Here are today’s stories of progress in the fight against the climate crisis and nature loss.

👩🏽‍🌾 The magic of rooftop farms

Urban gardens can help bolster cities’ food security while attracting pollinators and improving residents’ mental health. On empty lots, these small farms are not only fighting food deserts but bringing down urban temperatures, giving much-needed relief during heatwaves, while rooftops providing the perfect sweltering conditions to grow “cucumbers … the size of baseball bats.”  For example, Quezon City in the Philippines has trained up over 4,000 urban farmers across 300 gardens, while a project in New York is creating havens of green space where before there was only grey.

🤝 Sharing power across Spain

Energy cooperatives across Spain are providing homes with cheap renewable power, helping people reap the benefits of moving away from fossil fuels. These collectives provide their members with affordable green energy, and crucially, subsidise the membership of people on low incomes, ensuring no one is left behind in the green transition. Solar panels are positioned in areas of unused space, such as the roofs of sports centres or warehouses. 

 🧠 Imagination’s role in climate solutions

Coming up with solutions to meet the existential threat of the climate crisis will require creativity – and that’s where a new concept called ‘imagination activism’ comes in. Coined by activist Phoebe Tickell and demonstrated at a new exhibition in Rio de Janeiro, it calls for us to think beyond the structures we know to imagine a new and better world – one with clean seas, flourishing biodiversity, fast public transport and cheap green energy. If this hope is harnessed for action, it can be a powerful tool in bringing about the world we could once only dare to hope for.

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📝 The Green Light is written by freelance writer Molly Millar.