A Puzzle Built From Missing Pieces: A Student's Perspective on Climate Hope and Resiliency

Written by: Jacob Garland, Dartmouth Sustainability Senior Intern

Over spring break, I did something I hadn’t done in over a decade: I started a jigsaw puzzle. Away from the screens and the news that often fill my mind, I dumped what I thought were 1000 pieces on the living room table. But as I finished the border of the image, I realized something no puzzle solver wants to realize: some of my pieces were missing.

Queue frustration, doubt, and the incessant question of whether it was worthwhile to continue or to even have started in the first place. All similar thoughts and feelings to when I look at the news nowadays.

I’ve had a lot of conversations with others who, like me, have found it hard to stay dedicated to their work in sustainability. With many of the EPA’s environmental justice offices slated to close, a second retreat from the Paris Agreement, and more stories like it being added by the day, I’m reminded of my puzzle. We all had a picture in mind when we started this work, of a future where no one bears the brunt of climate disaster, where resources are distributed more equitably, and where people can live with a greater sense of peace and joy. But with each passing day, it’s like another one of the pieces to construct that picture disappears. 

That leaves us with two options: give in to the immobilizing force of despair, or find some way to continue building our picture with the pieces that remain.

The Dartmouth Sustainability Office opts for the latter, and through them I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to see firsthand how difficult constructing pictures with missing pieces often is, but also how necessary and worthwhile it can be. As I look back through the years a few examples stand out in my mind:

• Reusable Mug and Tumbler Project - starting my sophomore year, I worked with a team of five individuals to institute an incentive program at cafes for students who chose to use a reusable mug or tumbler. We encountered numerous challenges along the way: health codes, logistic issues, and a lack of necessary information being just a few. But after a long period of persistence, the program saved over 1000 plastic cups in its first year of operation.

• Sustainable Living Center House Manager - in my junior year I became one of two house managers responsible for ensuring that our Sustainable Living Center not only operated smoothly, but lived up to its name. And I have to admit, when I first joined, it did not. But after some hard work to delineate cleaning and chore responsibilities, reduce disposable item usage, kickstart composting and recycling systems, and institute numerous other projects, we as a community have made great strides towards being able to wear our name with pride.

• Sustainable Dartmouth Senior Intern - and finally, in my senior year I was fortunate enough to be selected as a Sustainable Dartmouth intern, where I’ve helped to coordinate Earth Month events, created a full-scale guide for future SLC house managers, and received an insider perspective on the staff operations within the Sustainability Office. Many of the staff here have encountered the exact same frustrations and setbacks I have, but on larger scales and with greater impacts. But they’ve shown me what it means to persist in spite of them, and I’ve never met a more capable and hardworking team.

In all of these projects I see common threads: the appearance of unforeseen challenges, the frustration of extended timelines, the constant need to re-evaluate and adjust. But I also see what those threads interweave to create: a creativity to find new solutions, the thrill of success, and a boundless persistence that ties it all together. 

When pieces of our efforts go missing, it’s tempting to fall to despair. But my time with the Sustainability Office has taught me a much better way to approach broken puzzles. Instead of despairing at what we miss, we start working on other sections. Instead of telling ourselves our work is no longer worth it, we find fulfillment in the simple act of doing. And instead of letting frustration, anxiety, and grief drive us to hopelessness, we take deep breaths. We recenter ourselves. We build new plans, new solutions, new hopes, dreams, and futures. We forge ahead with determined steps towards the world we want to create.

And the results, though imperfect, are somehow still worthwhile.