The People Who Risk Their Necks

Communication is called a “soft skill” and I hate that.

I’ve had employees make a sour face when I tell them they need to work on communication. Like it’s shameful. Like the real work is the technical stuff and talking about it is some lesser activity for people who can’t do math.

This is completely backwards.

The Real Risk

The scientists and engineers working on climate change would get nowhere without the people willing to stand up and explain what’s happening. The communicators, the educators, the advocates. These are the folks who risk their necks in the court of public opinion so that the rest of us can keep our heads down in spreadsheets.

Think about what that actually means. A climate scientist publishes a paper. Maybe a few hundred people read it. A climate communicator takes that paper and explains it to millions of people, and in return they get death threats, harassment, accusations of being a shill, and an endless stream of strangers telling them they’re stupid.

I call that courage.

150 Years of Explaining

Since the 1860s, scientists have been explaining the relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide and climate. Over 150 years of papers, articles, and books. And here we are, still arguing about whether it’s real. The science alone clearly isn’t enough. We need people who can change hearts and minds, and that work is brutally hard.

I’ve met climate educators who work in schools and museums, trying to explain this stuff to kids without terrifying them. I’ve met advocates who spend their days in state legislatures, trying to get politicians to care about something that won’t affect their next election. I’ve met journalists who cover this beat knowing that half their readers will call them liars in the comments.

These people don’t get enough credit.

Making the Work Matter

The technical workers in climate, me included, rely on communicators to make our work matter. I can write the most rigorous carbon accounting standard in the world, but if nobody understands why it matters or how to use it, what’s the point?

Communication isn’t the soft part of the job. It’s often the hardest part. The part where you have to convince someone who doesn’t want to be convinced. The part where you have to make something complicated feel simple without lying about it. The part where you have to keep showing up even when people are screaming at you.

The Jobs Are There

If you have the gift of gab, love to research, can write persuasively, and want to work on climate change, there are real jobs waiting for you. Advocates, sustainability managers, journalists, educators, policy analysts. These aren’t consolation prizes for people who couldn’t hack it in engineering. They’re essential roles that require their own expertise.

The climate fight needs people who can explain things. That’s not less important than the people who can calculate things. It might be more important.

Someone has to stand in front of the public and take the heat. Someone has to translate the jargon into language that normal people can understand. Someone has to make the case, over and over, to audiences that don’t want to hear it.

So no, I don’t call it a soft skill. I call it the job most people aren’t brave enough to do.