Anna Weinberg has called many different habitats home. From the rolling hills of rural Georgia to the towering mountains of Montana, she can adapt and thrive just about anywhere. Now, in her current work at the University of Arizona’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment, she’s making sure that people across the globe will be able to adapt and thrive in our changing world.
Weinberg grew up around animals: dogs, “scrappy” cats, even the odd snake. Interested in animal behavior and intelligence, Weinberg looked only at colleges with zoology programs. She fell in love with the UW campus on a mid-February tour. “It was the worst time of year, but I still fell in love with it,” she remembers. In her second year, she added an environmental focus to her coursework with a second major (conservation biology major) and the Nelson Institute’s environmental studies certificate.
Weinberg was also active in environmental groups on campus, interning with the Office of Sustainability and helping to establish CLEAN (Campus Leaders for Energy Action Now), a registered student organization that’s been a key player in moving campus towards a more sustainable future. Weinberg, alongside founding members Kendl Kobbervig and Leah Johnson, saw a gap in the existing group of environmental organizations. “There wasn’t a real space for that activism side,” she says. “The impetus for it was to push the university to commit to 100 percent clean energy by 2035.”
This was in 2017, and the effort wasn’t well received by university leadership. However, through ongoing efforts from CLEAN, the Office of Sustainability, and other environmental groups, that tide has turned. In February 2024, Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin announced a sweeping environmental sustainability initiative with five goals, one of which is a transition to 100 percent clean energy by 2030. “Even if we didn’t make momentous movement at the time,” Weinberg reflects, “clearly it’s had an impact!”
Weinberg now works at the University of Arizona (U of A), which is seeing similar policy changes resulting from student efforts. Before heading to the southwestern United States, she lived in Missoula, Montana working in clean energy and food systems. “I’m really grateful for all of the places that my young career has brought me so far,” she says. “I keep getting this crash course in the top climate and environmental priorities for all these different areas.”
Today she weaves those priorities together as the codirector of the Conservation and Adaptation Resources Toolbox (CART) at the U of A’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment. “The big goal of CART is to connect folks who are tackling similar conservation and adaptation challenges but across geographies or jurisdictions. We do this by sharing lessons learned from work on the ground,” Weinberg explains.
CART maintains an extensive case-study library, the majority of which are lead-authored by U of A undergraduates through CART’s internship program, which Weinberg helps oversee. The 200-plus studies live in an online dashboard, which is publicly accessible.
When Weinberg started at CART, the world was at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The internship program evolved to be fully remote and has continued that way since. In overseeing interns across the country, keeping everyone connected — to themselves and to the larger environmental community — has been a priority for Weinberg. “It was really important to me that they don’t feel like they were just floating in the internet void,” she says.
In fostering that sense of community, Weinberg is also careful to not put too much pressure on the next generation. At recent conferences and workshops, she’s been hearing the same refrain from generations before her: “The young generation, they give me hope. They’re going to figure it out,” she quotes. “I don’t know if they understand the frustration and anxiety that creates for all the young people in the room. We’re trying our best, but you don’t get to give up and tell us that it’s our job now.”
Surely there is hope to be found in the next generation — just look at the hundreds of case studies authored by Weinberg’s interns. But it’s the connectivity and knowledge sharing where Weinberg finds her optimism. “I’ve seen time and time again how valuable that is,” she says of not just sharing knowledge, but getting in a room with people facing similar things. “These issues are tricky. I don’t have all the answers; these people don’t either. But if somebody’s going to figure it out, we’re going to do it together.”