Happy Birthday Earth Hope!
Celebrating one year on Substack and taking a look back on our top stories. Shameless fundraising plug. Mugs with art on offer.
A year ago today, I published my first article on Substack, titled “Claim your square of this planet,” in which I invited readers to “allow yourself to feel some hope.” I’m thrilled that this message resonates with so many of you.
I came here with no social media following, having been an online recluse for many years. Now, 100,000 words and many hundreds of hours of Substacking later, Earth Hope is turning one year old.
Over the past year, I’ve shared mountains of hopeful news headlines, interviewed conservationists, dabbled in nature writing, and experimented with personal narratives.
Here are a few of the stories that contain my original reporting:
Shameless fundraising plug!🎂🎇🎉🥳🙌
If you want to help grow this message of hope and solutions-based news, please consider signing up as a paid subscriber today for only $20 per year. We reach over 10,000 readers per month now, and that number will double or triple in the next year with your help. Friends: If I’ve ever done you a favor, I’m calling it in now. Many of you know my real birthday is soon. Should you wish to give me a birthday present, here’s a way to show you care. Follow this link to fetch 50 percent off a yearly subscription: HAPPY BIRTHDAY EARTH HOPE!
Will trade art for cash
Readers who support Earth Hope with more than $75 founding membership can select to receive a mug with watercolor art painted by my mother, who has appeared in many of my stories.
So who is Amanda Royal anyway?
I sometimes wonder if the headshot in my profile really communicates who I am. I’m not just someone who writes about the environment. I also spend a lot of time outdoors, whether on foot, bike, skis, or boats.
If you’ve read my posts, you might also know these things about me:
I’m not your typical environmentalist. I want to call myself an eco-pragmatist. Whatever we need to do to get things done, even if it means—cough—compromise, we should do it. The time is now.
I can’t encourage outrage, catastrophism, suing to stop everything, or throwing soup on famous art as climate activism. I do believe we have crises and catastrophes on our hands, but the current ways of communicating and driving action are failing miserably and instead causing disengagement and issue fatigue. I believe in writing about solutions, instead of pretending that nobody is doing anything. How often do we read things like, “We ought to build wildlife crossings” or “We need to make schools greener” instead of what’s really happening: “Here are the hundreds of wildlife crossings we’re building!” or “Here’s how we’re making schools greener!”
I embrace the center, where listening, conversation, and compromise lead to progress.
After my journalism days, I spent five years as the spokesperson for a prominent and highly litigious environmental group in California. In this role, we, like other environmental watchdogs that use the legal system as a cudgel, faced criticism that we stopped a lot of bad things from happening but didn’t create good things. I thought it was a fair criticism. From this experience, I know that fearmongering and hyperbole are very easy to write. Environmental groups hire wordsmiths like me to scare the sh*t out of people and raise money. Simple as that. It’s much harder to put together something with solutions, nuance, history, science, and workable policy.
I’ve lived in China, Taiwan, Hawaii, Chicago, Colorado, Alaska, and Atlanta. I’ve travelled to India, Europe, Hong Kong, and South Korea. I’ve spent a lot of time in Yosemite National Park. I’m currently in Northern California. I’ve lived at Lake Tahoe and still spend a lot of time there. Oregon is also a frequent destination.
Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, USA I’m happily married, the mom of a 12-year-old, and the primary caregiver for my 80-year-old mother, who has had Parkinson’s for 27 years. I’ve skied 14,000-foot peaks, hiked 20 miles in a day, and plummeted down black diamond runs on skis and bikes, but rescuing my mom from a nursing home in 2020 was the hardest thing I’ve ever done (caring for a newborn is a close second). I left a certain way of living behind when I made this choice, but I’m also healthier than I’ve been in a long while.
Earth Hope’s top stories
I consider my most successful story to be the fifth one I ever published here, an article about the Yurok Tribe’s efforts to restore every part of their ancestral lands, from the redwoods to the condors. This week, the tribe is releasing eight more critically endangered condors to Northern California.
At the end of August 2024, I had attracted 60 subscribers to Earth Hope. This story was viewed by 350 people and received over 50 likes. That’s a 14 percent satisfaction rate. A lot of people who read this story felt compelled to hit that heart! To match that rate, one of my stories now would have to receive several hundred likes. Suffice it to say, this created high expectations, ones I’m still striving to meet.
My most popular story—according to Substack—was one that took me two hours to put together during a week that I was sick. Its popularity surprised me, and only later did I realize that I had bashed Elon Musk in a fit of transparency. To be clear, I’m in the center. I know people in both parties care about the environment. I don’t really want to be involved in the political area of Substack. In comparison to this story, some of my other stories took over 40 hours to report, research, write up, and format.
Over the past year, I put together a few personal narratives, and the four below prompted texts and emails from friends and family who I hadn’t heard from in a while. I didn’t even know some of these connections were reading my newsletter, so thank you, dear friends. Stories like these kind of erupt out of me. At first I didn’t know how they’d be received, but it turns out, I think, people really like to see the human side of a writer. Here are those stories:
Here are my values:
My posts are 100 percent human researched and written. I do not use AI.
I always provide credit to photographers, publications, and writers. I respect copyright and fair use laws. I never use photography or video that isn’t my own without prior permission, unless it’s in the public domain.
Climate action is our number one priority for a livable planet. I support all the technologies that will maintain a livable planet, including solar, wind, and nuclear power. Conservation is carbon sequestration. Electric vehicles are fine, but e-bikes, trains, and walkable towns would create a better future!
Humans are a keystone species on this planet. We are the ones who will save it. We cannot abandon nature or let nature “take its course.” We must shape, save, and rewild every inch we can while we still can.
Thank you, thank you, thank you
Finally, I want to say thank you for a wonderful year. I’ve been a writer and editor my entire career, getting paid to write stories other people deemed important. Publishing this newsletter has been liberating and fulfilling. I’ve made true friends, found inspiration, and learned a great deal from other writers here on Substack. I’ve experienced incredible highs and some discouraging lows. What success I’ve found has come with the help of many positive, supportive, loving, gentle hands that guided me and pushed me along. I am so grateful to my dear readers. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
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My daughter, The Writer!
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I still have one of your early school essays,
The Pali
from when we lived on Oahu, in Hawaii.
"Live Long and Prosper!"
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Happy anniversary, eco-pragmatist!