We've seen the apocalyptic headlines (and movies). We've heard the scientists' warnings. We know they're the characters who are ignored until it's too late. The consequences of that ignorance are supposed to teach us something, right?
Right now, mediamakers are grappling with what their personal and professional roles are within the ever-unfolding climate crisis. Our industry creates content that billions of people consume. How are we using that attention? What are we saying about our future? Do people want stories that help them escape reality, or face it? How do we continue portraying the many nuances and contradictions of our lived realities while keeping entertainment, well … entertaining?
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As working creatives in Hollywood, we found ourselves grappling with these questions and felt there needed to be an accessible space to bridge silos and share information between the climate and media communities. That's why we created the Hollywood Climate Summit, a nonprofit and annual conference whose network of film, TV, music, fashion, games, sports and social media professionals convene with activists and experts to strategize around collective climate action. (It runs this year from June 25 to June 28.)
Over the past five years, we've had a front-row seat to the discussion around, "How should we be integrating climate into our stories?" We've learned that storytelling holds immense power to change the culture around the climate crisis and how we respond to it, and that every person who touches a story has the power to implement climate and sustainability values into their work, whether you're writing the story, marketing it or physically building its sets.
With that understanding, we wanted to summarize our key climate storytelling takeaways from some of the groups designing climate storytelling strategies, with whom we are grateful to be in community: Good Energy, NRDC's Rewrite the Future, Rare, Hip Hop Caucus, Center for Cultural Power, The Redford Center, Hollywood Health and Society, Climate Spring, Futerra, Intersectional Environmentalist, EcoTok Collective, Doc Society, NDN Collective, Harmony Labs, Reality of Change, Grist, CineReach and more.
Make any story a climate story: This doesn't just mean a story explicitly about climate (although it can be!). It's about what the story is illuminating, connecting or moving in us that helps us become better humans, equipped to navigate the massive culture shift needed to face the climate crisis.
Example: The Affair explores the emotional turmoil of an ongoing love affair, but in the final season it jumps to the near future where the main character explores and processes her family trauma by working to help save her home from the effects of the climate crisis. Additionally: True Detective: Night Country, Ted Lasso, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Madam Secretary.
It must be entertaining!: Any attempt at including climate in storytelling isn't going to be as meaningful or valuable unless it is an incredible story that moves us, attracts major audiences and leaves a lasting impression. We're not looking to sacrifice what makes a great story for heavy-handed messaging or information overload. It's impactful to add climate information, questions or values (whether it's through character, plot, in the background, via production design or VFX) in any already entertaining story you have or are developing.
Example: This season of Hacks is one of the best yet and includes many conversations about climate, utilizing the topic to further highlight Ava and Deborah's generational differences, ultimately forcing them into hilarious intergenerational conversations about Deborah's consumption habits and more. Additionally: A Murder at the End of the World, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, The Sex Lives of College Girls, Grey's Anatomy and Twisters.
Make it aspirational: Stories can shift our mindset away from defeatist, apocalyptic narratives and instead offer solutions, agency and inspiration. What are the character values in our stories, who are the people we want to see as leaders, and what are the lifestyles or societies we aspire for that would be better for us and the planet? What story choices or world design choices could help us visualize a climate-positive future?
Example: It may not seem aspirational to escape your life by hiking 2,650 miles, but Wild captured Cheryl Strayed's perseverance and love for nature, trusting the process and showing women world-wide that thru-hikes like the Pacific Crest Trail could be possible for them, too. In the years following, PCT permit application numbers increased 320 percent. Ultimately, studies show that the more time spent outdoors, the more inclined people are toward climate solutions. Additionally: Erin Brockovich, The Biggest Little Farm, WALL-E, The Expanse, Interstellar, Black Panther, Moana, Rutherford Falls and My Octopus Teacher.
Embrace humanity & nuance: In navigating major cultural shifts and compromise, we must depolarize this issue and see one another's humanity. Can your story urge us to be more interconnected? Can people with differing perspectives align over common needs? Can it center community rather than individualism?
Example: The Girls on the Bus is a recent prime example of a diverse group of journalists who are diametrically opposed coming together over issues because they genuinely care about each other. It respects each person's point of view while depolarizing topics like climate and reproductive rights, because the main characters understand they need to join forces in order to create larger systems change. Additionally: Sex Education, Parks and Recreation, The Good Place, The Politician, The 100, King Coal, Reservation Dogs and Loot.
Climate is intersectional: Actually, it is the most intersectional issue of our time. Almost every social justice issue a person can identify with or is passionate about intersects with climate, because climate escalates all issues. Can your story deepen our awareness of the intersectional issues that are the root cause of climate change, such as racial injustice, consolidated power, wealth disparity and extractive economies?
Example: Abbott Elementary expertly weaves climate through many of its episodes because it is undeniably a part of its characters' lives. Abbott is located in a diverse and under-resourced school district in Philadelphia and highlights through comedy how resource disparities in the public education system impact teachers and students dealing with climate change. In an episode in season one, we see how extreme heat impacts schools like Abbott when the characters have to scramble to keep the school day on track after the (already limited) air conditioning stops working. Additionally: Spirit Rangers, Parasite, The Territory, Beasts of the Southern Wild and The Curse.
Interrogate systems: Despite what advertising corporations and fossil fuel companies have paid to have us believe, climate change is caused by systemic problems, not individual actions. (Recycling is a disinformation plot of fossil fuel companies, talk about a plot twist!) Can your story question entrenched ways of being or things we are telling ourselves that are no longer serving us? Hollywood loves good versus evil (and as stated above, the complicated in between) — is there villain potential in the corrupt systems fueling the climate crisis and touting infinite growth? Just a thought …
Example: Snowpiercer (the film, but also the TV show) is a sleeper climate storytelling classic. A climate solution gone wrong, a train endlessly circling the globe in a frozen tundra, desperately divided by class — clearly a metaphor for the continued inequity of the climate crisis. It both interrogates the feudal system of this postapocalyptic world and finds solutions, namely at the end where the only reason the main character survives is because he listens to two Indigenous characters whom everyone else wrote off. A poignant warning, perhaps? Additionally: Years and Years, Succession, The Game Changers, Thank You for Smoking, Dune, Don't Look Up, Okja, Fallout, Arcane and Barbie.
In order to implement these takeaways, we need to embrace creating an industrywide environment for telling climate stories. Doing so will open the door to dozens more ways to portray the present and future that will defy apathy and encourage action. Intersectional climate stories will only become representative in our content if they are embraced within the culture of this industry, similar and in conjunction to the DE&I movements Hollywood has been striving toward.
To us, "climate storytelling" is an act of radical imagination that emphasizes values we need to shift, choices we must face and questions we must ask ourselves. Every person who touches a story has the power to influence its climate impact. Most importantly, when we are a climate-informed community, we will tell climate-informed stories.
This story first appeared in the June 2024 Sustainability issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to see the rest of the issue.
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