{"id":9752,"date":"2026-08-07T16:10:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T14:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/?p=9752"},"modified":"2026-08-28T17:06:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T15:06:37","slug":"poohs-honey-is-gone-and-eeyore-gets-depressed-the-hundred-acre-wood-talks-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/poohs-honey-is-gone-and-eeyore-gets-depressed-the-hundred-acre-wood-talks-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Pooh\u2019s honey is gone, and Eeyore gets depressed: The Hundred Acre Wood talks climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The weather is going haywire. Heat waves are becoming harder to ignore. And yet, talking about climate change is getting harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a troubling pattern in the way the public responds: the more alarming climate headlines dominate the news, the more likely we are to tune out \u2013 or distance ourselves from the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2024 study by ARC Rynek i Opinia found that the share of Poles who consider climate change a serious threat has dropped by seven percentage points. This is happening even as the economic costs of climate disruption are mounting. A forecast by ClientEarth and the Institute for Reforms estimates that by 2050, climate-related losses in Poland could reach PLN 124 billion a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof. Jacek Wasilewski of the University of Warsaw\u2019s Faculty of Journalism, Information, and Book Studies and Prof. Piotr Welk of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw are looking for a different way to break through the fatigue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve noticed that the traditional climate narrative, built largely around facts and figures, has run its course,\u201d Prof. Jacek Wasilewski says. \u201cPeople are responding to the issue more emotionally, while climate change itself has become deeply politicized. Political polarization means that some people reject certain solutions regardless of what the data shows. This applies both to the energy transition and to how we protect nature and adapt to climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This exhaustion from years of climate warnings even has a name: climate fatigue. Among teenagers, meanwhile, eco-anxiety and eco-grief are becoming increasingly common, often bringing sadness and a sense of helplessness with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tour of the Hundred Acre Wood<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To tackle the problem, researchers launched \u2018The Hundred Acre Wood After One Hundred Years\u201d \u2013 a project that uses A.A. Milne\u2019s beloved story as a safe, familiar starting point for talking about the climate crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The timing is no accident. Winnie-the-Pooh<\/em> was first published in 1926. Exactly a century later, the project\u2019s creators return to the Hundred Acre Wood to see how much the world of its inhabitants has changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of confronting readers with the harsh reality of climate change head-on, the project lets them see its effects from a little distance, through the stories of Pooh, Eeyore, Roo, and the rest of the gang. This makes the subject less frightening, lowers resistance, and opens the door to a conversation about climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStories warning that things are only going to get worse and that we need to act certainly contain a lot of truth. We can see it in the droughts affecting Poland or in the growing danger that summer heatwaves pose to older people. But we\u2019ve also noticed that many young people respond with indifference: If this is such a huge, global problem, what could I possibly do? Why bother getting involved? That\u2019s what prompted us to look for a new narrative \u2013 one that would show a different way of thinking and, above all, speak to younger children without frightening them. The response to climate change should be neither denial nor depression,\u201d explains Prof. Wasilewski.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The educational process takes students aged 12\u201315 on a three-stage workshop journey. First, they read an excerpt from the book and discuss the problems facing its characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then they head outside. Armed with cameras, they explore their surroundings, looking for places particularly vulnerable to overheating, flooding, litter, or a lack of greenery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the final stage, the students create a map of local problems \u2013 and, crucially, possible solutions: flower meadows, retention basins, new tree plantings. The finished map goes up on the project website, turning it into a concrete proposal for change addressed to local authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA hundred years after Winnie-the-Pooh<\/em> was published, a great deal has changed. We\u2019ve kept the sequence of events familiar from the original story, but woven different climate-related phenomena into it. It\u2019s learning through entertainment. People remember stories remarkably well: what happened, who said what, and to whom. Abstract chains of cause and effect \u2013 with no face, no character, no personal motivation \u2013 are much harder to remember. That\u2019s why I chose to tell the story of these new phenomena through the inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood,\u201d says the researcher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Pooh no longer hears the bees buzzing. When he fells a tree, there are no bees in the hollow \u2013 and no honey, either. How has climate change changed life in the Hundred Acre Wood? And what can its inhabitants do to protect their home? Illustration: Piotr Welk (Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The cooling trap \u2013 and radioactive honey<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The story draws on real physical, climatic, and ecological phenomena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one chapter, Pooh and Rabbit try to cool down their den with a refrigerator and air conditioning. But there\u2019s a catch: the machines pump so much heat outside that the area around them becomes even hotter. Soon, uninvited guests arrive \u2013 an invasive species of crab that takes over their den.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientists call this a \u201ccooling trap.\u201d And the Woolly-handed Crab featured in the story is no fantasy. Originally from East Asia, it has spread across Europe, probably hitching a ride in ships\u2019 ballast water. Rising global temperatures could help it push even farther north. The species has already turned up in Polish rivers, including the Oder and the Vistula.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many readers, the Kanga\u2019s story may be even more unsettling. She is driven from her meadow after Owl buys up the land and turns it into a vast soybean monoculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Kanga seeks refuge in the forest, she is met with hostility. The other residents mock her \u201cstrange pouches\u201d and even try to drive her away with a catapult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind this fairy-tale episode lies a very real story: land grabs by agribusiness and the forced migration of people displaced by climate change. World Bank projections suggest that by 2050, drought, water scarcity, and the loss of habitable land could force up to 216 million people across six regions of the world to move within their own countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book also takes aim at another modern-day problem: economic exploitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one story, Owl disposes of radioactive waste \u2013 but buries it far too shallowly. Soon, flowers spring up on the contaminated ground, producing poisonous, glowing honey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sowa adds a twist worthy of the real world: the warning about the contamination was hidden in the small print. Owl then sells the victims potassium iodide, presenting it as a remedy for the very danger he helped create. It\u2019s a sharp illustration of real-world mechanisms such as information asymmetry, greenwashing, and the ruthless \u201cproblem + cure\u201d business model \u2013 in which the person who creates the problem later makes money selling the solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe book opens with a map of the Hundred Acre Wood. We all remember the map from a hundred years ago \u2013 a pleasant, idyllic landscape. But the map of the Wood today looks very different: paved over, dystopian, transformed. And yet, much can still be changed. The whole book encourages readers, inspired by Roo, who sets out to make a change of his own, to draw a map of their immediate surroundings. The idea is to give them a starting point \u2013 to look closely at what has changed right outside their door,\u201d explains Prof. Wasilewski.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Hundred Acre Wood before the changes. Illustration: Piotr Welk (Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
The Hundred Acre Wood after the changes. Illustration: Piotr Welk (Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ask your grandmother about the snow<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One of the project\u2019s most engaging elements is the intergenerational perspective. Before heading out into the field, students are asked to find out from their parents or grandparents what their neighborhood looked like when they were growing up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTalk to older people, and you can find out what the neighborhood used to look like, where people went sledding, and where today you can only do it once in a while,\u201d Prof. Wasilewski says. \u201cThe next step is to turn those memories into a map. Students print a map of their neighborhood and, using Roo\u2019s map as a model, mark out how they could make their surroundings better equipped for a changing climate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an invitation to ask what can be changed, what might be causing problems in light of what we\u2019ve learned and what we\u2019re beginning to understand, and what we want our surroundings to look like,\u201d the researcher adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A story from a parent or grandparent can make the pace of change feel immediate in a way that numbers and charts often can\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project\u2019s role model is Roo, accompanied by Eeyore, the Wood\u2019s resident pessimist, who has never been one to assume that \u201ceverything will somehow work out. That\u2019s where the book ends. And that\u2019s where the reader\u2019s role begins. That\u2019s what matters most,\u201d Prof. Wasilewski says. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to lecture readers or tell them, \u2018Do this because it\u2019s the right thing to do.\u2019 We want to spark a different thought: \u2018Hey, maybe we can do something, too.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe idea is to turn climate education into a journey \u2013 part story, part scientific adventure. The information is already out there, and there\u2019s plenty of it. The real question is whether we\u2019re motivated enough to go looking for it,\u201d the researcher concludes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Hundred Acre Wood, One Hundred Years Later. An educational book on climate change for children. A project by Jacek Wasilewski and Piotr Welek<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We do have the power to change things<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Hundred Acre Wood After One Hundred Years\u201d project demonstrates how the language of climate communication can be transformed. Instead of focusing solely on catastrophic scenarios, it guides young people from storytelling, through observing their immediate surroundings, all the way to designing concrete solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its goal is to strengthen a sense of agency and encourage students not to see themselves solely as passive observers of the global crisis, but also as agents of change who can make a difference right in their own backyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
\u201cMy name is Eeyore, and I have to admit, I\u2019m not much of a fan of stories. They have a habit of ending unexpectedly \u2013 and not always happily. This one, though, is different. This one tells the truth,\u201d says Eeyore, who never imagined he\u2019d find himself in a story quite like this.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The text was originally published in Polish on the Serwis Naukowy UW website on August 7, 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What does a bear with a very small brain have in common with global warming, agricultural drought, and an invasion of Asian crabs? Quite a lot, as it turns out. We\u2019ve grown increasingly numb to the familiar language of the climate crisis. So instead of confronting young people with yet another barrage of charts and warnings, researchers are taking them somewhere else: the Hundred Acre Wood. What would that carefree childhood landscape look like a century later \u2013 and could it help young people see what they can still change in their own surroundings?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":9753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1810],"tags":[1884,1878,1871,1877,1882,1881,1837,1387,1880],"class_list":["post-9752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-social-communication","tag-the-hundred-acre-wood-one-hundred-years-later-project","tag-academy-of-fine-arts-in-warsaw","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-fatigue","tag-eco-anxiety","tag-eco-grief","tag-faculty-of-journalism-information-and-book-studies","tag-university-of-warsaw","tag-winnie-the-pooh"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9752"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9788,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9752\/revisions\/9788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}