show me a way through this, how we can help each other with love and hope.”

Zinta AistarsThis Sweet Earth"Transforming her own front lawn into an area of native wild plants rather than grass has been one of Rups’ ways of making a difference. Volunteering at the Kalamazoo Nature Center has been another. 

Other audience members contributed their similar concerns and experiences: 

“I’m a grandmother of two. I worry about my grandchildren being outside to play. It is so bizarre to have to worry about air quality.”

“I grew up connected to land and place. My relationship with the environment was how I felt alive. Kids today are more riddled with fear in their experience with the land and the environment around them.”

“I wanted to thank the author. Your book transformed my emotional space in the way that you put it all together so beautifully. We have an incredible opportunity to transfer our focus from consume, consume, consume to HEAL.”

“I’m a teacher. Kids have a lot of anger — I don’t think youth trust that we will hear them. They have a lot of energy for change, and we have to help them.”

“It’s okay to hope. We need to celebrate when we do something right.”

“It’s important to show our kids that we notice.”

“Time spent in recreation is not squandered — that’s a word with a negative connotation. We must re-create our recreation with the restorative time we spend in nature.”

“If someone is struggling with food insecurity, can you spend time on climate change? Is that something rooted in privilege? We get stuck in trying to do everything on our own as our society has made depending on each other a weakness.”

To that, Wylie-Kellermann offered advice. “Food insecurity and climate crisis are connected,” she said. “All our struggles are connected. We need to learn how to barter, borrow, and depend on each other again. We can’t be so individualistic anymore. We have to shift that kind of thinking.”

Zinta AistarsJoanna Parzakonis, this is a bookstore/Bookbug store owner, introduces author Lydia Wylie-Kellermen.At the end of Wylie-Kellermen's book, she offers 100 Practical Ideas that are antidotes to climate despair. Start an indoor garden; go solar; dig up your lawn and plant native plants; plant a tree; dance in the rain; buy a farm share; write your representative; buy local; mend clothes; use the library; and laugh. 

It is just a beginning. Her most important advice is to listen to our youth. This is our present, but it is also their future. They deserve to hear the truth from us — and they deserve to be taken seriously.

She writes: “Somewhere amid the magnitude of it all, there is palpable hope that we really could change everything.”

Editor's Note: Zinta Aistars recently interviewed Lydia Wylie-Kellermann on Art Beat, a weekly radio show on WMUK 102.1 FM.