How you can help the Problem Solvers
Book a 2026 briefing for your leaders to translate the lessons of The Myth and The Moment to your organization’s toughest questions.
Still confused about the Problem Solvers and why they matter to you? Here’s a 30-second cheat sheet:
- The Problem Solvers—regulators, planners, utility commissioners, engineers, and staffers—live where climate ambition collides with physical reality.
- They aren’t ideologues; they’re just trying to get their jobs done.
- Their credibility is on the line with their climate-centric stakeholders every time they speak.
- Their challenge today: Make accurate calls—not moral judgements—on energy development questions.
- Our job as oil and gas leaders is to become trusted advisors who strengthen—not threaten—the Problem Solvers’ credibility.
- How to do this? By helping them replace Myth-driven decision-making with analytic courage.
In this series about working with the Problem Solvers, I cover what you need to know to understand, support, and empower these most important stakeholders. In Part 1, “The World According to the Problem Solvers,” and Part 2, “Ding Dong the Myth is Dead,” I covered what we must understand to be effective partners to them.
In this Part 3, I describe what they need from us. And you’ll want to deliver for them—because without the Problem Solvers, the abundant energy future doesn’t get built.
Both of these things are true:
- The Problem Solvers aren’t blind ideologues—they’re working to deliver the energy system of the future.
- Politics punishes those who abandon The Myth. So if the Problem Solvers let it go, they need concrete steps to maintain their credibility with the full spectrum of their stakeholders.
You can help them get the call right.
The situation
When Problem Solvers say no (or even “not yet”) to The Myth’s timelines, they risk being labeled anti-green or even climate deniers. They need to bring The Three Ts of Energy Realism (timeframe, trade-offs, and truth) into their conversations. But doing so is fraught.
To help them, we can borrow Arjun Murti’s framing of “Getting the Call Right.” His approach takes decision-making in a politically charged environment and strips it down to three basic steps. I’m adapting it to the Problem Solvers here because I think the lessons apply.
Here’s my adaptation of Murti’s secret sauce: Assess the facts on the ground, make a call, and make an honest assessment about how the call turns out. We need to gift this data + judgment + accountability approach to the Problem Solvers.
The call they must get right
Here are three ways you can work with the Problem Solvers to get the call right.
1. Name The Myth and The Moment
Because the Problem Solvers need to balance political expectations with physical reality, they require help telling the story of what’s happening. You can help them by clearly narrating the situation they face due to The Myth and conflicting physical constraints:
- Define the on-the-ground reality in plain English: “The legislation requires X, but growing power demand requires Y; therefore, we are going to have to look at Z.”
- Articulate tradeoffs: “To hit the 2035 emissions target, the options include A, B, and C, each of which raises consumer costs by D, E, and F.”
- Anchor solutions to their stakeholders’ needs: “Your customers care about lower carbon intensity, not absolute emissions.” Or “This policy option keeps power bills stable for your constituents.”
2. Tell the truth with data and narrative
Because the Problem Solvers must bring along a broad array of climate-centric stakeholders, they need an effective mix of data and storytelling. You can help:
- Celebrate successes to date. The death of The Myth doesn’t have to mean the end of climate ambition. Each jurisdiction needs to spike the football on the emissions it has already reduced.
- Tell the regulatory story. Most climate-centric jurisdictions spent the past 10 years passing an overwhelming number of bills and rules to reduce emissions. Work with an academic or consultant to compile and lay out this history. I promise you, the quantity and complexity will shock even the most seasoned lawmaker.
- Provide baseline energy system information. Pick the relevant parts of the energy system and analyze their status. That could be the power mix in the state over 10 years. It could be types of vehicles and fuels. You can’t talk about the future until you can agree on the present.
- Offer scenarios—both realistic and climate-centric. For the relevant energy slice, build three scenarios side by side that show the outcomes that the Problem Solvers’ stakeholders care about. They should, at a minimum include cost, reliability, and carbon intensity. Help the Problem Solvers imagine what the trajectories are before them, especially if right now they think that there is only one.
3. The Making the Right Call Hotline
You can help the Problem Solvers to evaluate energy and climate questions in a disciplined fashion. Make yourself available to help them make—and remake—the right call:
- Evaluate the information. That’s what you helped with in the two steps above.
- Make a call. Ultimately, all Problem Solvers will have to take a stand, probably risky, to advance pragmatic energy policy or approve a project. It will help immensely if you understand the stakes and commend them on their stance. This builds rapport.
- Evaluate actions over time. Encourage the Problem Solvers to revisit their decisions over time. As this pattern emerges, stakeholders develop trust in the veracity of the Problem Solvers and the credibility of their process. The process has the added benefit of creating systems to evaluate the climate policy decisions that got us into this mess in the first place!
- Admit what changed and what’s gone wrong. Energy demand goes up and down. Projects overrun budgets. Technology doesn’t deliver. Normalizing the reality of a changing landscape is mission-critical to pragmatic energy and project deployment. We can’t punish Problem Solvers for admitting that they need to course-correct! This is exactly the kind of accountability we want to encourage.
- Update the call. As circumstance evolve, the call must evolve, too.
All of these actions require courage. Courage requires partners … and cover. More on how you can help with that in Part 4.
Making the most of The Moment
Consider these steps to stay tuned to what comes after The Moment:
- Forward this email to your colleagues working with Problem Solvers.
- Get your baseline understanding up to speed! Order The Myth and The Moment.
- If you’re a paying member, thank you for making my work possible! If this was forwarded to you, please subscribe!
- Hit that heart button below! It’s the most important way to support my work.
To the secret sauce,
Tisha
