PRWeek: Brands can close the Thunberg/Trump Divide

Brands can close the Thunberg/Trump Divide

Brands can help society cross seemingly unbridgeable chasms

Melissa Waggener Zorkin, Global CEO and Founder, WE, PRWeek, Jan. 23, 2020

(Image courtesy PRWeek, sourced Getty Images)

The other day, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, two of the most polarizing people in the world almost shared a stage. First came the young climate activist (and Time magazine’s Person of the Year) Greta Thunberg, who accused world leaders of doing "pretty much nothing" to address rising carbon emissions in spite of overwhelming scientific evidence that the cost of inaction will be catastrophe.

A few hours later, as if to prove Thunberg’s point, President Donald Trump denounced people who believe in human-caused climate change: "heirs," he said, "of yesterday's foolish fortune tellers." It seems no one told him the event’s theme was "Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World," emphasis mine.

There’s no middle ground here. In fact, it feels like there’s really no middle ground anywhere. On the contrary, it feels like we are always raging at someone else on the other side of an unbridgeable chasm.

But there is good news: Brands have a big role to play in bringing us back together.