138. Just Look Up! with Adam McKay
Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast
Persephonica
4.7 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2022
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, an earth-shattering comet of an episode as Christiana, Tom and Paul talk to the phenomenally talented Adam McKay about his 4 time Oscar nominated film Don’t Look Up!
Writing and directing a comedy film about climate change is not a challenge for the faint hearted. Not only did Adam McKay take this challenge on, in doing so he created a tour-de-force which dominated global news feeds after its release, quickly took the position of 2nd most watched Netflix original and got EVERYONE talking about climate change.
Listen as he describes his journey of growing climate awareness, how he doesn’t think he will produce another piece of work that ISN’T about climate change, and the breaking news that France will be hosting its own series of ‘Just Look Up’ days as a result of the film.
The hosts are also super charged this week as they tackle the global energy crisis head on, taking us on a whistlestop tour of the major issues that are being played out against an ever increasingly tense geopolitical backdrop. Can gas ever be considered green? What are the implications of this crisis on a swift green energy transition and stability of net zero ambitions?
We think you’ll agree, we really did have it all this week didn’t we?
And! Stick around til the end because playing us out this week is the incredibly talented Sibusile Xaba with his single ‘Angisenalutho’.
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Christiana + Tom’s book ‘The Future We Choose’ is available now!
Subscribe to our Climate Action Newsletter: Signals Amidst The Noise
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Mentioned links from the episode:
JOIN: Don’t Look Up’s Count Us In Initiative! (And bring a friend!)
READ: What if Climate Change Were Like a Comet? By Emily Atkin of HEATED
WATCH: Rowanbank’s Positive Imaginings Films
LISTEN: The Last Podcast Ever Made: A Don’t Look Up Podcast
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Thanks to our guest this week, Adam McKay!
Adam McKay
Writer | Director | Producer
HyperObject
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The fantastic Sibusile Xaba is this week’s musical guest!
Sibusile Xaba
Instagram | Facebook | BandCamp | YouTube | Twitter
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Keep up with Christiana Figueres here:
Tom Rivett-Carnac:
Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn
Paul Dickinson:
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Follow @GlobalOptimism on social media and send us a message!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Outrageant Optimism. I'm Tom Ravick-Carnack. |
| 0:15.6 | I'm Kasey Deanna Fighettas. |
| 0:17.4 | And I'm Paul Deganza. |
| 0:18.8 | This week we talk about the geopolitics of energy prices and how this is affecting the |
| 0:23.6 | transition to a zero-carbon world. |
| 0:26.2 | We speak to the brilliant Adam McKay, director of Don't Look Up, and we have music from |
| 0:31.4 | Siblesailer Arba. Thanks for being here. |
| 0:46.7 | Okay so we are back again with another episode, a couple of weeks in and there seems to be |
| 0:51.5 | so much going on in the world at the moment and some of it's good but much of it is frankly |
| 0:55.5 | concerning. |
| 0:56.5 | And I've been looking this week at the energy markets and there's something so peculiar |
| 1:00.2 | about energy markets. |
| 1:01.2 | I do not quite understand these wild price fluctuations. |
| 1:04.0 | I mean gas is now nearly six times higher than it was a year ago. |
| 1:08.0 | A couple of years ago we were looking at oil that was sub-$10 a barrel. |
| 1:11.6 | Now we're talking about $100 a barrel oil. |
| 1:14.6 | There is a whole range of changes in the world around preventing fossil fuel extraction |
| 1:19.4 | which of course is something that we should applaud but as a result of these rising prices |
| 1:24.2 | and we can get into why they're rising, we're seeing massive impacts on the geopolitical |
| 1:28.2 | stage with Russia flexing its muscles and battles going on in Ukraine and arguments over |
| 1:33.2 | Nord Stream 2. |
| 1:34.7 | It really feels like this has the potential to create a narrative that could slow down |
... |
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