Alaina Wood

Instagram influencer @itsthegarbagequeen

Climate scientist and activist

Back when I was searching for an environmental influencer to write a biography about, Alaina Wood’s account name “The Garbage Queen” immediately attracted my attention. After I closely observed Alaina Wood’s profile page on instagram, I was stunned by the diverse topics her posts covered and the detailed, scientific knowledge about the environment she shared.

Alaina’s posts are mainly in three styles:

To share positive climate news.

To update negative climate news and call the audiences for action.

To share some green life hacks.

Alaina’s active sharing of positive climate news actually counters the common apocalypse fatigue many people have towards climate change now. With climate change continuously illustrated as a horrifying disaster that will end human civilization on Earth in the past few decades, many people developed a mindset of “doom” towards addressing climate change. Inside, they believe that it is too late to address climate change, acts to mitigate climate change are futile, and that climate change will eventually cause bloody consequences for all humans. Therefore, people with a “doom” mindset avoids discussing climate change in daily life as if the global issue doesn’t exist to avoid discussing a topic that brings them discomfort and fear. The “doom” mindset then causes apocalypse fatigue in people towards the topic of climate change. However, Alaina’s active sharing of positive climate news works to counter the “doom” mindset. By introducing climate change with a positive framework, Alaina is raising awareness of the climate crisis while ensuring her audiences that changes are happening and progress is being made to address climate change. Alaina’s positive climate news can make audiences feel more confidence in addressing climate change, eliminate the audiences’ fear for acknowledging the existence of climate change, and therefore encourage audiences to start acting green and work towards mitigating climate change.

Other than sharing positive environmental news, Alaina also acknowledges negative environmental news such as the halts of net zero plans or the establishment of new oil-drilling projects. Alaina would explain the environmental impacts of these climate news to either call her audiences to action by encouraging people to sign a petition or raise awareness of climate-influencing events and groups.

Alaina’s sharing of green life hacks provides easy solutions to complex environmental problems. For example, when explaining how to reduce warming in the polar regions, Alaina broke down the problem into simple solutions: buy less, buy climate-friendly products, and encourage others to do the same. By providing simpler solutions, Alaina is preventing her audiences from feeling overwhelmed by being required to “reduce the warming at the polar regions” and making her audiences feel more confident in achieving green life hacks that are more feasible. Therefore, Alaina prevents her audiences from feeling helpless, getting an apocalypse fatigue, and being discouraged to even do anything to help the planet.

Alaina has been involved in environmentalism since her youth as she was influenced by her environmentalist dad. Alaina learned about environmental issues in the news, hosted litter cleanups, wrote grants to the school for purchasing a water bottle rail station, and co-founded her local chapter of Keep America Beautiful.

Alaina’s enthusiasm in environmental protection has been focused on works offline until the start of the pandemic. After downloading TikTok, Alaina saw how others viewed environmentalism. She couldn’t agree with how some people commented that they themselves can’t be an environmentalist because they were not perfectly zero waste, plant based, or car free. Having felt the same way back in college, Alaina started her own social media account to promote environmentalism, creating her own impact and emphasizing how one doesn’t have to be perfect to be an environmentalist.

However, Alaina’s career of promoting environmentalism on social media wasn’t without challenges. Speaking about environmental issues online seemed controversial to the general public. Alaina constantly received hate and at times wanted to quit. Surprisingly, even those working in the environmental industry didn’t support Alaina—they thought Alaina wasn’t taking her work seriously by promoting environmentalism online. Alaina even got into trouble once with her old job—in the environmental industry—for her social media account to promote environmentalism.

Alaina described her combating with hate as a constant battle. She learnt to block accounts, set up comment filters, talk to loved ones, and take time off so she can feel mentally well even when receiving hate. Alaina also learnt to adhere to her own pursuits in front of others’ obstruction. She quitted her old job that disliked her online promotion of environmentalism so she can express her thoughts and feelings freely online. Now, Alaina goes to conferences where she openly advocates for social media in front of environmental industry experts.

The decision to become an environmentalist that promotes sustainability online may be difficult, but Alaina adhered to her role as an environmental influencer in the hope of addressing climate change by encourage others to act with her.