In New Interdisciplinary Course, Students Tell Climate Stories for the Future

The 2004 blockbuster catastrophe movie, The Day After Tomorrow, created concern in audiences around the likelihood of sudden extreme weather events. Since then, Hollywood has largely remained silent on the issue of global warming and climate change on screen. Filmmaker and Adjunct Professor at Columbia Climate School, Lydia Dean Pilcher, seeks to bring climate back into the cultural conversation with “Climatic Change: Storytelling Arts, Zeitgeist, and our Future,” an interdisciplinary graduate course in the Climate School, offered jointly with the School of the Arts.

A two-time Emmy Award winner and Academy Award nominee, Pilcher has produced over 40 feature films and series, with directors including Gina Prince-Bythewood, Kathryn Bigelow '79, Wes Anderson, and twelve movies in a long-term partnership with director Mira Nair. Her production company, Cine Mosaic, specializes in international co-production focusing on dynamic stories driven by themes of humanity, social justice, and culture change.

In 2021, U.S. Congressional investigations of the fossil fuel industry revealed hard evidence of industry deception, greenwashing, and climate disinformation. Pilcher realized then that part of the reason we have seen a dearth of climate storytelling in popular culture has been due to the multi-decade campaigns of these companies wielding their influence to project deflection and skepticism around science and anthropogenic climate change.”

As a cultural strategist and climate leader in the entertainment industry, Pilcher is uniquely suited to tackle the gap in the study of climate narrative in education. "I surveyed the landscape of climate storytelling across universities, and I could see that climate was integrated across many disciplines—except film and television. Storytelling has a role to play in provoking curiosity and understanding for the multifaceted ways that climate is changing our world. What we're missing are the more complex, scientific, world-building stories centering compelling characters with emotions that can reach global audiences. One of the things that art does really beautifully is to remind us how much we as humans are a part of the natural world. We need dramatic stories across all genres that can help us imagine a liveable future for generations to come. Stories that can essentially be climate solutions in creating human empowerment and political will around policy."

Pilcher's new course brings Climate School students with diverse backgrounds—including science, economics, communications, and policy—together with  students from all programs at the School of the Arts including Film, Theatre, Writing, and Visual Arts. This collaboration has resonated deeply with students and inspired a wide range of projects. "Coming from a STEM background, I appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of this course because I already knew the science," said Climate School student Kikelomo Sanni, who is developing a young adult climate fantasy novel. "But I wanted to comprehend what it meant to connect with an audience." Sanni's young adult novel centers Black girls' experiences and community-based solutions. Her project is "for all the Black girls who see themselves as resilient yet full of so much love, who know that though there are systemic barriers they can break through, that solutions can be found in their community too." Will Stein—also a Climate School student—whose background is in social sciences and the private sector, agreed. "The opportunity to learn with and from students in the [School of the Arts] has made my experience richer. Collaborating with my peers that have a completely different set of experiences and goals has improved my work product." Stein is developing a screenplay treatment about two brothers reuniting after government geoengineering experiments go wrong. He sends a moral message for audiences to put people and the planet before technology.

Mohamed Elbatran (Climate School) is crafting an animated film following Maryam the apple and her adventures through the NYC food waste system. "This Climate Storytelling course first and foremost provided the space to experiment with and nurture wild ideas," Elbatran said. This creative freedom has allowed students to take on challenging themes with a hopeful perspective. Fellow Climate School student Pablo Yáñez Mena is creating a compilation of short stories called Utopia Restaurant, featuring stories set in different timelines to explore a post-climate crisis world inspired by Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel The Ministry for the Future. Melissa Jenks, a Writing student, is working on a feature-length screenplay based on a climate short story by Helen Simpson. Gabriella Marie Medina (Climate School) is creating a narrative documentary film exploring her personal experience of the intersections of climate justice, cultural identity, and female voices.

The urgency of climate in storytelling underlies every aspect of the course. Students study critical theory and storytelling craft through a climate lens. They work in teams to create narrative stories based on climate science and issues such as biodiversity, food security, water scarcity, and human migration.  Jenks added, “These stories are difficult to tell, and yet telling them is our only hope. The reason why people ‘don't care’ about climate change, “is because they don't know what's going to happen." Yáñez Mena echoed this sentiment, asking, "How do we make climate action, human rights, and social justice mainstream in culture, when ethical correctness is almost considered out of vogue?"

"The current distrust in institutions and government is very challenging in this time of transition," agreed Pilcher. "And yet research shows that when people are more educated about climate science and impacts, they tend to embrace solutions, be more hopeful, and feel a stronger sense of agency. That's the work that climate storytelling can do. We need to bring back a sense of engagement, a sense of radical hope through collaboration."

The class structure itself reflects this mission to bring the latest scientific perspectives to  broader audiences. Students engage with guest speakers from various fields, including climate scientists, humanists, and creative industry professionals, to foster connections between their different disciplines, diverse backgrounds, and creativity.

The course received strong institutional support, with Professor and Chair of Film Jack Lechner bringing it to the School of the Arts as an interdisciplinary offering. School of the Arts Dean Sarah Cole, who developed a Climate Humanities initiative in her previous role as Columbia University's Dean of Humanities, has supported the course enthusiastically.

"The School of the Arts is delighted to be collaborating with the Climate School on this course, which we hope will be one of more such courses to come in the future," said Cole. "Since its inception, the Climate School has recognized the importance of the arts in its mission to combat climate change through education and research. How could it not? The climate crisis will affect human life at every level and require that people change how they understand their role in

their worlds. Such major convulsions in people’s lives and in their relations to the natural world and to one another have always been explored, deeply and with far-reaching consequences, by artists. 

“For these reasons, climate storytelling is likely to be an essential part of our students’ futures. Lydia Pilcher’s course embodies all of these goals. In addition to the wonderful materials she brings together, from climate science and the arts, the inclusion of students from the Climate School and the School of the Arts in the course should make for an exceptional learning experience for all of them, and fantastic collaborative potential."

Recently, Pilcher put many of the principles of her course in action when she attended the 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), held in Baku, Azerbaijan, as a Steering Committee member of the UNFCCC initiative Entertainment for Culture and Climate Action. While global negotiations were happening around climate finance, world leaders and civil society came together in the Baku stadium, filled with pavilions, plenary sessions, and meeting rooms, to share knowledge and promote strategies and collaborations across countries.

Pilcher spoke on various COP29 panels including one for the UNFCCC Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE Hub), adopted under the Paris Agreement in 2015. The overarching goal of ACE is to empower all members of society to engage in climate action, through education, training, public awareness, public participation, public access to information, and international cooperation. Pilcher identifies with the idea of co-production, a concept used by science as well as the film industry. “We understand our place in the world through stories. In a globalized world, we need to find ways of sharing stories and communicating with community leaders and citizens to find new ways to support policies for a better world.

Pilcher believes with the support of advocacy groups and a growing movement around climate storytelling, that new narratives can start to break into mainstream culture. We’re beginning to see it appear in episodes of established TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Industry, and the Danish series, Borgen: The Power and the Glory.” 

"One thing is a constant: culture changes and climate changes,” Pilcher said. “That's why the word zeitgeist [German for “the spirit of the times”] is in my course title.  There's an elusive alchemy of what works—which stories can rise above and define a powerful cultural moment? If climate storytellers are to succeed, a multi-disciplinary approach is not only radical but essential to discovering and realizing these moments that can move us forward.”