ILLUSTRATION BY JACQUI OAKLEY FOR TIME
Katharine
Wilkinson
EDUCATION
Author, public speaker and
teacher Katharine Wilkinson
has been passionate about
protecting the planet since
she went on an outdoor
retreat 20 years ago as a
high school student in North
Carolina. “I went from loving
the outdoors ... to feeling
incredibly convicted about
how much work there was to
be done,” she says. In 2017,
the book Drawdown: The Most
Comprehensive Plan Ever
Proposed to Reverse Global
Warming became a
best seller. Wilkinson was the
primary author. One of her
guiding principles is the need
to shift the climate-change
discourse to “be more
courageous and more
emotionally intelligent,” she
says, and the book is “about
moving through what is hard
and continuing to rise to the
challenge.” Wilkinson
recently co-hosted her own
outdoor retreat, the Feminist
Climate Renaissance,
bringing together women
from across sectors. “The
climate crisis is also a
leadership crisis,” she says,
“and many women and girls
are stepping in to fill that
void and lead us forward ...
in a way that has not been
the status quo in the climate
movement.”
ÑSuyin HaynesCLIMATE OPTIMISTS
ALEXANDRA A. AGE 9, MIAMI
ZOLAIKHA B. AGE 9, CAPE TOWN
HAYDEN B. AGE 8, SUMMIT, N.J.
WKIDS.indd 101 FINAL 9/11/19 7:24 PM