For Xiye Bastida, the fight against climate change is an integral part of her identity.
In fact, it’s practically genetic. The 23-year-old climate justice activist is a product of two parents who met each other at the first Earth Summit in 1992, she shared in her most recent TED Talk, which will premiere on Earth Day.
“They were the only people I knew talking about climate change,” Bastida said. “That fire was passed on to me — the fire to stand up when almost nobody else is.”
This metaphor of fire was consistent throughout her TED Talk, especially as she outlined her first-hand experience with climate injustice, as her hometown in Mexico faced catastrophic flooding when she was just 13.
“This fire also prepared me for the very worst,” she said.
The water in the flooding came from one of the most contaminated rivers in the Americas, polluted by dozens of factories in the region, and harming Bastida’s Indigenous community — and others like it — beyond just water damage.
“This is the moment that I realized that the climate crisis wasn’t just about the climate disasters — the floods, the wildfires, the warming — but really magnifying a lot of injustices,” she said. “It was a turning point for me. I went on to pursue relentless climate activism.”
Bastida was instrumental in organizing Fridays For Future climate strikes as a high school student, drawing in young people from around the globe, and culminating in the 2019 youth-led march in New York City, drawing more than 300,000 participants.
Now, Bastida continues to champion Indigenous knowledge as a member of the Otomi-Toltec Indigenous community in central Mexico and as an ambassador to the United Nations Climate Change High-Level Champions.
In her TED Talk, she acknowledged the challenges her work presents.
Now, she said, she faces the struggle of “knowing the magnitude of the crisis and knowing that no one is caring about it as we were,” coupled with “this feeling that our government and our institutions are not doing enough.”
She asked: “How do we stay active? How do we stay engaged?”
First, she had to redefine what “hope” means in the face of such immense struggle.
“Hope is like that internal force within you, the fire that gives you direction, ambition,” Bastida said.
“For my Indigenous community, fire is sacred. We tell stories around the fire, we do sweat lodges around the fire, and sometimes we do ceremonies that last for weeks, and we have a fire keeper. That is the same inside each and every one of us. My elders ask me: How is your fire doing? What they mean is: How is your conviction?”
And from there, Bastida outlined a blueprint for hope anyone can apply to their own climate activism.
Xiye Bastida’s blueprint for hope amid the climate crisis
Step one: Reframe climate anxiety.
Bastida spoke to the climate anxiety feeling so many of us grapple with.
“We have been told time and time again we are headed toward climate apocalypse,” she said.
But then, she reframed that fear with a reality check.
“And I ask: Haven’t many communities suffered apocalypse? Haven’t many communities ended with colonization, with displacement?” Bastida said. “I choose to say we are not headed toward apocalypse; We are rising from many.”
She said that this reframe allows people to understand that humans are already building back and growing in resilience, not awaiting an impending doom.
Step two: Learn from nature.
Bastida said that she grew up learning that nature is wise, and that it was humans’ responsibility to act in reciprocity, harmony, and balance with the planet.
But — as she pointed out — that can’t be done until people truly observe and immerse themselves in nature.
“A few years ago, I was walking down a beach and I saw how with each step, my footprints would be marked on the sand. The stronger I stepped, the deeper the footprints would be,” Bastida said.
This experience reminded her of how she was often told to leave a mark on the world.
“If I truly wanted to leave a mark, I would stand still and I would stay sunk,” she remarked. “Are we losing the bigger picture? Are we not making it where we need to be because we are too focused on making our mark?”
This moment, she supplied, actually instilled in her what is most important: The feeling of connection and stewardship nature brings.
Step three: Practice conscious and vivid imagination.
Bastida pointed to the fact that every story most have about the future is one of death and destruction — cities frozen over, or sources of water completely dried up.
“We just have a collective imagination of the future that is one in which we are not thriving with nature,” she said. “We have been predisposed to that.”
But the challenge she posited is to imagine a positive future.
“Some of the most beautiful times I share with my fellow climate activists is when we sit together and we ask, ‘What does the future look like if we win?’”
She practiced it right there on stage.
“I imagine taking my granddaughter to see the reefs. I imagine taking my grandson to see the ice. I imagine a world where we don’t have to run from hurricanes or wildfires. I imagine a world where we are connected and our kids get to experience the world in which we have the privilege to see,” Bastida said, tearing up.
She ended her Talk, imploring viewers to see the possibilities of the future, just as she does.
“My ask from you is that you see my fire and you mirror it,” Bastida said. “My ask from you is that you shine so bright that the future can see you.”
Xiye Bastida’s TED Talk will be available to watch on Earth Day, April 22, 2025. This article will be updated to include a video.
Header image by Gilberto Tadday / TED
