The climate is already changing, and it’s getting urgent.

You could look at it this way—there is scarcity, there is instability, there is crisis. There is inequality, there are ‘the haves’ and the ‘have nots.’

Or you could see it another way entirely—that there are solutions right in front of us, if we can just listen. There is abundance in community. There is resilience in wisdom. There’s empowerment and innovation when people come together for the greater good.

It’s a way of thinking that originally brought Janet and Semi Lotawa together in the remote Fijian village where they met, and it’s what has sustained their relationship for the past 25 years. It’s also a guiding principle behind the work that they do running Global Washington network member organization Rise Beyond the Reef.

While in high school, Janet and her family went to Fiji for a vacation. There, Janet says, she was struck by a gut-level feeling of finding something she never knew she was even missing, “that special place that’s been existing in your head, that you never think actually exists on the planet, too.”

The missing piece Janet had been craving was a sense of community.

“I think it’s the just immeasurable side of being in a community and what it brings to you. And what that environment can create—that’s what was so intriguing to me.”

Read the full article about addressing climate change by Amber Cortes at Global WA.