Stories of hope from Climate Week.

Okay Climate Week, way to wow!

Sure, we expected it to be powerful and informative, but the positive energy was invigorating. With every session we joined and each person we met—from Kjersti Fløgstad, Executive Director of the Nobel Peace Center to our new friend Caroline Taylor just three months into her career—we witnessed passion, brainpower, action, and urgency. Across roles, sectors, and stages of experience, people are showing up with creativity and courage to tackle one of humanity’s most pressing challenges.

A lot’s been written already about key themes from the week, and a takeaway of these takeaways is there’s a whole lot of consensus (great news!):

• Climate work is advancing on a global scale, despite the negative forces trying to slow it down. The people driving this work are undeterred, boldly passionate, solutions focused, and committed to moving forward.
  
• We need to meet people where they are. This theme surfaced in multiple sessions, from our co-presenter Tory Stephens who talked about the sneaky power of climate fiction storytelling, to Hanna Grahn of Spotify who shared ideas for sliding climate narratives into entertainment (like uber popular True Crime podcasts).
  
• Storytelling is an engine of progress. Genevieve Guenther, PhD challenged those of us in climate to incorporate epic narratives into our work (think The Iliad and The Odyssey, but with a hero battling a changing climate rather than a Cyclops). Our very own Kim Grob, MFA showed our audience at “The Narrative Shift” how simple, human language woven into stories of hope can inspire change. And then we put that into practice with a fun rewrite exercise.
  
• Silence comes with a cost. Our co-presenter Jenny Morgan laid this out clearly using her recent book research and examples to show us the void that greenhushing creates. We heard it from others too. When companies go quiet, they risk having their stories told by someone else which can lead to misinformation, reputational loss, or erosion of trust.

Except for the singular dissenting voice at the United Nations General Assembly, this ship has sailed. So much amazing climate work is happening, and the momentum can’t be stopped. To propel us forward, we’ll be leaning on all that we heard and leaning in to the more emotional refrains:

Thank you Climate Week for the new friends, the meaningful connections, the powerful dialogue, and the inspiration to keep going.