{"id":1244789,"date":"2023-10-04T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grist.org\/?p=619596"},"modified":"2023-10-04T08:30:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T08:30:00","slug":"the-rise-of-dadvocacy-inside-seattles-first-climate-papa-playdate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/10\/04\/the-rise-of-dadvocacy-inside-seattles-first-climate-papa-playdate\/","title":{"rendered":"The rise of \u2018dadvocacy\u2019? Inside Seattle\u2019s first Climate Papa playdate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Bananas, clementines, and string cheese decorated the table, alongside coloring pages and markers. As half a dozen kids took to the snacks and the nearby playpen, parents stuck name tags on their shirts then quickly fell into deep discussions of what they could do about the unsettling global catastrophe that poses a risk to their children\u2019s well-being and kids everywhere<\/a>: climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was the first \u201cClimate Papa\u201d playdate, held at the end of September under the high wooden ceiling of Stoup Brewing, uphill from downtown Seattle. The invitation suggested that the conversation, part of Pacific Northwest Climate Week, might cover \u201cheat pumps and parenthood,\u201d \u201chome electrification and nap schedules,\u201d and \u201cbatteries and bottles.\u201d It inspired the attendance of about a dozen adults, divided roughly equally between moms and dads. Anyone was welcome to come to the meetup, provided they weren\u2019t turned off by the labels in the invitation \u2014 climate grandpa, climate aunt, climate human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also present was the<\/em> Climate Papa himself, otherwise known as Ben Eidelson. He currently advises climate tech startups and is raising money for Stepchange<\/a>, a venture fund that invests in software products aimed at tackling climate change. His own startups have been acquired by Stripe and Google, and he spent years working as a product manager for both companies. Eidelson had claimed the domain climatepapa.com<\/a> in May sort of as a joke, inspired by a group of concerned parents called Climate Dads. But his two children, 2 and 5 years old, don\u2019t call him Dad. They call him Papa, a remnant of his wife Anna\u2019s Russian heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Soon enough, what had started in jest revealed itself to be a mission. Eidelson realized that his son and daughter were his real motivation for doing something about global warming. Climate Papa became a home for his newsletter and podcast, venturing from nerdy (methane removal and financial technology) to cutesy (interviewing a 7-year-old about climate change). It had sparked enough interest to merit an in-person playdate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Eidelson makes the case that parenthood is often missing from how people in the tech world talk about climate change. \u201cThese things are not separate,\u201d he told me across the table. \u201cThe more we separate them, the more we\u2019re dismissing the inherent motivation people have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He pointed to groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, founded in 1980 by Candy Lightner, whose daughter had been killed by a drunk driver. Since then, the group has helped cut the number of drunk driving deaths in half \u2014 saving an estimated 400,000 lives \u2014 by raising awareness<\/a> that such \u201caccidents\u201d were avoidable and working to pass roughly 1,000 local and national laws related to driving under the influence, playing a role in getting Congress to raise the national drinking age<\/a> to 21 in 1981.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moms have long been seen as a force in the climate movement<\/a> \u2014 not necessarily a surprise, since women still tend to be the primary caregivers<\/a> in the family, and are more likely to embrace environmental causes<\/a> than men. While dads have been on board behind-the-scenes for a while, they\u2019ve started getting more attention<\/a> this year. The advocacy group Climate Dads, founded in 2018 by Ben Block and Jason Sandman in Philadelphia, got a wave of attention after a feature in Bloomberg<\/a> in August. At least 800 dads around the country have joined. (The signup page says: \u201cInterested in getting involved in our dadvocacy for the planet?\u201d) Earlier this year, a poll from Heatmap News<\/a> found that fathers were particularly amenable to taking public transportation or trying to eat less beef compared to the rest of the population, though the sample size was admittedly small, at around 1,000 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s widely known that young people are distressed about climate change \u2014 an international poll<\/a> in 2021 found that 45 percent of teens and young adults say anxiety about the warming planet affects their daily lives and ability to function. Of course such concerns touch their parents too, sometimes prompting a twinge of guilt or fear for what the future holds<\/a> for their children. They might imagine the prospect of their kids confronting them one day, asking them what they did to quell the climate crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The conversation at Stoup Brewing leaned into the kinds of topics you\u2019d expect from climate dads \u2014 heat pumps, e-bikes, artificial intelligence. Some at the meetup had recently been laid off from tech companies and were pondering a career path that included climate action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n