And, no, it’s not Jim Gaffigan.
Rainn Wilson, (Dwight on The Office) has been using food to make climate points for ordinary folks.
Actor Rainn Wilson (The Office) made headlines last year when he changed his Twitter name to “Rainnfall Heat Wave Extreme Winter Wilson” to draw attention to climate change.
Along with social science expert Professor Gail Whiteman and writer/producer Chuck Tatham, Wilson co-founded Climate Basecamp, with the goal of using pop culture as a launchpad to educate the public on the science of climate change.
Rainn Wilson: I had this realization about six years ago that I really cared passionately about climate change and communicating climate science, but all I was doing was sending out dozens of angry tweets to climate deniers. That was the extent of my activism. I realized I needed to do something more and get off my butt. That’s when I started working with Gail [Whiteman].
The first thing we did together is we filmed a low-budget travel climate series called An Idiot’s Guide to Climate Change for my digital media company at the time, SoulPancake.
After that, I camped out with a bunch of climate scientists at Davos at the World Economic Forum on the grounds of a fancy hotel. We shipped an iceberg to the COP26 conference in Glasgow and had it set up outside; it was slowly melting as the delegates were entering the grounds.
We bottled Arctic melt water, and handed it out to participants with information about Arctic melt. We did the Arctic Risk Name Changer app that had millions of views.
We’re continuing that work of interesting, unique storytelling with climate scientists. I want to help amplify that information.
Gail Whiteman: The climate science is compelling, it’s rigorous, and it’s scary as we approach important climate tipping points. I felt that it was really important to experiment with communication and figure out what target audiences needed to be reached in order to change the dial.
So, I set up an original organisation called Arctic Basecamp, and the mission was to speak science to power. We would go to the World Economic Forum, we would camp in a big science tent and break through the clutter.
People power is a huge untapped resource. Most climate scientists do not talk to regular people. That’s not their expertise, they don’t know how to do it. Over the last four years, I learned from Rainn that people are interested, as long as you talk to them in a way that is interesting. We figured we would talk through culture, through our favorite things, like ice cream.
For Climate Basecamp, our mission is to speak science to culture, looking at five areas: food, entertainment, music, sports and fashion.
Were those hot dogs made from locally sourced vegans?