Following two days of star-studded conversations about climate change, Hillary Clinton closed out the Environmental Media Association Impact Summit on Wednesday with a chat about kids and the planet — and a dig at Donald Trump‘s recent guilty verdicts.
Clinton joined showrunner Gloria Calderón Kellett and Good Energy founder Anna Jane Joyner at the Pendry West Hollywood for a panel on how climate change is affecting children’s development. The Clinton Foundation is putting a particular focus on the issue via its Too Small to Fail program, and is pushing for it to be highlighted in Hollywood projects to increase awareness.
“There’s been a lot of really, really great efforts to convince people about climate change and a lot of really dramatic information and even dramatic movies about the consequences that we are facing,” Clinton told the crowd. “And so we know that part of the message of kind of hitting people over the head and saying, ‘For heaven’s sakes, wake up, it’s going to be a disaster if you don’t do something’ is a little bit overwhelming for people, because they’re not quite sure, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ There are things that they can do and that’s where we want stories to show them. A lot of the big structural institutional changes have to happen at the global, national, state levels, but we want to empower people to have enough information to be able to do things on their own.”
Dayna Long, MD, Gloria Calderón Kellett, Hillary Clinton, Tamara Krinsky and Anna Jane Joyner.
Jesse Grant/Getty Images for the Environmental Media Association
The former Secretary of State also pointed out all of the recent natural disasters due to climate change, noting that they will impact economies and “climate migration is going to dominate the next 25 years. With people moving from the south, we’re going to have more disease because insects are going to be able to live at higher and higher latitudes. So these are all things that people are aware of but need to better understand, and especially that everything we worry about has an absolutely greater impact on kids.”
Clinton was asked what gives her hope right now, as she deadpanned, “I do have a new fondness for the number 34,” in reference to Trump last week being found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records. She added that she also feels inspired by “the way that people are not beaten down; they’re resilient, they’re determined and that no matter how hard it is out there, we’re not going to give in or give up, and we have to feel that.”
Earlier in the day, Shailene Woodley moderated a panel on youth-powered climate justice and Lance Bass took part in a conversation about space medicine; Eli Roth and True Detective: Night Country showrunner Issa López also spoke about incorporating climate storylines into horror and genre projects.
Issa López and Eli Roth
Jesse Grant/Getty Images for the Environmental Media Association
With the latest season of True Detective set in an Alaskan mining town and exploring some of the environmental issues surrounding the mining industry, López said, “The stories that we tell, I think it’s important because this is both a reflection of who we are and the seed of who we want to be. So we need to put that seed of a change in everything we do.”
Roth pointed out how some of the environmental issues around fast fashion — one of today’s biggest sustainability problems — can be addressed on screen, saying that when a person posts a clothing haul on TikTok, “someone in a very poor part of the world is paying for that in a terrible way, and we don’t tie it together and the people that are doing the hauls don’t know that it’s going to be a problem. You can put that in a horror movie somewhere, in a scene that you’re not even expecting, where people are just like, ‘Wait, is that fucking real?’ And you plant that seed and they go, ‘I’m not going to keep buying outfits that I wear once and show off on TikTok.’”
David Wild, Phil Rosenthal and Ted Danson
Jesse Grant/Getty Images for the Environmental Media Association
Wednesday also featured a live recording of Phil Rosenthal and David Wild’s Naked Lunch podcast, featuring guest Ted Danson. Danson, a longtime ocean advocate and Oceana board member, is launching a new podcast with Woody Harrelson called Where Everybody Knows Your Name, which he discussed along with his climate activism and getting arrested with Jane Fonda for her Fire Drill Fridays (he called it “the champagne of arrests”).
“I’m very clear what my job is,” Danson said of his activist role. “The celebrity gets the microphone, so I knew early on that standing in front of the tent saying, ‘Thank you for watching Cheers and I’d love you to meet this marine biologist because she’s incredibly bright,’ that’s my job. And to this day, it’s my job.”
On top of Wednesday’s packed lineup, day one of the summit featured Rainn Wilson, Ed Begley Jr., Richa Moorjani and Natalie Morales. The event was presented by Toyota.
