Welcome to The Cooler
Let's have better conversations about climate solutions together.
“In climate tech, the science is off-the-charts strong, but the storytelling is often weak.”
In 2022, famed investor Chris Sacca wrote this and it’s been ringing in our brains ever since. We are obsessed with story, and there is no bigger story of our time than the climate crisis.
After decades of inaction and ambivalence, the collective “we” is finally paying attention. In 2021, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a grim report: the world will keep warming until at least 2050. That means for the next 30 years or longer, we’ll live through even more frequent intense heat waves, droughts, flooding, wildfires, and hurricanes than are currently playing out all around the world. But there are reasons to hope: The same IPCC report found that if humans cut emissions immediately, warming could be limited, stabilizing the climate after the middle of the century.
The simple answer is action. But the type of action we need takes time, innovation and clear communication. The investment and talent being unleashed on building and scaling solutions is, as Sacca put it, off-the-charts strong—and the days are still early.
As public awareness continues to grow—and public and private sector decision-makers catch up with the urgency of the crisis—there are important stories to tell. Still, there are formidable challenges to communicating about climate solutions that are worth examining:
For better, and sometimes worse, everyone is talking about climate right now. There are powerful misinformation campaigns from embedded interests and it can sometimes be hard for the average person to spot greenwashing.
Communications teams are challenged to speak to a variety of audiences including policymakers, investors, customers and the general public.
Policy and regulations are complex and evolving, creating barriers of understanding between companies, consumers, and policymakers.
To examine these challenges, explore promising innovations, and make meaningful connections that drive solutions forward, we’re launching a new publication called The Cooler. In the coming weeks and months we’ll examine breakthroughs that catch our eye, report on the trends that are shaping public conversations , and speak to some of the communications, marketing and creative leaders tasked with shaping public understanding and inspiring action.
Climate change is the defining challenge of our time, and each of us has a responsibility to participate in the solution. Every story is a climate story. We look forward to telling these stories together at The Cooler.