Wunderry Plus subscribers can listen to USA Today's The Excerpt, ad free right now.

Join Wunderry Plus in the Wundery app.

Hello and welcome to the Excerpt excerpt I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Sunday April 21st,

2024. April 22nd is Earth Day this year and as with every Earth Day it's a chance to

slow down and take stock of where we are with climate change and the state of the planet.

While there seems to be news of impending climate doom everywhere, some scientists are

saying there's good evidence that humanity is on the cusp of broad positive

change even though the years ahead may be rough as climate warms beyond what had

been hoped for these scientists are feeling urgent optimism

for what could be the first generation to achieve a sustainable world.

Joining me to dig into this story is USA Today,

National Correspondent for Climate and Energy Transition, Elizabeth Wies.

Thanks for joining me, Elizabeth.

I'm always happy to be here.

Despite ongoing coverage of climate disaster,

some scientists are pushing the idea of urgent optimism.

Could you explain what's behind that?

So I think there are two parts to it.

One is that, I mean, and we're, you know, it's partly us in the news business but you know if it

leads it leads when there's bad news it tends to be what we report on but there's

actually really good news and very positive shifts beginning to happen.

So we are on this cusp of a lot of really positive shifts happening that will help us

...