Cooling is the link between my graduate research reconstructing past climate change from ice core records and my current work with an environmental organization and philanthropic program to maximize the climate and development benefits of transitioning to energy-efficient and climate-friendly refrigeration and air conditioning. Along the way, I have benefited from the insights and generosity of two great scientists, Jean Jouzel at LSCE and Michael Bender at Princeton, for a trans-Atlantic doctorate, as well as fellowships in Congress and the U.S. government. During my time in government, I had the opportunity to apply my scientific training to inform energy and climate policy in addition to advancing policy for science in the form of scientific integrity policy. This includes working with scientists at the most senior levels of government as they used science to inform their response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. On the international stage, scientific studies underpinned the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, and were influential when 197 nations agreed to the Kigali Amendment in 2016 to phasedown hydrofluorocarbons, avoiding up to 0.5°C of warming by the end of the century. In this presentation I will share both my own experiences and my observations of the roles science and scientists can play in domestic and international policy and diplomacy.