We want to change environmental news coverage and inspire action.

Earth Hope aims to inspire action by highlighting environmental success stories. We believe hope is the foundation of progress, while fear leads to paralysis. We also hope to change how others write their stories, influencing more focus on solutions.

We’re not here to peddle positivity. But rather than whining, complaining, grieving and using fear-mongering to sell headlines, we’re here to talk about what’s working to save this planet. Each one of our stories holds a solution that anyone can seize on and enact or support in their own communities.

Solutions. Solutions. Solutions.

Earth Hope is an experiment in solutions-based journalism. Humanity holds all the solutions to today’s environmental problems. They fall into these basic categories:

• Great policies (laws like the U.S. Endangered Species Act or incentives like tax breaks for solar)

• Supportive communities (often devoting a lot of volunteer hours)

• Passionate individuals

• Well-directed money (ie, investment in restoration, refuges, technology, conservation or incentives)

• Effective lawsuits

You’ll notice that we leave most of the climate reporting to the big wigs. Rather, we pick out individual success stories on a wide variety of topics. These are the stories that speak to everyday people, that prove that a lot of small action adds up to big results.

This newsletter is for everyone of all stripes.

About me:
I’m Amanda Royal, a former newspaper reporter who covered wildfires, invasive species, water quality, wildlife and other environmental topics in California and Nevada (writing under the byline Amanda Fehd.) I started fiddling around with this idea on WordPress in 2023. I launched on Substack in July, 2024.

Why Earth Hope?

The inspiration for this project came from a small book I picked up in an old barn near the sea. The Death and Life of Monterey Bay: A Story of Revival by Dr. Stephen R Palumbi, PhD, and Carolyn Sotka, M.A., recounts the recovery of a bay that was once on the brink of ecological collapse, devoid of sea life, overfished and polluted by fish processing waste. Southern sea otters were believed extinct. Yet one woman did not give up. Julia Platt, the mayor of the tiny town of Pacific Grove (a haunt of John Steinbeck and his friends) set aside a mere 11 acres for an underwater wildlife refuge where no one could harvest invertebrates like sea slugs and abalone. Decades later, this move would prove instrumental to the rebound of the Southern sea otter, whose favorite food is abalone. Southern sea otters now number 3,000.

This project is a call to action. As we wrote in our inaugural Substack post, “Claim your square of this planet,” one small refuge and just one person’s advocacy can make it or break it for a species, sometimes generations later.

Millions of people are saving the planet in this way. Collectively, we can do this.

Our stories will always be free. By supporting Earth Hope, you support a new way to report and spread environmental news. Please help us grow by liking, sharing, recommending, commenting or becoming a paid subscriber.

Join the crew!

Scientists know the fear-mongering isn’t working.

Sage Journal writes in “Communicating the Biodiversity Crisis: From “Warnings” to Positive Engagement” that positive communication is being used by a growing movement of conservation organizations:

Effective communication can play a vital role in societal transformations towards sustainability and biodiversity restoration. … If not carefully navigated, messages around environmental degradation can lead to audience disengagement and issue fatigue, at a time when motivation, engagement and positive action is required.

To learn more about the tech platform that powers this publication, visit Substack.com.