{"id":29127,"date":"2020-03-08T00:54:37","date_gmt":"2020-03-07T23:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/?p=29127"},"modified":"2020-03-11T17:50:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-11T16:50:00","slug":"what-i-learned-from-the-women-fighting-to-save-our-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/story\/29127\/what-i-learned-from-the-women-fighting-to-save-our-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"What I learned from the women fighting to save our planet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Climate activism isn\u2019t as fun as it used to be. <\/p>\n\n

I remember the first time I striked–revving up the crowd was fun, and so was chanting for climate justice with a group of strangers. But long gone are those days. Climate Strike Thailand, the group I launched, grew bigger and it seemed like it was finally making the difference I had hoped for. But creating change meant fixing a problem, and fixing a problem meant facing the complexities of environmental policy and political drama.<\/p>\n\n

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\u00a9 Nanticha Ocharoenchai<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Change also came with the stress of meeting with volunteers, media interviews, events and  managing social media platforms. Besides the physical tasks needed done, I also had to mentally cope with the incredibly depressing mornings of waking up to the fear of dying from climate change, and horrifying nights of also waking up to anxiety attacks of feeling too powerless and exhausted to stop the crisis.<\/p>\n\n

On many of those nights, I wondered if other people ever felt the same way. I remember thinking about Kotchakorn Voraakhom, a landscape architect whose firm I write for, and wondering if she ever felt hopeless. Kotchakorn and her team work extensively on climate impacts on sinking cities–she was among the \u201c15 women leading the fight against climate change<\/a>\u201d on TIME Magazine–focused on designing infrastructure which adds green space to Bangkok and other delta cities across Southeast Asia. I wondered if knowing too much about the problem and trying too hard to solve it had ever killed her optimistic vision of the future, the same way it did to mine.<\/p>\n\n

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\u00a9 Nanticha Ocharoenchai<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

The answer was pretty obvious–yes, very much so and you could see it on her face almost every time you\u2019d meet her. But did that mean she ever wanted to give up? Not really. Sure, problem-solving is difficult, but besides that, what else is there to do?<\/p>\n\n

Problems can be fun to solve, too–at least that\u2019s what my mom believes. As a businesswoman, her days are comprised of problem-solving, which was fun for her. Growing up, I was also taught to be productive and resourceful, to be able to turn any disaster into an opportunity and transform any adversity into an asset.<\/p>\n\n

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\u00a9 Nanticha Ocharoenchai<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Either the mentality grew on me, or it was always there. On many nights, I\u2019d fall asleep on the idea of bailing on our planet–but the next morning, I\u2019d always wake up feeling unable to turn a blind eye on a problem I\u2019m fully aware of. I wasn\u2019t sure what to do with that love-hate relationship with climate activism. It was hard to give up in spite of all the challenges, because there was always a bleak sense of hope that maybe I could actually create change. It was even harder to sit still and watch the world burn, when you knew where the water might be.<\/p>\n\n

Like the mistakes my mom turned into lessons, I began turning the climate activism work I began to hate into something I enjoyed learning about with a small team with people I love. Now back on track, I am exploring how to combine storytelling–a passion strayed from during my first months of climate activism–and climate advocacy together to create emotionally-captivating narratives sharing the voices that deserved to be heard through writing, film and photography. <\/p>\n\n

\"\u00a9<\/figure>\n\n

 Like everything else in life–as I\u2019ve learned from the women in my life–climate activism has its lows, and you just have to learn how to get back up. Regardless of whether it works or not, you at least try. Looking back on the work I\u2019ve achieved so far, I\u2019ve not only learned ways to carry forth my mission, but also to give myself enough credit for it, so that I can inspire myself just as much as the women in my life have.<\/p>\n\n

Nanticha Ocharoenchai, 22, is an environmental writer and climate activist of Climate Strike Thailand<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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