Ok, Doomer #6
by Sonam Velani and Lyn StolerWhat to expect when you're expecting an IPCC report (plus, our TED talk!)
This week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the AR6 Synthesis Report. The piece summarized the findings of the last 5 years of IPCC reports, and had both good news and bad news in store for us.
There are a lot of experts this week giving their takes on what the IPCC report says — it’s the last one we'll see for the next several years given the resources and expertise it takes to pull together multi-hundred page PDFs! Rather than providing yet another summary, we're going to share our favorite, and then move onto what we can do about the world as it stands today.
The key takeaways:
It's no surprise that our climate communications muse Katharine Hayhoe had an awesome breakdown of the IPCC report and what we need to learn from it. Here's her thread on Twitter:
Where we go from here:
Working on and caring about climate change is an emotional rollercoaster. On the one hand, we're surrounded by people who are building highly impactful technologies that give us hope. On the other, these scientific reminders of the challenge that still lies ahead can be scary and discouraging.
This time last year, the IPCC released its report on Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. This report hit really close to home for us, since our passion lies in resilience and adaptation. After reading the 2022 report, Lyn spent the afternoon incredibly discouraged (and crying). Her friends encouraged her to turn to solutions for a source of optimism and to regain some sense of agency.
So she did. She started interviewing start-up founders, VCs, and policymakers who were pouring their hearts and souls into climate solution moonshots. She met Sonam along the way and they immediately gushed over the mutual love of cities and how this abundance and progress can come to life in the streets and neighborhoods we call home. Fast forward and Parachute was born to share our learnings and encourage others to exercise their agency – because optimism is the name of the game here!
We're sharing this story because we do our best to make Parachute about abundance, progress, optimism, and agency. But those are hard-won sentiments, and we didn't always feel that way. In November, Lyn gave a TEDx talk about the experience of going from Eco-Anxiety to Climate Optimism through the process of writing Parachute. The talk was released publicly a few days ago, and this felt like the perfect time to share it. We hope you like it!
We can all do something to improve the world around us!
As Lyn says in her talk: Each one of us has a role to play in putting climate solutions to work in our communities. For you, that might mean showing up to your local community board meeting to advocate for the new affordable housing next door or spending your evenings tinkering with a new electric panel that can more effectively utilize energy. The options are wide and broad, and it’s up to you to go deep. So with that, we wanted to leave you with some of our favorite resources:
🧾 For those who want a tasting menu of climate solutions: All We Can Save, by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson
📚 For the academics amongst us: Hope, Health, and the Climate Crisis, by Howard Frumkin
🧑🏼🤝🧑🏼For climate newcomers looking for encouragement: Not Too Late, by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young-Lutunatabua
🧑🤝🧑 For those who want to reach across the aisle: Saving Us, by Katharine Hayhoe
📊 For the data junkies: We need the right kind of climate optimism, by Hannah Ritchie (Our World in Data)
💚 For those looking for empowerment: The Climate Optimist, by Anne Therese Gennari
⬇️ For the mitigation enthusiasts: Project Drawdown
🎲 For board game socialites: Solutions the board game, by our friend Sam Lelac-Levy
Location Check: Lyn is trying to avoid the rain in San Francisco! She’ll be hosting a climate meet-up and dinner soon… stay tuned for updates here or reach out via Twitter for an invite! Sonam and Anson are both in NYC in the midst of UN Water Week!
Sonam is excited to join our favorite blue tech entrepreneurs, NY Climate Tech, and the Consulate General of the Netherlands to Make Waves (literally), exploring cutting edge solutions to address our global water challenges. Join us IRL or stay tuned for Parachute’s deep dive into the water ecosystem (again, literally)!
by Sonam Velani and Lyn Stoler