Disrupting culture through media

Day 3
Written By kristen winzent

Recorded at Climate Con 2021 on November 11, 2021


Disrupting culture through media

Culture is entirely man-made, which means it can be un-made and re-made. As humans, the only thing we're really constrained by is physics and biology. The rest is negotiable. To start, all we have to do is imagine it. What are cultural undercurrents and how can we use them to move toward a better future? This session will deep dive into the role and influence of media and entertainment and how we might unlock alternate pathways.


A conversation with:

Full transcript.

Merrill Feather: Now to continue our conversation about culture and its role in our climate features, we're going to deep dive into the role of influence of media and entertainment and leading this conversation about disrupting culture through media is our moderator. Kristina Reed. Kristina is a veteran of the entertainment industry and academy award winning producer, and a maker of stories. Now shifting her focus, to the fight on climate change. And Christina, I want to bring you up and let you take it from here with the panelists. Thank you for leading us through this discussion.

Kristina Reed: Hey Merril. Thank you so much for that intro and also for the invitation to be part of this. Welcome everybody. I'm Kristina Reed. I have spent, about a quarter of a century working in computer graphics first in visual effects and then an animation. I pride myself in a career leading highly skilled craftspeople and technicians and enabling them to do their best work in concert with one another. And of course all the artistry and technology is the most satisfying when it's in service of a great story. And I'm sure all our panelists would say that, getting to tell a great story is one of the deepest joys of their work. So with that, I want to start on right away with introducing them. 

First I would love to bring up Alex Bloomberg. Alex is the co-founder of the podcasting media company, Gimlet, and the host of How To Save a Planet, a podcast about solutions to the climate crisis. And before Gimlet he was a radio journalist at This American Life and co-founder of the Planet Money Podcast on NPR.

So second on the panel, it's an insane group today, is Alexandria Villaseñor. Alexandria Villaseñor is a climate activist living in New York City and you're currently in Glasgow right now, right Alexandria at COP 26. She is a follower for the Fridays For Future movement and a fellow climate activist of a fellow climate activist, Gretta Thunberg. 16 year old Alexandria is the co-founder of the US Youth Climate Strike and founder of Earth Uprising.

Alexandra was named by the Global Landscapes Forum as one of the 16 women restoring the earth - - -women's day. Welcome Alexandria. I also want to welcome Allison Begalman. Allison is the LA-based, activist, entrepreneur and writer. Is an LA-based activist, entrepreneur and writer. She's the co-founder and CEO of YEA! Impact, a social impact marketing consultancy, and she co-founded the Hollywood Coalition Youth Entertainment Activists.

She is an executive producer of the annual Hollywood Climate Summit. She's worked at companies such as CAA, Annapurna Pictures and on such shows as AMC Preacher, and Hulu's Monster Land. She's a screenwriter and she's also represented by Alison Nan at The Fourth Wall. 

And last, but certainly not least I want to welcome Dave Finocchio. Dave is the co-founder and former CEO of the Bleacher Report. One of the most engaged sports media brands in the United States. He scaled Bleacher Reports audience from scratch to well over a hundred million monthly users on the web, app, newsletters, and social channels. As a business Bleacher Report was approaching 200 million in annual revenue when he departed in 2019. David is passionate about leveraging digital content strategies to connect mainstream audiences with the climate crisis. So I'm going to turn it over and let some other people speak besides me in a moment.

But first I wanted to just have a quick burst exercise with all the panelists and all the audience. And the way this is going to work is I'm going to ask you to write something down and share it, but I don't want you to hit send until I hit send, because the idea is we'll have a burst in our chat stream.

So don't hit send. And the question is, what is the climate medium or story that is galvanizing you the most right now? Can everybody think about that for two seconds. And when I hit send, when I say hit send, we'll all hit send. We'll give everybody about 10 seconds and panelists I invite you to do the same.

What is this climate story or medium that is galvanizing you the most right now. I'm going to give you guys about 10 more seconds and then I'm going to say send.

Send everybody. Hey the We All Can Save book. There you go. Sandra Atmos, an IgE, Top 26 Rubbish Carbon Credits I love this. These are the topics. Oh, TikTok, here comes TikTok and Eco TikTok, all right. And this conference. Yay. With that backdrop, I want to focus our talk today on three specific areas.

Hey Alex, thanks for joining us. First of all, I want you all to be talking about your personal decision moments, your climate journeys. It's particularly interesting to hear from you guys because of the influence you have in media. And I really want you to talk about that. Pivot in a minute. We're also going to just talk about the landscape a bit what's needed and both the messaging and the medium.

And then of course, where do we bring in optimism and what role can that play going forward? So, Alexandria, I'm going to start with you. Can you talk a little bit about your climate journey and specifically the choices you made about sort of the size of the impact you wanted to have and how you chose media to launch it on that. 

Alexandria Villaseñor: Well, that is a great question. I think that I want to first start with how I got involved in climate activism. So I got involved in climate activism about three years ago when I was 13 years old. And I first got involved because I saw the impacts of climate change within my own community.

I grew up and I lived in Northern California and I was in my hometown when the camp fire in Paradise, California happened in 2018 and at the time that was one of California's worst wildfires in its history. And it was also the most destructive. And so being so close to that, my family ended up getting a lot of the smoke from that wildfire and I have asthma and it was very much a wake-up call for me. And so at that time, I was actually living in New York City for two years. And so I ended up going back home to New York early from that trip, visiting family. And once I got back to New York City I was so upset because this was my hometown that was really being affected by climate change.

And so I started researching and seeing that connection between the two. And that's when I really knew I had to do something. And so I decided to take all of the climate anxiety and eco grief I was feeling and turn it into action by going and striking in front of the United Nations Headquarters in solidarity with Greta and the Fridays for Future Movement.

And so, first of all, I think that everyone has a climate story and everyone should find out how they're being impacted by the climate crisis, because we're all experiencing it right now, but in different ways. And so once people find their climate stories, then that empowers them too to also take action because they have something to protect. There's something there that's personal that keeps you going, just like the wildfires for me. And then the way that activism goes over into media is media and social media is really what made the youth climate movement as strong as it did. And that's because youth would go and we'd upload our protests onto social media.

We'd share a message with the media about what we were doing. And so that helps when it comes to connecting with other youths. But also the media is what signals to people that we have to wake up. The media is the one who really holds the key to letting the public know the urgency of this crisis. And so when youth would started protesting, we got a lot of coverage because, well, we were youth, we were teenagers who were skipping school when the protest happened.

And that was, I mean, that was shocking to some people, they, students were skipping school to raise awareness about the climate crisis. And the other thing that I noticed when I got involved was that youth constantly had to reinvent the wheel of the actions that we took in order to get media coverage. And so right now we were going beyond and, above and beyond to get coverage of our actions to raise awareness.

But now I think the conversation is changing and as the urgency and the climate crisis progresses media is becoming more aware that this is something that they have to cover and tell the public that this is happening right now. 

Kristina Reed: Right on. Alex, I'm gonna pivot to you. I would love for you to share a bit about your climate journey and in particular, I'm curious how you developed, how to save a podcast differently through a climate lens than you would have maybe developed another podcast.

Alex Blumberg: Yeah. Sure. So, my climate journey is. I mean, I've been aware of climate change for a long time. And I think as like a sort of a concerned person who, you know, was like an environmentalist for, you know, like in that I like to take hikes in nature and I worried about, you know, the environment. And, but I was always like, I always had, another job, it wasn't my full-time job. And I was aware throughout the 80s and 90s of climate change and kept thinking like, well, eventually we're going to do something about this. Right. And it just kept not happening. And it just kept on getting. And so, and I think my, and so I think as I sort of like went through my career and eventually launched a media company, it became, the early on I think the original idea for it was to just try to start talking about it. Like I was like, I run a media company. I should, you know, to Alexandra's point like the media is not covering this. So, and we need to, so why don't I try to do that? So that was the original idea as we were sort of developing the podcast.

There is something of a sea change. I think brought a lot, brought it on in a lot by all the activism that is like been led by the young people like Alexandria. And so, it isn't so much that like, nobody's talking about it now. I think it's a, how do we talk about it? And so that's what I've been thinking about, as like when we launched this podcast, we say it's a podcast about climate change that you actually want to listen to, and don't just feel like you should listen to, but don't and I think there's a lot of like when you're covering something like climate, where the stakes are incredibly high and the future is, you know, it really is, feels like a lot is hanging in the balance, how do you cover that in a way that's like also engaging where you can actually crack a joke. And I think for so long, because so much nothing was really happening. At least on the policy side, that the media narrative became sort of like more and more sort of like extreme of just sort of like people wake up, you know, like it's really bad.

Look, here's the, you know, it, you know, here's a dying polar bear look. Here's how bad, you know. And so what happened is there was a whole group of people that were like, I know it's real and I believe it, but now I'm just afraid to listen cause it just overwhelms me and makes me feel like awful. And then there was this an ever shrinking group of people who are never going to believe it anyway. And like, why are we even bothering with them? And so now I think we are in a position where we can actually talk about like, it's here. It's real. There are very exciting solutions and the solutions actually make our lives better.

It's not just like something that we have to do in otherwise the world is going, it's actually going to make things better, better, flat out, better, not just. It's better than not having change change. It'll just be better. Our world will be better if we make this transition. And I think that's a big part of what we're trying to get across. It's just like what's on the other side, because the other side, it just, I feel like it's been presented as like there's a lot of sacrifice and then you're going to have to wear sweaters all the time and your cars are going to suck.

And like, all this stuff is going, it's all going to be bad. And actually, I think there was a whole different vision, which is like, the world is a lot better. It's quieter, it's cleaner, it's works better. It's more efficient. So you live longer. There, there aren't as many people having like people with respiratory problems that are like endangered by our energy source, you know, there's like a whole bunch of things that are like so much better about the world if we can, make this transition. 

Kristina Reed: I didn't mean to sound sarcastic. We live longer. I realize, of course, that's our ultimate goal. But I mean just eating better, food systems, living in environmentally clean places, I mean, there's just so many aspects that are better. So I'm just definitely echoing the message. Allison, I'm going to bring you into the conversation.

I would love you to share also a bit about your climate journey. And specifically how you found your levers. Cause I found it really fantastic looking at your resume and seeing the Hollywood Climate Summit. YAE! and sort of the different ways you're pressing in. And I would love to just hear about that a bit, how those choices were made.

Allison Begalman: Yeah, totally. Well, first of all, I'm really grateful to be here such an honor to be with amazing, incredible people. So basically my answer to this question is kind of wrapped up into my own professional story, because you know, my work is dedicated to the combination of grassroots organizing and activism and media and how are they feeding off of each other. And how are we bridge-building between these spaces. So I've been doing grassroots media organizing for the past 10 years, as well as working in entertainment. And so I'm a trained as a writer. I worked in a lot of different companies and as I was moving up and building my community, organizing resume on the side, while also working in entertainment, I was doing intersectional feminist organizing and queer organizing.

And in doing that work, I started to see that there where threads and intersectionality between the movements that many of us know and understand now, obviously folks on the front lines are mainly, black and brown folks, women and queer individuals. These folks are more impacted by the climate crisis. So, you know, a lot of community organizers would call this sort of like 'collective liberation', right? So if we're all being hurt by a specific issue, how do we work together within our movements to do this work? And that thread is kind of the premise for young entertainment, activists, which was my organization. I found it a few years ago that basically brought young Hollywood together because they have so much power working for top executives and agents and actors, where they are to leverage their positions for social impact. So after creating Entertainment Activists, I moved into my company YEA! Impact, which is a social impact agency and it supports younger team of activists as well. But in this work we started the Hollywood Climate summit because in again, doing the solidarity work and, bringing different, groups together and entertainment, we noticed that there really wasn't a centralized place for organizing with media and climate, there, wasn't a place where you could bring climate activists and scientists and give them the platform hand over the mic to these folks for Hollywood to listen and learn and build community. So that's when we started the Hollywood Climate Summit. When I say we started like, we are facilitators, like we are (...) We are not experts in this work. We are the bridge for these experts. And so we started in 2020 and I think it was like the combination of, COVID had started two months before it was May 2020, and it was like the first big digital event. And I think there was just a big surge in and folks wanting to learn about this. 

And then we've been doing it ever since we've built a coalition of about 112 organizations. Netflix was a sponsor last year, which was really incredible. And they gave us so much freedom being like we're learning from you. And I was like, that's incredible. So Netflix, Bloomberg, all these incredible, NRDC, Sierra Club. And what also was cool about it is like, you don't really always see an NRDC and Sierra Club coming together on the same stage. And I think that's the beauty of the Climate Summit and to follow is really creating a non biased space for all the different organizations to share what they're doing. And then have a call to action. So that's our work. Thanks.

Kristina Reed: Amazing. And then Dave, I'm bringing you into the conversation too. Your climate journey has spurred you to make a really major shift in your media influence. And I'd love to hear how that pivot began and how it's going. 

Dave Finocchio: My story is fairly similar to Alexandria. I'd just done a whole hell of a lot less about it so far.

But I'm a Northern California kid, lived in San Francisco throughout, sort of 2014 on when we started getting regular fire seasons. My wife and I had two children during that phase as well. So we're living in an old Victorian house in San Francisco that would be filled with smoke for anywhere from two weeks to two months a year, I also have a have a background with asthma and I'm more sensitive to smoke than the average person.

And it was a horrible experience for me. And I sort of didn't understand at first why other people didn't think it was so horrible. Probably by the second year it started happening when it was clear, it was going to become a regular occurrence. My wife in particular started getting into a series of climate podcasts that was sort of our response. We'd go on road trips that would be something we would listen to this, we'll listen to countless How To Save a Planet episodes and MCJ. And at first I would maybe want to listen to something that I thought was a little bit more, I thought would be more entertaining and she sort of, you know, pushed on and said, Nope, like we're listening to this, this is important. And pretty quickly I got sucked in to just how, aside from the urgency that exists here, like I just find the broad topic to be endlessly fascinating. It's the people in the space and you know, as Alex mentioned, the ways in which our world are going to change for the better it's, I mean, it's mind blowing.

I just again, I find it to be endlessly fascinating. I hold a perspective. I'm a sports person by background. I'm also a history geek. Those are sort of my life's two great passions and on the history side, I have noticed that we in the United States has not accomplished many hard things in our history without popular support for the hard things to be done.

And I'm sure, depending on what research studies you read you know, more than 50% of the country, well over his conscious of climate and believes the climate is real. But maybe only 20% sort of would fit into a bucket of people who would be attending a conference like this, who believed that climate's truly an existential crisis.

And my belief is there needs to be a lot of different guides towards and I sort of the way that MCJ and Jason has been a guide to me and the way to How To Save a Planet has been a guide to me. I think that to reach different audience constituencies in mainstream America we're going to need lots of different tactics.

And I'm interested in this site. I have a background in scaling audience digitally on a lot of different channels using storytelling, using a lot of different types of short form content, really focusing on voice, I think in particular and making sure that the voice that you're speaking to whatever audience with is a voice that they can come to trust and maybe that they find to be entertaining and interesting. And so I'm a, I've been doing some work trying to figure that part of it out. How do you reach audiences where they're spending time around climate in the right way and how do you do it in more of a 24/7 sort of capacity where they're attached to climate all the time or a lot of the time versus maybe consuming a piece of climate content once every couple of weeks or watching the documentary, but having it not be sort of like, I think we need more through-lines around climate in more people's lives. 

Kristina Reed: Talk about that through-line just a little bit. Part of it is me leaning into the next question that I'm going to ask everybody which is sort of what's missing. So I'm really curious, you have very clear sense of what's missing in your mind on the client landscape. And I love hearing about it. So just wanted to lean into that a little bit more, and then 

Dave Finocchio: I could be wrong. It's just a, it's just a hypothesis. But I think, you know, I'll use social channels as an example. A very small percentage of Americans are following a climate account on a social channel that is, I think delivering a narrative to them about different climate topics that they choose to engage with.

And I think social channels are one of many different mechanisms. You know, there are newsletters, there's texts. There, there are lots of different ways to reach people, obviously. But in terms of sort of like that 24/7 sort of narrative or climate is just sort of omnipresent in your life, where you can, you're leaning into climate without needing this sort of, make a ton of extra effort because most people for better or worse are not going to take great initiative. The people who are taking great initiative are the people who are attending a conference like this. Most people aren't going to do that. So I think we just need to create really low-hanging, like, you know, low barrier to entry ways that are fairly entertaining for people to learn more about climate and feel positive and hopeful and ultimately just feel more invested and maybe that changes the way they, you know, vote or speak to the representatives or individual lifestyle decisions or how they talk to their friends or whatever it may be. But I think there needs to be that sort of a through-line for more people. 

Kristina Reed: Great. Alexandra. I'm going to flip it to you so I can get everybody's answers.

What is media missing for you in your mind? What is the opportunity that the media is missing to change the future. And I think you're really like you're out on the tip of the spear trying to make this happen. So I'm very curious what you see is missing in the landscape. 

Alexandria Villaseñor: Yeah, I do my best on Twitter and Instagram and social media platforms to educate people on what is happening and communicate the climate crisis in a way that it's understandable and especially news that comes out, like, for example, cough news, I'm constantly tweeting about it and making sure that the information for what's going on is accessible. And I think that there are a couple things missing. And I think that mainly when it comes to climate change, I saw someone put in the chat that climate change only has 6 million posts on Instagram.

And I think that's one of the first things. Social media is one of the best ways for people to get out a message. And so I think we need to start using social media platforms much more to just start having conversations and engaging with people and also doing it in a way where we communicate the science and communicate what's happening in a way that's understandable because I think a lot of people see news out there that maybe makes them very feel a lot of climate anxiety and will make them disengaged. So I think that that's the other thing is making, communicating the signs and communicating what's happening through social media platforms and the media in a way that inspires hope and makes people know that it is not too late to do something because I think a lot of people will see climate change articles and will sometimes see what's happening and we'll want to disengage because it can be so scary and so frightening. And so we need to message in a way that isn't climate doomism, but more of climate realism communicating what's happening, but then also what can we do about this, because there are so many things that have to happen. And so we need to cover climate change more. We need to post about it more on social media and then communicate in a way that is affective, but also doesn't leave people feeling like there's nothing else to do and feel helpless.

Kristina Reed: I read this morning that yesterday, the New York times used a word they'd never used before in the paper. And it was doomerism. And it was to describe climate anxiety is now being called doomerism, which I think is kind of a bummer because it sort of extrapolates it away from the main cause of what we're trying to solve.

But you know, it's just a note of the new sort of terminology that's coming out around climate anxiety. Allison, I know that you are focusing the next Hollywood Climate Summit on climate storytelling. And I would love to hear what that term encompasses because clearly I seek see that missing from the landscape.

Allison Begalman: Oh, yeah. I mean, we see and working with tons of partners that I'll mention in a second, but like we see climate storytelling and basically in the next three years, by 2025, we want to get climate stories, like have it be 50% of the content that comes down the storylines that come out in a infuse climate in some way.

And again, in a way that's grounded in dramas and comedies, not as much in scifi and fantasy so that we're not creating this apocalyptic view of oh, but it's just a, the apocalypse now or whatever, like that's only what climate is cause now we're living in it. So it's that. So climate story telling is really infusing that. And I'll kind of even give an example of one of the projects that we're working on. We're working on this big, the first ever climate storytelling playbook with the good energy project. And they literally exist to support writers with creating these types of stories. And Anna Jane Joyner is a big climate activist. She runs it. And so basically the playbook is an inspirational tool. So it's got you know, talking about how to lean into characters when you're doing climate storytelling, which again, like there, you know, everyone on this panel does that in their work. But leaning into the characters and creating narratives that are grounded and ultimately it's going to launch in the spring. So we're really excited about that. 

Ultimately, I think the other piece that's really interesting and yes, we'll be featuring all of that in the summit. Hopefully doing some like in-depth workshops and having people leave this year summit, we're hoping to do it in June, 2022 leave literally being like I have an idea for a thing. I created a thing. I found a producer who wants to do a thing having opportunities to pitch your content to people that want to buy it cause I know that a lot of executives and managers, they want to start putting this content out there, but they just aren't sure where to go. So giving them a space to be like, here are all the climate storytellers working with the NRDC, which has their climate storytelling fellowship. All these people are doing this work, but it's about putting them together in a and being like, here it is.

And then the other thing I want to bring up also is like the intergenerational piece of it, because I think in the work that we've been doing, it's been left out a lot of the conversation of like this needs to be an intergenerational solution.

And I think the question I have around media and that my team has run by media is like, how do we start integrating intergenerational messaging? When younger folks and older folks might be using different mediums and watching different platforms, right? And so it's like, how do you cater that intergenerational message?

And, you know, I I'm wondering folks like Alex, like when you're doing How to Save a Planet, like, you know, it's on Spotify, right? So if it's on Spotify are older folks tuning in as much as younger folks? I don't know, because I don't know the backend, but I think that's an interesting thing for all of us media makers and you know, leaders and people who do this work to start thinking about more seriously.

Kristina Reed: Alexandria. 

Alexandria Villaseñor: I just wanted to say really quickly that I wish I could stay here with you the rest of the evening and the rest of the day for Climate Con, but I'm at COP and things are so busy here, so I have to hop off and run the next thing. But I just want to say thank you all so much and keep doing everything that you're doing. I love all of what you're doing, so thank you.

Kristina Reed: I wanted to say, back to you. You do everything you're doing. Go team.

Alex, I'm so interested in hearing how the response has been to, How To Save a Planet, where you take it from here. How do you build on what you've created? You know, sort of, as somebody who's already out there creating content in this space, around this topic, like you have advice for the rest of us we're behind you on the path. 

Alex Blumberg: I mean, I think it's I think the trick it's the same thing that Allison was saying. It's like, it's finding people and their personal stories. I think people conect with other people. And I would also say that, like, I think there's another way. And I think we are doing our very best to make an engaging sort of like not, doomer very, you know, sort of exciting, easy to engage with the climate podcast.

It is nowhere near the most popular podcast that Gimlet does. Not even close, you know, we like people definitely like listening to true crime podcasts more than they like listening to the climate podcasts, even a climate podcast, that's trying as hard as ours. So I think there's something, I think it is a scary. It, I think the brand is pretty tainted when you put the word climate in something, it is, it means a certain thing to a bunch of people. And it's really, really hard to sort of undo that. And so I like to think like, who are the audiences and what are we saying to each audience? Because I think there isn't one audience, there's a whole bunch of different people.

All of these different people need to be engaged in very different ways. And so we're talking to the people who are like freaked out about it, but don't know what they can do about it. And we're trying to get across a message. I don't just, if you don't just eat a salad, if that's all you think you can do, like, or don't just go to a March, if you don't like, you're weird about marches and you'd like to be around people, like figure out what you can do.

And the thing that you can do is going to be way more impactful than just like following along. Like, you know, if we need a big March go to the March, but like, essentially, like we need to, we all need to be looking, there's all sorts of things. And we're like on this panel, that's what we're all doing. We're like trying to figure out like, what am I good at? What do I like doing? How does it intersect with what needs to be done? And then do that. And so that's the message we're trying to get across. And we're trying to focus on all these different people who are essentially doing some version of that.

Like, I was interested in farming and here's how I got involved and I'm a fishermen and here's how I got solved or whatever. And so I think that's the audience we're talking to. I think there's the thing I think about a lot is like the, whatever, 50% of the country that is like that, you know, a lot, there's a lot of, you know, like I'll shorthand and say sort of Republicans, I guess, essentially, which is like, I think the.

The group that isn't going to vote for the Build back better thing at all, but just, that has like, still, like never fully come on board, but there's a way that, like there's some way of communicating with those folks who and those folks need to be part of solutions and they want to be part of the solutions.

And I think there's some sort of weird thing that has happened where like climate has become something that means something other than what it means, but everybody is interested in the future of planet and everybody is interested in thriving. And so there should be a way that we can sort of communicate with those folks.

And maybe that is by not mentioning climate. You know, and maybe that's by mentioning energy independence or mentioning, you know, sort of leaning into some other terminology, as long as we're like making the transition. I don't care what we're saying. And so like, and so I feel like that's the thing that I think about it.

I don't know the answer. Cause I feel like our podcast is like we've served, chosen, like here's the group that we're going after and here's the message that we're giving to that group. But I think who the messenger is completely matters. I don't know if I'm with my brooklyn, stupid lifestyle am ever going to be the right messenger for a whole group of other people that could probably receive a message from somebody else.

So I, you know, but that's the thing I think about it. I don't know the answer, but I don't know. That's something that I'm thinking about a lot. 

Kristina Reed: It's interesting. During this panel, there's been a lot of conversation about talking to people, convincing people, getting them on board with the, with the climate fight, et cetera and a lot of attitude about, you know, there's some people you can't convince, so don't waste your precious energy working on those people. On the other hand, when I look at media as a business and as an industry, I feel like we have the capacity to talk to those people. We in media have the ability to bring them into the conversation.

And I'm going to open this up for anybody to talk to, I feel actually like we have responsibility to try and reach those people cause we ain't going to save the planet without them. And I'm curious what your thoughts are on that. 

Dave Finocchio: I think that you're right, that there are, If let's just use the term climate that the term climate is a turn off to a big group of people and maybe it's the term pollution or it's about, you know, economic transition. But I think you're right that everyone there's an angle to get everyone on this or almost everyone. And I think for a lot of folks, it is about economic transition and in ways that their lives can become better. For some folks it's going to be about finance and sort of investment opportunities. There probably are 10 or 12 different hooks that we need to really focus on and do a better job I think with as this movement gets more, whatever you want to call, it gets more sophisticated. Getting into data and analytics and really understanding like what the messages are for sort of like, you know, more micro demographics, you know, in specific regions that are more likely to work, which influencers you want to tap into in those regions that people actually trust.

Like, I'm sure some of that stuff has been built out, but it all, it feels like it can all be. A lot more sophisticated or that it will get more sophisticated than it is today.

Kristina Reed: Alison, do you feel that media can shift denial?

Allison Begalman: I do. Yeah. I'm sorry. I think he broke up for a second or maybe I did. Yeah, I mean, I do. I think that it depends, like there's the whole conversation about the movable middle, right. And I think it's like, where are you? It's kind of like community organizing to me. It's like, where are you? And like, what do you know best? And how can you, in where you are, specifically do what you need to do. So to me, it's like, if you can get to a specific section of people and then they learn how to be messaging this, you know, and then they can share with their people who aren't as interested in watching something or whatever, like to me that is the strongest way.

I also think like, you know, we could move the aisle or we could just get the people running the top a hundred companies who are causing all the fossil fuels, like to change their ways. Like to me, I mean, I don't know. I don't know every single one, I don't understand every single piece of what's going on right now with the Infrastructure Bill and all these other things going on in our government, but it's very overwhelming to me. And I hate, I hate feeling that we don't have the power because I do believe you get out on the streets, you change things I really do. And I think that amassing people around a thing, even if it's using content to help bring those people to the streets that does work.

But I also think that at the end of the day, there are, we're not all causing this crisis. Like there are specific people and there are people like indigenous folks have been fighting for to get land back for all these things for many, many, many years longer than all of us, you know? So I think there's a lot of, we can do that or we can focus our efforts. And again, like we all have a different superpower, you know, if you are working in, on Wall Street and you have those friends and you gain this knowledge, you can then do that relational organizing with the people that, you know, bring them to a fancy dinner and be like, this needs to change, right?

Or if you work like us and entertainment, right? You can create a story. So I think it's figuring out what your superpower is and moving the folks that you can move.

Alex Blumberg: And just like one, just to pick up on what you were saying, Allison, I think that's the other thing that when we think about like media. I feel like media can do certain things, right? Like maybe as media is good at certain things. But I think in terms of like actually changing people's behavior, I don't know. I think there's other things that are probably more powerful. Like I think media can sort of like tell a story. It can give, it can make people aware. But I think when you're talking about like, Changing people's behavior. It is the people around us and the people that we know that are the most that have the most powerful influence on us.

And so to me, that's the thing is like, if you're on, if you're here, you know, a whole bunch of people and you're you have a circle start just talking in that circle. I think this is the other thing that I feel you know, there's this the Program and climate communication. Are you guys familiar with that, right? Like this, like, and they've been doing a ton of work. And one of the things that they found is that, essentially, it doesn't matter what you say, as long as you are talking about it, you're doing a huge amount of work because like, for so long, because it has been like this, like this big, heavy thing, and this polarizing thing, people don't want to bring it up. Cause it just like, sounds like you're just like talking about like death or something in the middle of the party and like, and like, And if we could just sort of talk about it in a way that, like this thing is real, here's some things that are happening in response to it. Like it's serious, but also just like it's with us, it's our life for the next two decades, three decades, four decades, right?

This is the reality that we're in. We can talk about it and like, we should talk about it. The more we talk about it, the more normalized it becomes. And the more people start to think of it as like something other than this like, symbolic sort of something that somewhere in the culture war, and just and, and like the weather, you know, which is something that we can talk about, we need to think about it. And then it allows more people in it. So I feel like also what you were saying is a 100% the case, like talk to your people and just like, have the conversation happening among your people. And that's where solutions arise. 

Kristina Reed: So I've gotten both the five minute warning, but also a request to talk about from all of you. Can media change behavior? And it was interesting to hear you Alex, to say, now you're better off talking to your closest friends. Sometimes that is the way you're going to have the most impact.

I don't know if you have thoughts about any of that or any final thoughts you guys want to say before we close up, I'm also scanning the chat boards for questions. Any final words, Allison? 

Allison Begalman: Yeah, I mean, I do think media can change behavior, but I think the way I see it as. There's a couple, there's a couple, you start with individualistic actions for a lot of people, right?

So it's like, oh, like for me my girlfriend's very much like eco-friendly sustainable. And I do care. I did care before I met her, but I wasn't, as I wasn't like, oh, I can infuse that in my life. And now, like, we got rid of everything, like no paper towels, we compost and it's not difficult. And it becomes part of my everyday life.

But I also know that those actions, right, like when I go buy a Starbucks and I get a plastic cup, Gretta tomb, Berg is not like, screw you for getting a plastic cup. She's more interested in, right. Like systemic action. So I think, you know, don't feel guilty about going to do that. But for me that was a personal act than personal change.

And I do believe that if we're showing that in media, other people like, oh, that's easy. Oh, maybe it's even cheaper to do that. Cool. I don't have to buy toilet paper or whatever they want to do. And so then they become more interested. And from there you start to see habit change and you're like, oh, well, I work at this company and I don't think we have a sustainability department.

Who do I go to talk to you about that? Right. So I do believe that media does affect that, but I think it's a, it starts some, for some people they're already bought in some people they don't know anything about it, you know? And it's just a process. 

Kristina Reed: Dave, final thoughts?

Dave Finocchio: I think that's I'm more or less agree with that. I think that. I think media can help with sort of regular consciousness and then for each individual person that may manifest itself differently. And there will be enough people if there's enough consciousness that go on and do impactful, like truly impactful things. And I think media can, all forms of media can just help to make climate top of mind for more people, more regularly. Think that's got to do some good, right? 

Kristina Reed: Yeah. Yeah. Alex, final thoughts. Yeah. 

Alex Blumberg: Yeah. I think I do want to dial back my, like, if I said that media can't change people's minds, I don't mean that. I just mean that like media has a nada, you have closer relationships with your people in your circle than you do with most media that you consume.

Although occasionally there are shows like Game of Thrones. I'm not sure, but you know, like most media, so like, I think there's a, but I think media can definitely keep the conversation alive. It can suggest ways of behaving. It can, and it can offer a place to go. I think that to me is like, what we're trying to do is like, here's a place to take your anxiety.

And I think if we can do that, if we can sort of suggest, like, it's like a lot of times, I think in the past, the media was like, here's the thing it's really bad. And scene. You know, and like, and like what I feel like, what I'd love to see media doing now is like, sort of like, here's the thing it's happening, it's bad, and here's a thing there's some way of thinking about how you can be, you know, part of that react to that, do something about it. In some way. And the ways that you can do that are in are almost infinite and myriad, and there's something for you. 

Kristina Reed: I want to thank you all for coming today. There's been a lot of chatter on the chat thing and, but I'm also getting told it's time for us to go. So thank you, Allison. Thank you, Dave. Thank you Alex, for your insights and thoughts,

kristen winzent
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