Alison Smart is passionate about making climate literacy accessible to everyone. Through her work at Probable Futures, she’s helping transform complex climate science into practical knowledge that communities worldwide can use to prepare for environmental changes. Smart recently shared her expertise and insights with Aspire Leaders Program learners in a Masterclass that connected young leaders from across the globe.
From Museums to Climate Literacy
Smart’s path to her current role and passion for empowering others with climate literacy was not through environmental science or activism. Her career began in museums, where she developed skills translating expert knowledge into engaging stories for general audiences.
At Woodwell Climate Research Center, Smart discovered a new application for these skills. The center specifically sought someone without a science background who could help translate climate research for wider audiences. It was there that Smart built her own climate literacy and realized the power of making these concepts accessible.
“I learned that the most important concepts of climate science were really comprehensible and clarifying and intuitive, and that you didn’t need a highly technical scientific background to understand the most basic principles,” Smart explained.
Her work connecting scientists with other parts of society led to a collaboration with Spencer Glendon, who was building similar bridges between climate science and the finance industry. Together, they founded Probable Futures to share this work with communities worldwide.
Climate Literacy: A 21st Century Skill for Future Leaders
Smart views climate literacy as an essential skill for everyone living in today’s changing world. She explains that for most of human history, we didn’t need to worry about climate because it remained relatively stable for the past 12,000 years.
“We were able to build civilization because we had a stable climate,” Smart said. “The climate stabilized around 9,500 BCE. That’s why we could practice agriculture, build villages and towns, and eventually create the sophisticated civilization we have today.”
That stability allowed humans to embed climate patterns into the infrastructure and systems that support modern life — from building codes to agricultural practices. But as climate changes, these systems face new challenges.
“Now that the climate is changing, we need to learn how to live with a changing climate again,” Smart said. “This is a skill that we did not necessarily need in the past, and now everyone needs it.”
Bringing Climate Knowledge to Global Communities
Probable Futures operates through three key approaches. The organization provides climate literacy materials and interactive global maps at probablefutures.org, allowing users to visualize climate projections for their location. Smart and her team deliver climate education to diverse audiences, from early-career professionals to CEOs and elected officials. Additionally, Probable Futures collaborates with existing institutions to integrate climate literacy into their communities, including the Aspire Institute.
Rather than building everything themselves, Smart emphasizes working through established organizations that already have strong networks. “Our strategy is not about making sure everyone in the world comes to probablefutures.org,” she explained. “It’s about getting these concepts and this literacy out into the world in the most efficient way possible.”
Mutual Learning Through Global Connections
Smart values the opportunity to both teach and learn from participants in her educational sessions. The Aspire Leaders Program partnership aligned perfectly with Probable Futures’ mission, offering access to young leaders on the frontlines of climate change across diverse regions.
“I often seek out those kinds of environments personally, because I learn so much every time I engage with a group of people like that,” Smart said. “I really learn and understand more about how people are experiencing these climatic changes in their own locations and in their own context.”
These interactions provide Smart with stories and deeper understanding of climate impacts worldwide, while energizing her challenging work of delivering difficult truths about climate change. She’s developed an approach that acknowledges hard realities while providing practical solutions.
“What I’m doing is walking into spaces and delivering really hard truths,” Smart admitted. “I think we’ve found a way to do that that is intellectually honest but also provides really practical things to do, ways to prepare, and ways of thinking about it that are helpful.”
Starting conversations about climate through the universally relatable experience of weather makes the topic accessible to everyone, regardless of background or location. This approach often helps ease climate anxiety by empowering people with practical steps they can take.
“Just engaging with people in different parts of the world, seeing how they react, and just having human connection is a real source of fuel for me,” Smart said. “The enthusiasm, the feedback that I got from the group was very positive — great questions. It gave me fuel to keep going.”
Aligned Missions: Empowering Leaders to Drive Change in Their Own Networks
The partnership between Probable Futures and the Aspire Institute represents a natural alignment of missions. While Probable Futures works with leaders across all ages and industries and Aspire focuses on university students and recent graduates, we both aim to empower these leaders to take the knowledge they learn from our programming and resources to implement change in the communities and industries they know best. Smart emphasized that their goal is to work with existing institutions and appreciates this new collaboration with Aspire.
“This partnership is totally consistent with our strategy,” Smart noted. “How do we get these concepts and this literacy out into the world in the most efficient way possible? That is going to be through existing institutions that have their own communities and networks.”
Masterclasses through the Aspire Leaders Program exist to broaden the horizons of our learners. They often learn a new way of thinking and instruction in addition to new knowledge that allows them to take action in their community, family, or academic or professional life.
Alison Smart’s engaging session allowed both learning from her end and for the Aspire Leaders Program learners in the virtual room, providing a platform to bring diverse voices together who will shape how communities respond to climate changes worldwide.
Developing Climate Leaders for Tomorrow’s Challenges
For young professionals figuring out their path, Smart offers encouraging advice and emphasizes that everyone can make a difference on our climate, regardless of their field.
“If you care about climate change and want to contribute to solutions, you don’t have to necessarily become a climate scientist or start a climate-related organization,” she advised. “You can pursue the things that you’re already interested in and bring climate awareness and knowledge to that industry or place.”
This approach, Smart believes, gives young people an edge by bringing a crucial 21st-century skill with them into any career path.
“We need to make climate awareness and climate considerations a social norm and a business standard across every industry and every community,” she said. “That will happen fastest and best if we have lots of different people from lots of different backgrounds, going into lots of different disciplines – and bringing their climate literacy with them.”
