Planet Forward Summit Shows How Storytelling Can Be a Catalyst for Climate Action

April 21, 2026

Authored by:

Brook Endale

Students from universities across the country came to the George Washington University last Wednesday through Friday for the 13th annual Planet Forward Summit, where they were encouraged to use storytelling as a tool for building connections and inspiring change at a critical moment for climate action.

"This is a turbulent time. You're here in Washington at a very strange and difficult moment, a very polarized, divided moment in our national experience and history," said Frank Sesno, founder of Planet Forward and executive director of the GW Alliance for a Sustainable Future. "That's why these narratives matter, and that's why hope matters."

The summit's theme, "Take the Mic, Shape the Story," highlighted how an ever-evolving media landscape has shifted power toward independent creators, giving students new ways to tell impactful stories about the issues they care about.

"When I started in the media, in journalism, in television, the world was a different place," said Sesno, also a professor and former director of the School of Media and Public Affairs (SMPA). "It's a Substack world, it's a YouTube world, it's a content creator world, it's a podcaster world. And you can drive your own audience."

Imani Cheers, an SMPA associate professor of digital storytelling, said it's important to take advantage of these different avenues to tell stories that matter.

"At a time of crisis and distraction, the planet's stories are now taking shape to inform and influence new audiences," Cheers said.

Panels throughout the summit explored how to adapt those stories for modern platforms. In the session "Big Story, Short Video: How to Stop the Scroll," speakers discussed the challenges of capturing attention in a crowded digital space, including battling AI and a crowded attention economy.

Ryan Miller, a meteorologist at NBC4, said being reliable and authentic is an important way to stand out to your audience.

"I think you have to be approachable," Miller said. "You have to find a way to communicate in a way that makes the person that's watching your video think that they're next to you and not necessarily watching you on a device."

Abby Vervaeke, a coordinating producer at NBC News, said journalists must quickly engage audiences because they are competing with entertainment content on these digital platforms.

"You have to spark interest right away," Vervaeke said. "What I tell our reporters is that, especially on a platform like TikTok, we're competing against dogs and other funny videos and trying to get people to watch news."

She added that building trust with audiences requires consistency and a recognizable presence.

The summit also featured a keynote conversation with Ellen Stofan, undersecretary for science and research at the Smithsonian Institution, who focused on making science meaningful to the public.

"I'm always saying to our scientists, where's the 'so what?'" Stofan said. "How can you bring that story and bring it to people's hearts, to what they care about, to our shared values?"

She said communicators must think about how to connect on a personal level.

"How do we inspire them? How do we make them cry? How do we make them laugh? That's when we can start winning hearts and minds," she said. "I have to be able to link a somersaulting panda to why it's important to do panda conservation."

Stofan highlighted the Artemis II mission as an example of important, scientific work capturing the nation's interest.

"Why did this story grab the public?" Stofan said, noting that astronauts have been routinely going to the International Space Station and that public interest in those missions has often been limited. "And yet Artemis captured our imagination. And why? It was personable. Those four people were having fun. You could see they were having fun," she said.

"They were exploring, they were doing something interesting, but they talked about it in a way that inspired people, excited people, and brought people together."

Throughout the summit, students were encouraged to apply those principles in their own work.

During a "Take the Mic - Multimedia Storytelling" session, students presented projects and received live feedback from industry professionals.

GW senior Andrew McCabe shared a short film about bird window collisions, a major issue that kills millions of birds each year just in the United States. He explored the efforts organizations are making to reduce these deaths through practical solutions.

"I wanted to tell a story about hope-hope derived from local organizations and individuals who are committed to making the future a better place for our avian friends," McCabe said.

In another session, "Partnerships That Move the Planet Forward," panelists discussed the role collaboration plays in advancing environmental solutions and how storytelling makes it easier to communicate complex ideas.

Cynthia Williams of Ford Motor Company said making information accessible to the public is important work.

"Storytelling is so key," Williams said. "You have to boil the data down to something that's easy to understand. You have to tell that story in a way that resonates and that makes them want to help the environment."

She added that effective storytelling will ensure people see themselves as part of the solution.

Sven Lindblad, founder of Lindblad Expeditions, spoke about rethinking humanity's relationship with the natural world through travel and experience.

"I felt that the idea of being able to bring people and expose them to the world, culture, nature, history created this sort of army of people that then began to possibly think differently about how we deal with our challenges," Lindblad said.

He spoke about the sustainable practices Lindblad Expeditions prioritizes, saying, "If you just start thinking about what your relationship is to all of these resources, you can migrate them into a more sustainable place. It's hard work, but you can do it."

Moira Mcdonald of the Walton Family Foundation emphasized the importance of environmental journalism in helping the public understand critical issues.

By supporting reporting at local and national levels, she said, organizations can bring awareness and mobilize public concern into action.

"We know that our future success depends on being able to help people understand what they can do in their communities and then how they can activate decision makers around that. So, we see environmental journalism as critical to all of that," Mcdonald said.

On opening night of the summit, the Food & Environment Reporting Network (FERN) hosted a live taping of its "Forked" podcast, to model how storytelling and lived experience can connect communities and bring complex food and sustainability issues to life.

Hosted by FERN Editor-in-Chief Theodore Ross, the discussion featured James Beard Award-winning Oglala Lakota author and founder of the nonprofit North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems, Sean Sherman, aka "The Sioux Chef," and award-winning, D.C. based Reuters reporter Leah Douglas, who covers food, agriculture and the Make America Healthy Again beat.

The podcast covered a wide range of topics including Indigenous food systems and regenerative agriculture and federal food policy. During the event, presented in partnership with the SMPA, Planet Forward and the GW Global Food Institute, Sherman emphasized the need for deeper connection to food systems, noting the importance of working with "who's actually in the fields, who's actually got their fingers in the soil, who's actually watching these plants grow and taking care of those cycles every single year, and who's purchasing those foods."

Also during the conference, the winners of Storyfest, Planet Forward's annual competition celebrating the best student-generated environmental stories, were announced.

The Storyfest winners will embark on a 10-day voyage to southeastern Greenland with Lindblad Expeditions, courtesy of Sven Lindblad, where they will explore the innovative solutions helping protect the natural environment.

Among the winners was GW student Alexia Massoud. Massoud, a senior studying journalism and international affairs, won the Framing the Future Award for "Brazilian women make a stand for water at COP30."

Other Storyfest winners included:
• Best Short Video: Cameron Armendariz, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, "Bringing back the giants: Sturgeon restoration in the Milwaukee River Watershed."
• Best Social Video: Jhun-Jhun Agustin, Brigham Young University, "Plogging: The 1% Movement for the Philippines."
• Best Multimedia Story: Tommey Jodie, University of Arizona, "The Present Tense of a Cornfield."
• Best Written Story: Kailey Aiken, University of Tampa, "The Nosara Monkey Bridge Project is saving howler monkeys in Costa Rica."
• Fan Favorite Award: Will Hinkle, Middlebury College, "Translating a foreign landscape: Reflections from Patagonia."