Hollywood stars including Jane Fonda and the Oscar-winning directors of Everything Everywhere All At Once will meet in Los Angeles for a special four-day summit designed to show how the entertainment industry can influence the world in tackling “climate change.”
AFP reports the Hollywood Climate Summit unites “thousands” of filmmakers with scientists and activists in a bid to “change the industry’s culture and to encourage movies and TV shows to use their outsized influence on audiences around the world.”
That influence will come through increased efforts to subtly insert climate-related words, messages and phrases in TV and film scripts.
Fonda is seen taking a key role along with others in a panel on Thursday, thus continuing her past efforts to frame the debate on climate matters.
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The gathering follows a recent study by the Norman Lear Center and Good Energy found the climate crisis was “virtually nonexistent” in scripted entertainment, the AFP report sets out.
It notes fewer than three percent of around 37,000 TV and film scripts made since 2016 mentioned “any climate-related keywords,” and only 0.6 percent used the words “climate change.”
This is now set to change.
“We see this as a huge problem because, for the most part, people on average spend more time with television and film characters than they do with their own families,” fellow summit co-founder Heather Fipps said.
“It is really important for us to steep our fictional worlds in our reality.”
Weinstein added: “Every single person on earth is being affected by the climate crisis in some way. If we’re not showing that in our day-to-day content, that content is science fiction.”
The summit sees “Abbott Elementary” star Quinta Brunson join “Everything Everywhere” directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert in a keynote discussion, before Fonda calls on the industry to battle new fossil fuel developments in California.
Oscar-nominated “Everything Everywhere” star Stephanie Hsu will join a talk on the need for different generations to openly discuss climate change.
File/U.S. actor Leonardo DiCaprio (2nd L) marches with a group of indigenous people from North and South America, during the People’s Climate March in Washington DC, on April, 29, 2017. (JOSE LUIS MAGANA/AFP/Getty Images)
File/In this undated photo provided by Good Energy, the online resource “Good Energy: A Playbook for Screenwriting in the Age of Climate Change” is displayed on a computer monitor. The project, intended to increase climate change-related words and phrases in TV and film scripts, was created with feedback from more than 100 film and TV writers (Good Energy via AP)
File/Actress Jane Fonda participates in a protest in front of the U.S. Capitol during a “Fire Drill Fridays” climate change protest and rally on Capitol Hill, October 18, 2019 in Washington, DC.(Mark Wilson/Getty)
Another panel will address the role of unscripted shows, including reality TV, in portraying climate issues.
The renewed climate push in Hollywood comes after a study in 2019 showed Hollywood celebrities and business leaders have carbon footprints up to 300 times bigger than the rest of us, as Breitbart News reported.
The study highlighted the hypocrisy of those who promote climate change activism while at the same time refusing to set foot on a regular commercial flight.
Rich and famous “super-emitters” are such constant travelers they could also be encouraging others to follow in their slipstream by boasting of their private jet-setting habits on social media, researchers found.
The 2023 Hollywood Climate Summit takes place from June 21 to 24.