Faces of Tomorrow

The failure to grapple with climate change is in part a failure of imagination. It can be hard to imagine what the world will be like tomorrow — much less in ten, twenty or thirty years. It is hard — not to mention scary — to imagine the reality of sea level rise, of increased temperatures, of water shortages and climate refugees. And as with many hard and scary things, our minds have a strong incentive to turn away, and turn off our imagination.

So how can we push our imaginations, in the most intimate and powerful way possible?

Any parent longs for a happy future for his or her kids, and the generational message consistently ranks as one of the most powerful motivators in both qualitative and quantitative message research on climate communication. But let’s stop being theoretical, and start making it personal.

Every year we are learning more and more about what a climate-addled world will look like in 2040, 2050 or beyond. And we already have technology to age-advance pictures of children to image what they may look like as they age — the kind of technology routinely used by the FBI in tragic cases of missing children. There are even dozens of free online tools to mimic the effect.

Faces of Tomorrow would be an online tool that lets users upload a picture of their child, and then create a shareable image of their child as an adult — along with data points about the world that child will inherit. Perhaps the tool would advance the child’s picture to the age of the parent. So, for example, a 40-year-old with a 10-year-old in 2019 could create an image of their child in 2049, paired with information about what rainfall, sea level and heatwaves will look like by mid-century. Suddenly, the science-fiction dates that are thrown around in the climate conversation would seem much more real — and much more personal.

The Out-of-Touch Index

Progressive policies routinely poll as popular with the voting public — but support from elected officials lags significantly behind. Progressive civil society has done an excellent job tracking this official support, through tools such as the League of Conservation Voters National Environmental Scorecard; the Human Rights Campaign Congressional Scorecard; or the Planned Parenthood Action Fund Congressional Scorecard.

There are numerous reasons for this, including opposition from well-organized and well-funded special interests; but also simple bureaucratic inertia and a lack of political imagination. And sometimes, as is the case for climate action, the public support is a mile wide but an inch deep — easily de-prioritized by the so-called “serious” political thinkers.

We need to break through that inertia, and drive home that nothing is less politically serious that ignoring massively popular policies and actions.

The Out-of-Touch Index would cross-reference existing accountability scorecards with state-by-state, and (as possible) district-by-district public opinion research showing voting public support for progressive policy action. Easily visualized in an online mapping tool or broken out with Member-specific data, this project would create multiple opportunities for civic society engagement: top issue-specific lists of “most out-of-touch Members of Congress,” as well as recognition for progressive champions that are leading their communities. The Index would not only create media outreach hooks, but also serve as one-stop-shop targeting intel for strategic resource allocation, both positive and negative.

The Index could target multiple issues, or be developed by any individual progressive NGO seeking to elevate their specific issue.

The iTree

Climate change is the ultimate tough problem to solve, and has led to our best and brightest offering their most creative solutions. Like the rhetoric of a TED Talk or iPhone launch, we hear a lot about innovation and nimbleness, and there is hope that the breakthrough technology we need is right around the corner.

But what if that breakthrough technology is already here?

Natural climate solutions, like planting more trees or just not cutting down the ones we already have, can get us almost a third of the way to avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. Yet these approaches get a fraction of the funding of the more “sexy” wedges of climate action, like renewable energy or energy efficiency or technological air sequestration. (It is worth noting here that sexiness in the context of climate policy is definitely a thing unto itself).

The iTree would be a piece of political theater to sex up perhaps the cheapest and most effective climate solution. Around an existing climate gathering or march, a group of black-turtleneck-clad tech-CEO-types would hype the coming unveiling of the ultimate climate technology. At an event with all the bells, whistles and hors d’oeuvres of a Silicon Valley roll-out, our nimble and forward-thinking leaders of tomorrow would release… the iTree (tm). The most sophisticated carbon-removing technology on the planet, over 360 million years in the making. Now available in both Acorn (tm) and Sapling (tm) skins!