by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer

“Upwards of 89 percent of people say they want to see more action from governments on climate issues,” said Katherine Wilkinson in talking about her new book “Climate Wayfinding.” “But a very small percentage of people have actually stepped up to take action.” Wilkinson made it her mission to change that. If cringing at the thought of another book with a save-the-planet “to-do-list,” shutter those expectations. This is not a book with a list of solutions. Beautifully and provocatively written, “Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home” is a book about the missing ingredient.

At 16, on an outing in the Pisgah Forest, N.C., Wilkinson wrote in her journal, “I want to help the world. Be connected with the earth.” When she started college at Sewanee, instead of majoring in environmental studies as might be expected, Wilkinson’s focus of study was Religion. “You got to ask the big questions about how slippery dynamics like values, belief, and the stories we tell have an enormous impact on our life,” she said reminiscing about her younger self. Post college Wilkinson worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council on a project focusing on native forests in the Cumberland Plateau. She also became involved with a newly formed nonprofit, the Evangelical Climate Initiative, firing her personal interest in public engagement in climate concerns and the role of political will. The big questions drove her to pursue a Ph.D. at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. “My Ph.D. research was a mash up of public discourse, American religion, politics and culture,” Wilkinson confessed. Her first book “God and Green” followed, pushing her to the brink of an epiphany as a “climate person” —” I didn’t want to sit on the sidelines in an ivory tower and analyze other people shaping public narrative about climate and creating conditions for change. I wanted to be doing it.”

In 2016 Wilkinson joined project Drawdown, a nonprofit doing ground-breaking research on climate solutions, what she describes as “possibility grounded in real data.” She served as a lead writer for the subsequent book, “Drawdown.” But Wilkinson increasingly became aware something was wrong. “The existence of clear climate solutions was not the core problem,” she insists. “There was a leadership crisis at the heart of the climate crisis.” That awareness launched Wilkinson on a new path.

Frustrated by the role gender dynamics played in the climate dialogue and women’s leadership not being amplified enough, Wilkinson brought those voices to the table with the critically acclaimed “All We Can Save,” a collection of narratives by women climate leaders. The energy generated by the book gave birth to the All We Can Save Project, a nonprofit climate wayfinding program grounded in experiential learning. The 100 facilitators trained to guide the learning process “barely scratches the surface” of the need, Wilkinson said. The book “Climate Wayfinding,” brings access to the program onto the page for the solo reader.

Wilkinson is quick to point out the shortcomings of the “to-do list” approach to climate solutions, such as buying an electric car and eating more veggies. “The key to climate wayfinding is navigation as much as action,” she stressed. What is missing from following a to-do list is what Wilkinson calls “deep courageous climate engagement.” “What that means is different for different people and what you do in life,” she observed. Wilkinson’s best hope is that “people step up and bring their best self to the work, their gifts and talents.” Citing the book “The Artists Way” which guides her climate wayfinding strategy, Wilkinson drives home the point, “Everyone has a creative life that’s worth tending and things to offer.” What Wilkinson wants is for each of us to be a “node of possibility” and bring our creative self to the table.

Wilkerson argues the world needs a different narrative. “The new story is really the old story,” she said. “We’re not separate from the rest of life. We’re impacted by, interwoven with, and connected to all of life.” She attributes “disconnection” to the narrative of “hierarchy running roughshod over life and controlling outcomes.”

“Just about everything we care about connects to climate accelerators in some way,” Wilkinson stressed. “The primary drivers of violence in the world are related to who controls the resources. The myths of disconnectedness and hierarchy and race propose some life matters and some does not.”

For Wilkinson, climate wayfinding is about “honoring the self as a node of possibility by nature connected to all the other nodes of possibility,” a return to the narrative about “the sacredness of life and role of the human species as generous and generative.”

Bringing climate wayfinding down to the grassroots level, Wilkinson suggested for a server at Waffle House creative climate wayfinding might be pointing out to her boss customers had been asking for menu choices with plant-based protein. What Wilkinson wants that server to know is, “You are needed. You have a place in the conversation by being human.”