ClimateVoices Featuring Jamie Henn

It’s my pleasure to talk to Jamie Henn , who is working to shift the narrative about climate change and how we can fast track progress toward meeting collective climate goals. Jamie is the founder and director of Fossil Free Media , a nonprofit media lab that launched Clean Creatives , a campaign pressuring public relations and advertising agencies to quit working with fossil fuel companies to spread climate disinformation. Before that, Jamie was Co-founder and Strategic Communications Director at 350.org , the largest grassroots climate organization in the world. Jamie is the co-author of "Fight Global Warming Now" and "The Next Eco-Warriors," has written for The Nation, Common Dreams, The Guardian, MSNBC, Truthout, Grist, and more. In 2022, Jamie was recognized as a Grist 50 “Fixer.”

How do we continue to shift the narrative around companies and climate change, holding companies accountable for inaction or outright obstruction?

Too many companies are still stuck in a 1990s approach to sustainability where they think it’s enough to toss a recycling bin in the corner of the breakroom. For better or worse, companies have become major social and political actors, which means they have a responsibility to think not only about their own emissions, but how they’re enabling a destructive status-quo or driving transformative change. As our Supreme Court has said, corporations are people too, and everyone has a responsibility to think about how we can best drive down emissions from wherever we happen to be positioned. Companies have huge levers available to them – money, productive capacities, marketing budgets, consumer bases, etc. – all of which can be leveraged to speed up the clean energy revolution.

If Silicon Valley went up in flames or Wall Street went under water tomorrow, we’d all expect 谷歌 and BlackRock to drop everything and pitch in on rescue efforts. Well, the planet is on fire right now. It’s time for these companies to step up.

What role can employees play in urging their companies to step up and really be climate champions in the policy arena?

As my friend Bill McKibben likes to say, the best thing an individual can do on climate is to think a little less like an individual. One of the best ways for any of us to create change is to leverage larger institutions we’re a part of. An individual student at Harvard divesting from fossil fuels doesn’t make much of an impact, but when they organize to force 美国哈佛大学 to divest its $53 billion endowment, it makes headlines around the world. Employees can have a tremendous impact when they come together and get their employers, or entire industries, to change.?

How do you do it? Find allies in your company and build a team. Pick a specific goal you can work towards. Power map your leadership to think about what will motivate them to change. And get to work in a positive, but forceful way. You’re not trying to tear your company down, you’re helping it step up and become a leader.?

How do we effectively tackle the number one obstacle of climate progress – Big Oil and the trade associations still doing their bidding??

Big Oil companies know that their days are numbered, so they’re doing everything it can to cling to power. I think the most effective way to take them down is to go after the pillars that prop them up. You can yell at Exxon until you’re green in the face, but they’re never going to listen. But yell loud enough at their bank, their law firm, their PR firm, their tech provider, and they might actually change. The more we can isolate the fossil fuel industry and weaken their social license, the less power they’ll have over our politics and economy.

Finally, we need to be more confident in our position. The public is on our side. Clean energy already creates more jobs than Big Oil. We’re embracing the future while they’re clinging to the past. The fossil fuel industry wants to make us feel small so they can stay big. We can turn their world upside down.?

In Big Tech, they call me a “shit stirrer” – and I love that nickname. What’s your moniker?

I tend to be referred to as a gadfly. And you want to know the best thing about flies? They’re even more annoying when they’re flying in a swarm.?

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