A controversial play — and what it taught me about the psychology of climate | David Finnigan
TED Talks Daily
TED
4.1 • 12.1K Ratings
🗓️ 6 September 2024
⏱️ 20 minutes
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Summary
When playwright David Finnigan staged a play titled "Kill Climate Deniers" in 2014, he knew it'd get a strong reaction. What he wasn't prepared for was the idea that the blowback might actually cause him to rethink his own response to climate change. But as he shares in this delightfully engaging talk, his conversations with skeptics of all stripes ultimately taught him a fresh and fascinating lesson about how we can all think about — and act upon — the climate crisis.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ted Audio Collective. |
| 0:02.0 | Audio Collective. |
| 0:04.0 | You're listening to Ted Talks daily where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. |
| 0:14.8 | I'm your host Elise Hugh. |
| 0:16.6 | Playwright David Finnegan made a bold choice about a decade ago. |
| 0:20.0 | He created theater about climate denial. |
| 0:23.8 | And in spending a lot of time with climate deniers, |
| 0:26.4 | he learned one key way in which they're actually quite right. |
| 0:30.6 | Taking the TED stage, he shares his journey to this understanding and after the talk |
| 0:34.8 | stick around for my interview with David it was one of my favorite interviews I |
| 0:39.1 | conducted at Ted 2024 it's all after the break. |
| 0:45.0 | Like TED Talks, you should check out the TED Radio Hour with NPR. |
| 0:50.0 | Stay tuned after this talk to hear a sneak peek of this week's episode. |
| 0:55.0 | And now our TED Talk of the day. |
| 0:57.7 | Hi, I'm David. |
| 0:59.5 | I'm a playwright from Nana Wall Country, |
| 1:02.1 | the unseated lands of the Nunnawal People in Southeast Australia. |
| 1:07.0 | I come from a family of climate scientists, and in 2014, I wrote a play entitled Kill Climate Deniers. |
| 1:15.0 | The play follows the story of a group of eco-terrorists who take over Australia's Parliament |
| 1:21.0 | House during a Fleetwood Mac concert and hold the entire |
| 1:25.1 | government hostage demanding an instant end to climate change. So the story is |
| 1:30.7 | ridiculous but I wanted the play to start a conversation |
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