Dear Alden thanks for your tribute to Hunter. I was saddened by the news of his passing. I have fond memories of the times we spent while in the "trenches" of this climate fight. I recall his excitement when he told me about his Climate Nexus initiative. And it truly was an important initiative. Documenting the impacts of climate change in the visual way he did and providing the scientific explanations made climate science more accessible and real to many people. Work that was ahead of its time.

Hunter had a wonderful sense of humour and helped bring light in the context we work in. There is so much one can say about Hunter and his contributions. I would like to share a personal one that stayed with me. A strong memory of him jumping into a lake at a venue in Berlin where we attending a workshop, having no fears about jumping into that dark water while all of us stood watching him in amazement and him bursting with happiness.

The climate movement has lost yet another great person. My condolences to his family, friends and all the people whose life was touched by him.

Tasneem

On Wed, 11 Sept 2024 at 00:37, Alden Meyer <alden@ppartners.com> wrote:

Friends:

I am sad to report that Hunter Cutting, a dear friend and colleague to so many of us in the climate movement, passed away this past Saturday. I’m told he was getting over a serious long-term illness when he had heart complications and was admitted to hospital in San Francisco, where he had a peaceful death surrounded by his family.

Hunter was an iconic figure in our movement, working at the intersection of climate science and policy, campaign strategy, and communications. Along with many of you, I benefitted greatly from his insights, analysis, and guidance over the years.

In the mid-1990s, he helped to launch and lead We Interrupt This Message, a national media strategy center dedicated to building the capacity of front-line organizations working for social justice. In 2004, he joined Resource Media as its Associate Director for Energy and Climate, starting a 20-year journey as an innovative thinker – and doer – on climate strategy and communications.

He was a member of the founding team for Climate Nexus, serving as Senior Director for Strategy. His many accomplishments there included scoping and launching the Nexus workstream on U.S. LNG exports, developing the organization’s strategy on greenhouse gas removals and the supply of critical minerals, and leading the development and launch of Climate Signals, a first-of-its-kind science database and digital platform curating climate change attribution literature and providing resources for discussing extreme weather events and other climate change impacts in real time.

Many of us worked with Hunter in the context of the IPCC, where his communications expertise and savvy were put to especially good use. He participated in thirteen IPCC reports over the years, served as an invited expert reviewer in the AR6 cycle, was seconded to the IPCC Secretariat to assist with the rollout of that report, and served on the strategic communications council for the IPCC Chair.

Hunter was a prolific author; his seminal works include his 2013 publication, Right Here, Right Now: A Communications Guide to Climate Change Impacts, and in 2006, Talking the Walk: A Communications Guide for Racial Justice, co-authored with Makani Themba. He also wrote numerous articles for general audiences, such as his 2017 Huffpost piece “El Niño + Climate Change = Godzilla?” (the title of which illustrates how Hunter used humor to draw his audience in).

Hunter was a brilliant strategist and communicator; he was also a kind and generous human being, always willing to pitch in with advice and support for his colleagues and to mentor people coming up in the field. He was a dear friend and will be sorely missed.

In sorrow and gratitude, Alden

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Tasneem Essop
Executive Director
Climate Action Network-International (CAN)

"The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear" Gramsci

email: tessop@climatenetwork.org

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