def positive(self):total = {}final = {}for word in envir:for i in self.lst:if word in i:if word in total:total[word] += 1else:total[word] = 1final = sorted(total, reverse = True)return total

This returns

{'climate': 10, 'ecosystem': 1, 'energy': 6, 'human': 1, 'world': 2, 'renewable': 2, 'native': 2}

I want to get this dictionary back to a dictionary that is in order. How do you I sort it and return a dictionary?

An ordered dictionary would get you what you need

from collections import OrderedDict

If you want to order your items in lexicographic order, then do the following

d1 = {'climate': 10, 'ecosystem': 1, 'energy': 6, 'human': 1, 'world': 2, 'renewable': 2, 'native': 2}
od = OrderedDict(sorted(d1.items(), key=lambda t: t[0]))

Contents of od:

OrderedDict([('climate', 10),('ecosystem', 1),('energy', 6),('human', 1),('native', 2),('renewable', 2),('world', 2)])

If you want to specify exactly which order you want your dictionary, then store them as tuples and store them in that order.

t1 = [('climate',10), ('ecosystem', 1), ('energy',6), ('human', 1), ('world', 2), ('renewable', 2), ('native', 2)]
od = OrderedDict()for (key, value) in t1:od[key] = value 

od is now

OrderedDict([('climate', 10),('ecosystem', 1),('energy', 6),('human', 1),('world', 2),('renewable', 2),('native', 2)])

In use, it is just like a normal dictionary, but with its internal contents' order specified.