Writer Jules Pretty‘s ‘Story for Climate and Nature Recovery’ YouTube channel offers short films with stories about people and places and how story can help bring transformation. “In the face of the great interlocking crises, what kinds of language, story, and values might we use to find multiple, complementary ways out of the dark woods?”
On all paths, there’s going to be a need for new forms of storytelling to inspire place-based actions that provoke the deepest ever social and ecological shifts.
Story always contains moral and social guidance. It lets listeners know how to live well. It tells of journeys undertaken, both inner transformations and outer transitions.
Jules Pretty is a researcher and writer on environment and society, including ‘The Climate Chronicles’, and is author of several books on climate, nature and the stories we tell.
‘Story for Climate and Nature Recovery’ contains short (5-10 min) films. Some will be stories about people and places, others will be on how story works, or does not. How it can be deployed and used to create transformations. How words, sentences and story can be spells. How they can create magic.
Story is both new and ancient technology. It’s a device common to every human culture. It has fifty thousand years of history, yet is often misunderstood in the modern era. Put simply, the patterns of good story match the shapes of people’s lives.
When stories are heard, we learn something true about the world, about our inner selves too. Through story, we practice for life itself. Yet the rolling news is bad. And causing great anxiety. Perhaps it’s all too late.
You hear that? A pebble strikes your bedroom window at midnight. What now!
Story says whole systems can be transformed. But it’s hard to take the first step. And so more ice turns to water, summers to fire, the healed to broken. The gaps between people become chasms.
The planet’s losing.
Gold’s still getting in the eyes of many, still causing blindness.
“To hell with drowning”, says indigenous human rights lawyer, Julian Aguon, from the Mariana Islands.
The voice of some kind of sea or tree god whispers, “Go on, lift up your courage.”
These Films: Courage and Agency
One way or another, everything’s about to change.
We choose, it could be good. We carry on, it’s certainly going to be bad.
On all paths, there’s going to be a need for new forms of storytelling to inspire place-based actions that provoke the deepest ever social and ecological shifts.
Story always contains moral and social guidance. It lets listeners know how to live well. It tells of journeys undertaken, both inner transformations and outer transitions.
In the face of the great interlocking crises, what kinds of language, story, and values might we use to find multiple and complementary ways out of the dark woods? Could new forms of climate, nature and social inequality communication be created by thinking more about story?
Story can create agency. It is a common feeling for both the public and policy-makers to feel anxiety and fear, helplessness too. Yet story can create a sense of purpose. It can act like tricksters of old who pointed out new paths through the shadowed lands.
A good story is immersive. It makes you and me feel good. It transfers something memorable with meaning, helps us in our own lives. It helps frame those moments of transformation that jolt us out of old habits and onto new paths.
“Such stories,” Katherine Rundell says, “Are not hiding places for escapism. They’re finding places.”
The Role of the Trickster
We are in the dark, have no idea what will happen next.
A wise trickster character appears before the hero-heroine, acting as a threshold guardian, suggesting they must get in a new game.
We are reluctant at first, yet do decide to go, for this is going to be our story. The journey starts, adventures and uncertainty follow. There are antagonists far stronger than us, forms of monster and corporate devil, yet the challenges to overcome seem more internal than external. There’s an elixir to find, and then the perilous journey home.
A trickster on the road offers a choice: “A big piece of cake with my curse, or a small piece with my blessing.” The choice is ours.
What is a good story? One that lasts, says Jane Yolen.
One that causes transformation.
UPDATE February 2026: Jules has added National Happiness and Social Equality: This is How Bhutan Did It to his YouTube channel: a special companion video to his ClimateCultures post, Cloud Mountain, Thunder Dragon: Stories of Gross National Happiness.
And you can find many other short films at the channel, Story for Climate and Nature Recovery, exploring ‘What is Story’, ‘Tipping Points and the 20-60-20 Rule’, ‘The Drowning of Doggerland’, ‘This King Canute’s No Fool’, and more. Subscribe for new releases, and you can also find Jules’s The Climate Chronicles at his site, JulesPretty.com.
Jules has written posts for ClimateCultures: The Next Dawn Of Everything — Stories Of Human Cultures is a review of The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow. And Bronze Bell, Sea-Bed Oak, Wayang Kulit Shadow Puppet is his contribution to our series, A History of the Anthropocene in 50 Objects.
Katherine Rundell is an award-winning children’s author.
Jane Yolen is an expert on folktales worldwide, and a writer of fantasy and children’s books.