Lars Tallert took a wild swing from classical violinist to hard-hitting journalist early in his career, and then became an advisor to prime ministers, UN agencies, and The Guardian—and even served as a frontline witness in Nicaragua, where a reporting project on poisoned banana workers changed his life. Lars then co-founded the Sustainable Journalism Partnership—now 70 countries strong—to answer a simple, urgent question: how can climate journalism actually motivate people to act? In this conversation, Lars traces the thread from anti-apartheid campaigns to today’s “doom and gloom” news cycle, and lays out a blueprint for journalism that empowers communities instead of exhausting them—shifting audiences from consumers to participants, and linking climate change to the systems we live in, from culture to national resilience.
