Chip Giller launched Grist, an online news magazine, in 1999 in large part because he wanted to address the growing threat of climate change.

Science-based information, he believed, would motivate people to confront the existential crisis posed by a warming planet, and his site — a cutting-edge online nonprofit — would deliver that information journalistically and compellingly.

Now, 25 years later, Grist is a highly regarded news organization focused on climate, justice and the “change agents” who are working to create a brighter future. It has an estimated 2 million monthly readers. Last year, it won a coveted National Magazine Award for General Excellence.

The threat of climate change, meanwhile, has only worsened – indeed, climate scientists say, it is already here, beginning to alter our planet in profound ways.

So Giller, an islander who has been heralded by national organizations as a “climate leader,” has embarked on a new path. Last month, he and his business partner, philanthropist Wendy Schmidt, announced the launch of Agog: The Immersive Media Institute – a philanthropic organization that, as they explained in a news release, “will help creators and nonprofit leaders harness the power of extended reality technologies to spur positive social transformation.”

In other words, promoting the use of virtual reality to build a better world.

By delivering stories to people experientially, Giller maintains, “we can reach people in a more visceral way, and that might open up our minds to new possibilities.”

“When I began Grist, I had a somewhat naïve belief that facts can persuade and that a more informed citizenry would lead to a more functional democracy,” he added. “But we’re in a period of polarization where different media ecosystems exist, and facts don’t necessarily break through.”

Virtual reality and augmented reality — or what he and Schmidt call “extended reality (XR) technologies” — can build empathy and connection, which in turn enable people to expand their perspectives, change their minds and see the world in a new light, Giller said. Put another way, he said, “Feeling can lead to believing.”

He said he recently donned a VR headset to explore the world as a visually impaired person would. He described teachers using the tool to teach civil rights, enabling students to cross the bridge with marchers in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 and feel the hatred of the State Troopers wielding billy clubs. He talked about experiencing a river choked with native salmon, another powerful vestige of the past, or feeling the “overview effect,” as astronauts do when they look down on the Earth and witness how small and precious it is.

“You can view these tools dystopically — to wall us off from reality — or as a way to connect us more and more with reality,” he said. “You can use these tools to experience what was, what is and what could be, to experience a world whose cornerstones are compassion and connection.”

Giller sat in his office as he talked, an artfully appointed cottage with paned windows and French doors, perched above his 1908 home near Portage — a world away from the futuristic technology he was describing. He acknowledged at times how far-fetched his words sound to others, especially those who know little about XR.

“This is all so bizarre, I realize,” he said.

But Giller, 53, has long been an early adopter. When he started Grist in 1999, many questioned the wisdom of news delivered solely via the “information highway,” as the Internet was called at the time. Now, nonprofit online news organizations are seen as a promising future for journalism as traditional news companies struggle.

In the same way, Giller sees XR as the wave of the future — a future that is already here but mostly serving elite circles or those willing to spend considerable sums on virtual experiences. Agog, a name Giller and Schmidt chose because it suggests wonder, will try to level that playing field, Giller said, enabling people at all levels to experience the power and potential of XR.

Giller is Agog’s executive director. Schmidt is a former journalist who served on Grist’s board. Along with her husband Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, she’s given billions to philanthropies and nonprofits attempting to address environmental issues, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Giller and Schmidt co-founded Agog to act as a hub for collaboration and foster a community of creators. The nonprofit will provide both philanthropic and technical support to organizations, journalists and other storytellers to create content that can address social change and environmental challenges, according to Agog’s news release. Before going public, Agog supported a project that enabled people to experience the life cycle of a mushroom (including its underground life) and a “reality hack” at MIT that brought 700 people together to explore the potential of spatial computing.

Though it may seem like Giller has strayed far from his roots as a journalist, he said this new venture is a natural evolution. Over the last couple of years at Grist, Giller worked to highlight a brighter future by launching what he called a “solutions lab,” an effort to accelerate progress by showing what’s already happening to address climate change and build community and connection around climate progress.

That work, he said, “was the bridge to what I’m doing now.”

Giller acknowledges he has faced skepticism from some of his friends. He moves in a decidedly down-to-earth circle on Vashon; for years he was on the Vashon Land Trust board. At a recent get-together, according to his wife Jenny Sorensen, one of their friends expressed alarm over Giller’s move towards a tech-driven virtual world, telling him that we “need to sing and dance,” not don VR headsets.

Giller’s response: “Yes, sing and dance” — but don’t walk away from powerful tools that can be used for good. “I’m going to try my darnedest to make this next shift in communications a constructive one, rooted in justice and social purpose.”

Leslie Brown is a former editor of The Beachcomber.