The “Overton Window” has formal descriptions and literary elaborations, but in plain English I suggest that it’s “the realm in which you can propose change without sounding crazy.” Effective communicators are sometimes said to have moved the window, although Joseph Lehman (who named the idea after his late friend Joseph Overton) said that this can get things backward: that “The most common misconception is that lawmakers themselves are in the business of shifting the Overton window, [but] that is absolutely false. Lawmakers are actually in the business of detecting where the window is, and then moving to be in accordance with it.” Examples are readily offered, but let’s not start a bar fight.

Whether Lehman is right or wrong, a shifting Overton Window transforms angry controversy into mainstream acceptance. A non-political example that probably won’t start a fight (unlike, say, same-sex marriage or legalizing marijuana) might be pre-1980s science-fiction movies and TV shows: in many of these, a futuristic scene includes ash trays everywhere. Well, of course. “No Smoking” rules for an entire building? Ridiculous – but the Overton Window for tobacco use moved dramatically, as witness the disappearance of smoking sections on United States domestic flights in 1990. That was long overdue in some people’s opinion, an infringement on personal freedom in the view of others – but it happened, and no one seems to be looking for an “Undo” key.

I mention this specific change because it makes a point about timing. Smoking was (actually) banned on airplanes a decade before there was an ash tray (fictionally) shown on a table on a space station in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Movie set designers in 1968 simply did not see the change coming – and in general, when it’s time for something to happen, people who extrapolate trends for a living are often caught by surprise. The change may look more like a tsunami than like a well-behaved tide. The effect may be more like a snapping rubber band than like a swinging pendulum.

It was therefore more than just a matter of labeling when a “Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels” (TAFF) took place at the end of last month in Colombia. In that space, the need for that transition was not a controversy that struggled even to be mentioned in a conference agreement (as was the case at last November’s COP30 meeting in Brazil). What made me think, “Overton!”, was a comment that the Colombia participants “broke a long-standing taboo by openly linking oil and gas not just to emissions, but to war, displacement and economic instability.”

The “Summary Report” from the conference puts it right out there:

It is a truism that burning fossil fuels causes human-induced climate change. But this truth is rarely spoken at UN climate change meetings. The focus has been on emissions, not their sources. The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels (TAFF 1) sought to shift the discussion and build momentum for concrete solutions to end fossil fuels’ grip on economies, legal frameworks, and energy systems.

The Colombia and Netherlands co-hosts of this (explicitly labeled as) “first” TAFF gathering were also right up front about their goal of focusing the conversation on what to do, rather than debating whether it needs to be done. The invitation-only attendee list, they said, was drafted “to avoid a rehashing of the lengthy debates at COP30” – for example, whether carbon capture technology could be invoked to turn down the urgency of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I’ll spare you the need to follow a link to what was shared here on this subject following COP30:

Carbon capture has been discussed since at least as long ago as 2009, when the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute was launched as an international effort led by Australia. As of [October 2025], though, estimates MIT’s Technology Review, “hundreds of companies that have spun up in recent years have disclosed deals to sell some 38 million tons of carbon dioxide pulled from the air…roughly the amount the US pumps out in energy-related emissions every three days. And they’ve only delivered around 940,000 tons of carbon removal. The US emits that much carbon dioxide in less than two hours. Scale matters, and carbon removal efforts have yet to achieve it – making it all the more important to maintain, not to slacken, the pace of reducing carbon emissions.

Statements that a present moment will prove “pivotal” often turn out to have been premature, but this conference—in its context of the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz—might turn out to qualify. More to come.