“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. Nature is an endless source of inspiration.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hello, readers—and welcome to a new year. As some of you might recall, I don’t personally subscribe to resolutions. That said, I do have an annual practice which I’d like to invite you into. Every January, I choose a word for the year. This can be an intention that you aspire to live into, a theme you’d like to embody, or a lens through which you would like to see your year. After some soul searching over our winter pause, I’ve settled on my word for 2025: inspiration.

The word inspiration is derived from the Latin “inspirare” which means to breathe into. Its roots can be traced back to the 14th century, when it originally referred to divine influence—a higher power breathing ingenuity into a human being. It should come as little surprise that for me, that higher power is nature. Turning to her, whether through the ritual of writing this newsletter or simply spending time outside, always feels like a metaphoric breath of fresh air.

On a personal level, this looks like: more time in nature, less noise, reading more books that envision the future we want and how to get there, and more studying biology for inspiration on adaptation. In addition to this being my personal word, it’s also one I’m holding for Atmos as a whole. It speaks to the core of our mission: we want to inspire positive transformation, uplift solutions, and illuminate the creativity of nature—which includes human beings.

Put simply, we need more inspiration in our lives: more visioning other ways of being and, just as crucially, implementing them. As a culture, we often fall into the trap of focusing only on what’s wrong, rather than what’s right and how we get there. And I don’t want to minimize the importance of calling out what’s wrong; we must. But we also can’t get stuck in it. Blaming everything on capitalism isn’t going to get us out of a society driven solely by profit; imagining alternatives will. 

The narrative of climate change is a perfect example of what I’m talking about here. Mainstream news coverage, when it does deign to mention climate change, is often focused only on disasters (trauma sells). As a result, many people feel hopeless in relation to this crisis. In fact, the most common response I get when I tell people that I work in climate storytelling is “Oh, that must be so depressing.” And that’s true sometimes. But the reality is, often I find the opposite to be true. 

The more time you spend educating yourself on climate change the more you understand two things: Things are really bad, and we already have the solutions to adapt before things get worse. The world does not have to look like this. We are being held hostage by the fossil fuel industry and its chokehold on our politics and our planet. We need a green transition now. In the U.S., we face a challenge with this incoming administration. All the more reason for us to get to work, arm ourselves with knowledge, and focus on what we can do with the pieces on the board.

Inspiration is my promise to both myself and you this year. At Atmos, we’ll be more focused than ever on solutions, adaptation, creativity, and the marvelous wonders of our planet that we can all learn from. Life is oriented toward life and we are not exempt from that. Nature is resilient and inspiration is all around us, when we pay attention. So take a breath. And let’s begin.