Shaping Climate Narratives: Impactful Advocacy

In this course we will examine how advocacy strategies and tactics can be employed to drive progress on climate issues. Throughout the term, we will engage with distinguished professionals working in the fields of communications and climate advocacy who will share their experiences and perspectives. Each student will prepare short exposés of tactics being deployed to impede progress on climate issues, and the class will collectively frame a documentary storyboard on how to counter such efforts. The class will also consider how Middlebury College might enhance the impact of its Energy2028 initiative.



Kim Gagné has amassed deep experience as an advocate in a career spanning the worlds of law, diplomacy, and government relations. Kim’s advocacy experiences include partnership at a Washington white collar criminal defense firm; service as a Foreign Service Officer in Haiti and Saudi Arabia and at the U.S. Mission to the European Union; and senior-level service in Microsoft’s legal and corporate affairs group in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Kim is a Senior Counselor with the strategic communications firm APCO Worldwide and is Board Chair of ID2020.

This course counts as a social science cognate for environmental studies majors.