Think of all the great (and not so great) fictional films related to climate change. They are all focused on dramatizing the hyper-result of climate change. The decimated crops, the tsunamis smashing into skyscrapers, the storms freezing people in seconds… It’s all about the visual extremes of a climate catastrophe. Nothing that deals with the issue in a more hopeful way. The New York Times has even reported on Hollywood’s reluctance to deal with climate change seriously (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/movies/hollywood-climate-change.html).
So, if life really does imitate art, our hopes of meaningful climate action don’t look promising. But where are the stories of hope, the stories that double-down on the adventure of addressing, rather than just dealing with, climate change?
The climate change movement is led by passionate activists being pushed along by committed scientists with a few policymakers cheering them on. But try as they might, there will continue to be piecemeal social shifts until the real cultural titans get behind climate change. That means the studios, the publishers, the media businesses all stepping up to tell stories––of hope, of adventure, of drama––that can fire the passion and collective imagination of the masses.