Radically Reframing Climate Change

An inspirational guide to discussing and fighting climate change for millennial and GenZ voters that cuts through the usual myths and scare tactics to provide practical advice.

Will Hackman is a Millennial, and he is pissed. Two wars, two global economic catastrophes, and a pandemic combined with a ballooning cost-of-living crisis and crushing student loan debt can do that to a person, but this is just reality now. All generations have their struggle. But there’s one thing that compounds these challenges that is unequaled at any other time in human history: ticking time bomb of fossil fuel emissions. With that bomb detonating already, Millennials and Gen-Zers will be left to deal with the worst of the climate change fallout well after those responsible have passed away. And we have never been more divided. In Radically Reframing Climate Change: A Guide to Saving Ourselves, Will Hackman identifies three main obstacles to solving climate change: polarization, paralysis, and stale, ineffective messaging. He empowers readers to turn their anxiety or apathy into passion, and anger into action at the personal, community, and government levels. The decades-old climate rallying cries to “Save the Planet” no longer work in our hyper-partisan world, and images of polar bears or melting glaciers is not going to change opinions. The problem of solving climate change isn’t scientific, fact-based, or even technological. It’s political, emotional, and ideological. Hackman provides a path forward for engagement and voter mobilization that combats apathy, dread, and resentment, and builds greater issue identification. Hackman reframes the climate crisis as a humanity crisis, arguing that we must change how we think and talk about climate change, both in our conversations with non-believers and among those who care, particularly regarding solutions. Assuring humanity’s place on a warming, changing planet will require a near universal level of public support we will never reach if we keep making the same mistakes. We know how to do this and we can do it again. But the stakes have never been higher and time is running out.

Author Biography

Will Hackman has more than fifteen years’ experience working in US political campaigns, public policy process, strategic communications, coalition building, climate activism, and global environmental conservation advocacy. Will is a frequent climate policy expert voice online and in the media and has been interviewed on several climate change-related podcasts and filmed a TEDx in 2022. His writing has appeared in The Hill and Washington Post. He lives in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley in Front Royal, Virginia with his wife Paula, tucked into the Blue Ridge Mountains and the north entrance to Shenandoah National Park.