Have you ever left the house not knowing how to dress for the day? Climate change political developments, such as the NOAA funding cuts potentially leading to weather inaccuracy warnings, can affect everyday decisions for many individuals. Mika Tosca, a Chicago climate scientist, founded the Solarpunk Project to improve science literacy among nonscientists, and better equip Chicagoans with weather knowledge.

Tosca holds a doctorate in earth system science from the University of California, Irvine, and completed her postdoctoral work at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Now, Tosca continues her passion for climate activism through the Solarpunk Project. 

As part of the Solarpunk Project, Tosca sends out “The Weather Text,” a daily text to subscribers on Chicago weather patterns and how to dress for them, for $0.99 monthly, $4.99 every 6 months or $8.99 yearly.

“It’s more than just what the weather is. It’s a story, and it helps people relate to their natural environment more,” Tosca said. “It does a good job disseminating the information in a way that a weather app can’t really give you.”

The Weather Text will tell you where the wind in Chicago is coming in from, how the temperature will fluctuate throughout the day and, most importantly, why.

“I think the way that we talk about the weather illustrates that most people don’t understand the weather, don’t know what’s going on around them and don’t know why it is the way that it is,” Tosca said.

Brian Lallier, a Chicago microbiologist, has been receiving these texts for nearly six years. He signed up because he never found his weather app to be accurate.“I would find myself frustrated with the weather prediction on my phone,” Lallier said. “I signed up for The Weather Text, and honestly, I don’t trust anything else.”

As a climate scientist, Tosca is passionate about the texts because it aims to improve science literacy, as well as improve the ways in which we talk about climate change.

“Climate change is a bad thing, we’ve failed to address it, and it’s kind of accelerating,” Tosca said. 

However, Tosca is optimistic about the downward revision in the worst case scenario projections for climate change, and hopes to change current negative rhetoric surrounding climate change.

“I do think it’s important that we balance anger and sadness with joy,” she said. “If we don’t center, or at least include joyfulness in the work we do, I don’t really think it’s going to be as good as we want it to be.” 

Alongside The Weather Text, the Solarpunk Project seeks to bridge the way society views our current climate crises through art and media. Recently, Tosca collaborated with Chicago artist Havi Millar on “Charismatic Megaflora,” an art series that parodies charismatic megafauna and instead focuses on plants.

Charismatic megafauna is a commonly accepted term in the climate change community that defines popular animals such as polar bears or elephants that are threatened by encroachment on their habitats. Climate change activists use these animals to drive donations to conservation groups and mobilize individuals.

“I thought, what if we did charismatic megaflora, which is instead of charismatic animals they’re charismatic plants,” Tosca said. “We started with some really well-known, and in my opinion, charismatic plants, the bristlecone pine and the Joshua tree, but there are many, you know, around the country.”

In Tosca and Millar’s collaboration, Millar created merchandise that personified the megaflora into humanized characters.“It’s one thing to protest, that’s one form of art and of activism to initiate a cause, but then I feel like my entryway and my kind of approach to art activism was creating an artistic world that we could live in,” Millar said.

The Solarpunk Project is still growing and searching for funding to support their ambitions. One of Tosca’s long-term dreams is to put on a “climate rave” that empowers the mission of the Solarpunk Project through dance and climate activism.

“It would be kind of a blending of one of the loves of my life, which is electronic music and dancing, with the other love of my life, which is solving the climate crisis,” Tosca said.

Beyond future ambitions such as a climate rave, Tosca hopes that the Solarpunk Project will create a movement nationally in the way climate change activism is viewed.

“I think it would be really cool if it got big enough that I could move it to other cities, and that there were people like me in those cities who could send a similar weather text in the same vein,” she said.

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