When the pandemic hit, Ashley Barrientos was a freshman at Middle Tennessee State University. Her worldview, at just 19 years old, was rapidly evolving.
“I started to see a lot of the cracks in the systems,” Barrientos said.
She signed up for litter cleanups and looked for writing jobs, eventually landing a position with Impact Media to create content for their Instagram account, @impact. The popular account, which has more than 2 million followers, covers a wide range of social topics — recent posts covered how enslaved women were exploited for reproductive labor and some facts about bisexuality for Bi Awareness Week.
The account covered some environmental news, but Barrientos saw an opportunity for more, well, impact: Her goal was to create straightforward climate content that resonated with younger audiences.
“When it’s easy to understand, it’s easier to care,” Barrientos said.
In 2022, she became the founding editor of @environment, an Instagram account covering climate news and awareness that now has more than 830,000 followers.
The account, which is owned by Impact Media, got popular fast. Ariana Grande shared a post to her Story, and Leonardo DiCaprio even gave a full repost.
But Barrientos feels pride for this work beyond celebrity credit. She’s telling the stories she wishes she had as a Mexican-American daughter of immigrants.
“Latino people have historically been on the frontlines of climate injustice,” Barrientos said. “Whenever I get to write about that and spread awareness about that, that always feels really good. Growing up, I really did not see a lot of reporters or writers who looked like me or came from families like mine.”
For her work informing the public, Barrientos was recently featured on a list of this year’s 50 climate leaders by Grist, a nonprofit climate news organization.
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