Hollywood vs. Climate: Is Hollywood Scared?
The author is a Junior at Laurel School in Ohio. Laurel School is YEPT’s first-ever state Chapter. To inquire about becoming a YEPT Chapter, contact our adult advisor at Jim@earthcharterindiana.org
The movie Don’t Look Up, starring actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, depicts a society in which the world is coming to an end. A comet is heading toward the earth, threatening the extinction of the human race. Despite an astronomy professor and student begging people to understand what is happening, no one recognizes that the end is coming until it is there. This is much like how it is in real life. Many news articles and people are working hard to inform the world about the climate issues that are currently damaging the earth and it’s hard not to conclude that a lot of people simply don’t care.
One way we learn information is through film. Home to studios like Disney, Warner Bros, and Netflix, Hollywood is the center of the global film industry. Despite Hollywood’s left-leaning tendencies, one topic they have shied away from is climate change. Think about it: Can you name any movies that are directly related to climate change, especially if we focus on narrative films rather than documentaries? Perhaps, the topic is too daunting, or perhaps the studios are afraid to admit what they were doing to the environment. However, out of the over 500,000 movies, only about 9.6% even mention climate change or include a character that acknowledges climate change. In fact, in 2023, Warner Bros. was the only studio to address the harm to the environment, admitting that they emitted up to 130,000 metric tons of carbon that year commuting to and from their main studio lot.
Photo courtesy of the author.
To Hollywood, climate change is like a piece of rotting cheese in the back of your fridge that you hardly dare to even touch. But what is making Hollywood so scared? Firstly, Hollywood wants their films to sell. Three high school students in Laurel’s Environmental Justice Semester noted that they watch movies to get an escape and to be entertained. A movie about Earth’s destruction or mass extinction is highly unlikely to provide that kind of escape. Plus, the average film maker only makes $60,000 a year. Making a profit from your work adds a whole other layer of stress, as it is already very hard to survive in the film industry.
So, making a movie about a realistic yet scary topic such as climate change carries a large financial risk. If people don’t want to watch the movie, it may not make a profit. However, creating these kinds of movies is important. Fear should not prevent critical issues from being addressed on screen. We learn a lot from the films we watch. Whether a person likes action or horror films, most of us watch movies. Movies about realistic climate problems educate people about the issue and show what solutions can look like.
Beyond the storytelling, Hollywood’s carbon footprint is huge. The film industry is massive, spanning larger than Hollywood Boulevard. This means that Hollywood’s carbon footprint spreads all over the world. Stephen Follows, a film producer who analyzes data, says that the average Hollywood movie shoots in 1.6 countries and only up to two-thirds of movies are shot in one country.
Consider the carbon emitted from all of the traveling, technology, people, and food it takes to make a movie, all of which contribute to the climate crisis. Producing a movie the size of Barbie can produce emissions of up to 3,400 metric tons of CO2 gas. To put this into perspective, that is about the equivalent of 1,400 flights from New York to Los Angeles. Consider that quantity of carbon dioxide and multiply it by 1,500 because that is the approximate number of movies made a year for the last six years.
However, many major Hollywood studios are trying to reduce their carbon footprint. Disney, Netflix, and RMI are working on “clean mobile power solutions” to use instead of diesel generators. Battery systems are one of the potential alternatives. Studios are currently testing battery energy storage. These batteries would take energy from renewable sources like solar panels and store it until needed, allowing studios to optimize energy usage and only use energy from renewable sources.
“These alternatives will not only cut carbon emissions significantly, but will mean safer, quieter, and cleaner sets where everyone can breathe easy. Getting there will take the kinds of forethought and innovations that the entertainment industry has always pioneered,” an RMI representative states.
The climate crisis is not something that can be ignored anymore. The worsening issues must be discussed. Being sustainable while educational is hard to achieve: How do you make a movie about climate change if the act of making the movie isn’t that environmentally friendly?
Well, there have been many studios out there who have asked this exact same thing. The movie The Day After Tomorrow about a climatologist who is ignored when trying to present his environmental concerns, blew up in 2004, some saying that it was the only true movie about climate change. Though a little controversial due to its scientific inaccuracies you cannot ignore their real attempts to keep their film processes better for the environment. The team took the time to calculate and make sure they could compensate for their carbon footprint through carbon credits. Carbon credits are a way companies, including movie studios, use a limited amount of carbon while contributing to activities like restoring carbon sinks. The producers ensured that throughout the making of the movie, green energy was used and trees were planted.
Yes, it is possible to have green film productions and with more and more new green innovations, the film industry will most likely have more resources to be sustainable. Hollywood has a responsibility to help make these issues public knowledge. If things don’t change fast, then we could all be starring in our own apocalyptic movie.
