University of Wisconsin–Madison
Rising tides, solarpunk cities, ghosts that haunt us. This year’s winners of the Sustainability Writing Awards looked beyond the now to imagine what the places we love might look like in a world shaped by unchecked climate catastrophe. The winning essays, all written by students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, explore the tension between hope …
This story, by Lily Smogor, is one of three winners of the 2025 Sustainability Writing Awards hosted by the Office of Sustainability. You can read more about Lily here. Josey knew it was over three weeks before the government did. She’d woken to birdsong, a cardinal perched on her windowsill opposite the fraying screen, its flat black-marble …
This essay, by Lily Smogor, is one of three winners of the 2024 Sustainability Writing Awards hosted by the Office of Sustainability. You can read more about Lily here. The twin mesas rise together at the end of the road. They wear a skirt of juniper and yucca, the pinkish-orange rock peeking through only slightly until the …
The White Mesa Uranium Mill leaching radioactive waste near the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. The bustling streets of Bangladesh and the quaint, rural villages on the outskirts both deluged with pollution. A health clinic in Milwaukee inundated with patients whose conditions are exacerbated by the intense heat of climate change. These are the …