By Ruby Storey, Storytelling for Social Change Intern, EarthLab Summer 2026
In early August, I walked through the University of Washington campus toward EarthLab’s home in Condon Hall, as I had every week since the end of June. Unlike the times before, my usually clear view of the Seattle skyline was blurred by a wall of thick gray haze.
The Puget Sound’s skies had flooded with smoke from fires burning in Spokane, the North Cascades, and across the Canadian border in British Columbia. When I arrived at EarthLab, I was told to keep an eye on the air quality inside the building and to head home if the levels reached unhealthy conditions.
It hadn’t occurred to me that wildfire smoke could make its way indoors so quickly, not even two days after the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency issued warnings about unsafe air pollution. I was struck by the cold irony of this situation—of working in a building full of advocates trying to reverse the impacts of climate change while breathing in polluted air. Even though climate change did not strike the match that ignited these fires, extreme heat and longer fire seasons driven by the climate crisis did create a summer breeding ground for this kind of rapid burning.
Once my fear settled down I realized one thing was right about this picture, amidst the destruction caused by a worsening environmental crisis. The people deciding and implementing climate solutions were the same people experiencing the harmful impacts of climate change.
We cannot fully understand and address the severity of wildfires stoked by climate change if we do not know what it feels like to experience a day shrouded in smoke, breathing in polluted air on a commute to work and inside the buildings we live in. The same holds true for addressing other dangerous impacts of climate change, and has informed my commitment to amplifying climate solutions that come from community members. Though it seems intuitive, climate action does not always happen this way.
I’ve learned that what draws me to environmental justice and climate adaptation work is not solely about improving the natural environments I inhabit, but also about helping people use their lived experiences to inform equitable solutions to a changing climate. This means putting decisions in the hands of the people who are disproportionately affected by wildfire smoke, extreme heat, rising sea levels, and other impacts—often Black, Indigenous, people of color, refugees, immigrants, youth and elders, and low income communities. If climate action only happens behind closed doors and inside insurmountable ivory towers, then we’re not creating truly sustainable solutions for the majority of people experiencing the dangers of climate change firsthand.
This past year, I’ve been lucky enough to work with two organizations within large public institutions, as the Storytelling for Social Change intern with EarthLab and as a communications intern for the City of Seattle’s Office of Sustainability and Environment. These experiences have made me realize that the kind of climate work I admire most doesn’t just inform and consult community members, but lets their lived experiences decide the course of action.
During my internships, I wanted to reflect on how my time with the City of Seattle and EarthLab have informed my unique understanding of a career in climate mitigation and adaptation work. I also wanted to hear from someone who knows the process of turning community members’ ideas into environmental policy intimately.
I reached out to Lylianna Allala, the director of the City of Seattle’s Office of Sustainability and Environment, to ask a few questions about her career and the importance of climate work that is created with community. I was incredibly excited to hear from someone who has been on both sides of this process, first as a community organizer and now as a government leader in environmental justice work.
Q: I just graduated, so I’m curious to know: when you were where I am now, what did you envision your career looking like? How do you think about your career now?
That’s a great question! When I graduated, I was working on a dual degree in English and Spanish, and I did my last year of school in Spain. I envisioned my career journey as spending some time working before I applied for a masters program to teach literature, but I had a hard time finding a job. I ended up waiting tables at a Thai restaurant until someone suggested I look at the AmeriCorps program. Right after college, I applied for an AmeriCorps position in Seattle, and then was hired.
When I started that role, I was doing habitat restoration and ecology work. I’ve had a lot of different kinds of jobs in different corners of the environmental field, jobs I never dreamed I would do. I worked for the Forest Service on a trail crew and I lived in a tent on the mountains. Honestly, I didn’t expect I would have been working in the environmental field, and I wouldn’t have expected to be working in government right now.
My career pathway is something I could have never conceived of, and I think that’s an important message for folks graduating right now and even to people who are early- and mid-career. To try and remind themselves of and reground themselves in the idea that you certainly can plan and map out next steps for yourself, but it’s also important to stay open and think about what kinds of experiences you want to have, where you want to grow, what strengths you bring, and how you want to continue to nurture those strengths. The environment in which you work or learn can be wildly different than what you thought it was going to be, and that’s okay too.
Q: What does coming up through community work let you see that someone who came up solely through government might miss?
The role that government can play in supporting community leadership is huge. It doesn’t always come to the top of a list of what city government thinks about, but I think our office is very much oriented around how we utilize our city resources to support leadership development and growth in community, so that we have excellent partners who have lived experience and can leverage their skill set and wisdom in partnership with us to reach our climate goals. That’s one perspective I bring—I’m a product of that leadership development in many ways, and I see how important it is.
The perspective that community partners are bringing in terms of being on the ground, impacted by the policies and programs that we design, is so valuable. They understand how things play out in real time. If we don’t have that information, we aren’t designing to meet the outcomes we’re intending to. It underscores how important it is to incorporate processes of co-design, co-development, and implementation, and to ensure that municipal staffing is diverse and inclusive, and represents a lot of different pathways into city government.
Q: Is there a moment from a project that changed how you think about doing this kind of work?
Years ago, I worked for a nonprofit that supported youth leadership development and job pathways into environmental careers. There was a day I joined one of the youth crews in the field, and it just so happened that the crew was new. The youth had not received their first paychecks yet and they were out of school for the summer. There were some behavioral challenges that were happening that day, and I noticed that the adult program staffers and the youth were not seeing eye to eye. There was tension. I had a moment where I sat down with one young person and asked, “Hey, what’s going on?” and he said, “I haven’t gotten paid yet, and I haven’t eaten today and I’m so hungry.” For me, this was a pivotal moment that shifted the way that I engage in my work. I may have a level of expertise in a certain area, but I don’t have all the answers. And it’s important to pause and step back and think about: what are the dynamics at play, to reground and remind myself of what the intended outcome is, and be curious and ask questions so that I can find the answers that then help inform the next step to actually support the work getting done.
Q: According to your website, it looks like the draft Climate Action Plan will be released in fall 2026 with a public comment period. Can you walk me through how something said at a community assembly or in the public survey could make it into the Plan’s draft?
Oftentimes, there’s different languages that you speak. I don’t mean literally in terms of Spanish or English, but I think about the way that a person communicates or a sector or an institution communicates about their work is different from place to place. The way that community members experience the impacts can be communicated in a certain way. Our role at the Office of Sustainability and Environment—and I think this is true for the roles of government—is to be fluid in using the policy speak, the technical speak, and everyday speak in terms of the conversations we have with our neighbors. At the community assemblies, folks are sharing really valuable insights, experiences, and ideas for policy. Oftentimes their day to day is not working in a city government, and so it isn’t their job to translate that day to day experience into policy. That’s our job. We take the conversations and insights that are being shared at a community assembly, for example, and then we map that back to the policy priorities that we have as a city. If we’re hearing a desired outcome, we do the work to figure out how we get to that outcome. There’s a lot that happens in between a conversation occurring in a community assembly to the words printed on a paper.
Q: What haven’t I asked about that you’d like to share?
It took me a while to feel comfortable with a non-linear career path because so often the societal messages can convey, “You do well in school, and then you figure out what your major is going to be, and then that’s your career.” This can be true for some. I’ve had a more circuitous path and a more emergent pathway too, which I think is beautiful and incredible. Those creative and unexpected pathways and opportunities gifted me with valuable life experience and skills—and that has informed my climate work 100%.
A note from the author: I would like to recognize the wonderful people who have shaped my professional experiences and my understanding of climate justice work. To Allie Long and my fellow summer 2026 interns who I have learned so much from, to Delaney Murray and Haylee Jarrett who have always advocated for me, and to Lylianna Allala who donated her time to speak with me—thank you.
