Reframing Climate Change with Will Hackman

Local author Will Hackman joins Trace owner Mala Persaud for an Earth Month fireside chat and you're invited!

Bards Alley is thrilled to welcome Front Royal author and policy expert Will Hackman to Vienna for a talk about his book Radically Reframing Climate Change: A Guide to Saving Ourselves. Join us at Trace - The Zero Waste Store (located just a block away from Bards Alley on Church Street), where he will be in conversation with owner Mala Persaud!

At once practical and inspirational, Radically Reframing Climate Change encourages readers to channel their anxiety and anger into action. It presents a clear-eyed examination of the challenges facing climate advocates as well as helpful strategies for discussing the issue and rallying support. We'll have copies available at the event, which includes a book signing.

Snacks and drinks will also be provided, courtesy of Trace and The Wine Outlet. RSVP for free here: eventbrite.com/e/author-event-will-hackman-radically-reframing-climate-change-tickets-1984978405846

ABOUT THE BOOK

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 there’s one thing that compounds these challenges that is unequaled in human history: the ticking time bomb of fossil fuel emissions. 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 climate rallying cries to “Save the Planet” no longer work in our hyper-partisan world, nor do images of polar bears on melting glaciers. The problem 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. Assuring humanity’s place on a 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. But the stakes have never been higher and time is running out.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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.