15-year-old Julia Walsh, a sophomore at Notre Dame Academy in Hingham, Massachusetts, couldn’t stand feeling helpless.
A parishioner of Our Lady of the Angels Parish in Hanover, Walsh was in middle school during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. She was eager to play a part in combating climate change, but lockdowns and social distancing left her feeling frustrated.
That’s when Walsh had an idea.
“I decided to start my blog during the Covid lockdown because I was very aware of the climate crisis but felt helpless in the fact that there was not much I could do to help,” Walsh told the Covenant. “As a middle schooler, I decided that the best option for me would be to try and spread climate change awareness virtually in the form of a blog!”
Walsh started her blog, called Miles Away, in May of 2020. Since then, she has written 41 blogs covering a variety of topics: plastic usage, hurricanes, how climate change affects girls and women, urban heat islands, The Amazon Rainforest, and many other topics.
“Some of my favorite topics to cover on my blog include how we can prevent plastic waste in our environment today and ways that climate change creates loss and damage,” Walsh said. “These two issues concern me the most when thinking about how to solve climate change because they are the causes of so many disastrous effects in our world, such as poverty and pollution.”
In one blog, “How I’m Working to Change Whole Food’s Packaging,” Walsh talks about balancing ambition with realism.
“Along with many other people, I feel that there is still a lot about our society that harms the environment and needs to be changed,” Walsh wrote. “But as a high schooler, I know I need to be realistic. So, to me working to change how we view and use plastic is my number one goal. Along with it being the most attainable goal, it is one of the most harmful substances to the environment because it pollutes the air and contaminates the land.”
In another blog, “How Climate Change Targets Women and Girls,” Walsh tackles the climate crisis by highlighting the disproportionate impacts on the poor, vulnerable, and disadvantaged.
“Each person deserves the opportunity to pursue the life they want for themselves,” Walsh wrote. “If a girl is born into an environment in which she is the one who is expected to take care of her younger siblings, find food for the family, and collect money to keep everyone safe, this does not mean that she does not have dreams for herself. Her dreams deserve to come true. Climate change adds such a heavy burden to her, so oftentimes those dreams she once had will be almost impossible to attain.
“While preventing climate change is not going to end gender inequality, it will lessen the burdens and expectations on girls. … Using our reusable water bottles, walking places, and protesting fossil fuels not only helps humans and animals and prevents extreme weather, but the well-being and equality of women and girls.”
Walsh said her faith as a Catholic shaped her perspective as an environmentalist.
“As a Catholic, in church, I am always being told about how it is our responsibility to take care of our Earth and everything on it because it is God’s gift to us,” Walsh said. “Catholics respond to this message in many different ways, but to me, I feel especially called to protect the environment, because I can’t see how I can help people and animals if our home is crumbling beneath us. I hope that I can help prevent climate change from worsening in my high school years, and I would love to help Catholic Climate Covenant!”
Julia Walsh is on the Catholic Climate Covenant Youth Mobilization Team in Boston.
