Why Cramming for the Apocalypse?

The title of Elizabeth’s newsletter captures both urgency and irony. She explains that the word apocalypse doesn’t mean the end of the entire world. Instead, it refers to the localized collapses that many communities have already experienced: from Gaza, to Indigenous peoples facing centuries of displacement, to neighborhoods destroyed by wildfires or floods.

For Elizabeth, “cramming” reflects the urgent need to prepare, even if imperfectly. Much like cramming for a test, we may not feel ready for climate disruption, but we must start learning skills and building resilience now.

Climate Grief and Acceptance

A key theme in this episode is climate grief—the sadness, anger, and anxiety that come with living in a world altered by climate change. For Elizabeth, acknowledging grief is the first step toward resilience.

“The more prepared you get, the more you realize you can be resilient. We are incredibly adaptable as humans.”

Rather than being paralyzed by doom, Elizabeth encourages listeners to move toward acceptance. Climate change is already happening. The question is not whether we can stop it entirely, but how we adapt, prepare, and care for one another in the face of it.

Preparedness as Social Responsibility

Preparedness often conjures images of doomsday preppers, but Elizabeth redefines it as a form of social responsibility. By having basic supplies, go-bags, or water storage, individuals not only protect themselves but also reduce the burden on already-stretched emergency services.

Preparedness can look like:

• Storing food and water for a few days of disruption.
• Learning first aid or fire safety.
• Knowing evacuation routes.
• Building local support networks with neighbors.

By preparing, individuals create space to help others, rather than competing for scarce resources in crisis.

Skills as Empowerment

Elizabeth emphasizes that learning practical skills is a path to empowerment. From foraging to fire safety to basic carpentry, skills connect us to nature and give us agency in uncertain times. They also replace despair with action.

She points to Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s Climate Venn Diagram, which helps individuals identify where their skills, passions, and the needs of the world intersect. That intersection becomes a personal climate action plan—proof that no one must do everything, but everyone can do something.

Fire, Forests, and Rethinking Solutions

Drawing on her experiences in the Pacific Northwest, Elizabeth explores the complex role of wildfire in ecosystems. While fire often inspires fear, she notes that Indigenous communities historically used controlled burns to maintain forest health. Decades of suppression policies, driven by elites and policymakers rather than practitioners, created fuel buildups that now fuel catastrophic megafires.

The lesson: not all fire is bad. Sustainable fire management, including prescribed burns, is an essential part of climate adaptation.

Finding Balance: Rest and Community

One of Elizabeth’s most powerful insights is that resilience is not just about constant action—it’s also about rest and community. Climate grief can overwhelm individuals exposed to constant doomscrolling. Her advice:

• Step back from headlines when needed.
• Spend time in nature—literally “touch grass.”
• Join support groups like climate cafés or the Good Grief Network.
• Embrace rest as a form of resistance, echoing the ethos of The Nap Ministry.

“We can’t save the world if we burn out. Rest is part of the work.”

Climate Justice and Urban Equity

Elizabeth connects climate preparedness to broader issues of climate justice and equity. Through her co-authored book Roads for People, she explored how transportation and urban planning intersect with racial and environmental justice. In Portland, for example, the construction of light rail hubs displaced Black and Brown communities, making neighborhoods unaffordable while branding the city as “green.”

She calls for climate solutions that prioritize vulnerable communities—ensuring that parks, green infrastructure, and resilience projects are built not only in wealthy neighborhoods but also in areas most impacted by heat islands, pollution, and displacement.

Lessons for Climate Communicators

As both a writer and strategist, Elizabeth stresses the importance of storytelling in climate communication. Facts alone rarely inspire change. What moves people is narrative: the human stories of loss, adaptation, and resilience.

She frames writing as puzzle-solving: taking complex, overwhelming climate science and piecing it together into a narrative that readers can understand and act upon. In this way, writing itself becomes a resilience tool.