An Inconvenient Celebrity? Promises and Pitfalls of Celebrity Involvement in Climate Change Science, Media and Policy
While discourse on climate change has gained more traction in the public domain, celebrity involvement in this critical issue has also been on the rise. From musical groups promoting ‘carbon neutral’ tours, to actors and former politicians producing, narrating and starring in big screen global warming feature films, high-profile personalities have undertaken efforts to amplify concerns about human contributions to climate change. Simultaneously, celebrity politicians and politicised celebrities are at the centre of the public debates over the variety and extent of climate change mitigation and adaptation actions. In reflecting on this emerging role, Laurie David – a producer of An Inconvenient Truth and a US-based (HBO) climate special Too Hot to Handle – has said, "Environmental communicators are too cautious. I throw caution into the wind. Once people learn what global warming means, they start to pay attention".
On its face, many find that prominent figures from the entertainment industry have indeed contributed substantially to enhance public understanding of climate change causes and consequences, and significantly shape ongoing dynamics in climate policy and politics. However, others have asserted that these increased associations have not served to influence substantive long-term shifts in popular discourse and action, and have instead reduced the proposed critical behavioural changes to the domain of fashion and fad.
Have various efforts from popular figures trivialized behavioural changes? Or have efforts helped facilitate steps toward grappling with the multiple scaled systemic implications of our carbon-based society? Have actions such as changing light bulbs, donating part of the cost of your concert ticket, or dedicating a tree in the English countryside contributed to the glorification of armchair activism, or has this enrolled a new set of actors in the public to begin to take steps toward greater changes? In short, are these amplified voices from celebrities creatively inspiring an emergent climate change social movement? Or have these increased associations provided opportunities for certain decision-makers and interests to isolate and dismiss promoted anthropogenic climate change mitigation and adaptation measures as extremist proposals from ‘liberal Hollywood elites’? On a wider canvas, how does the (de)legitimation of celebrity politicians and politicised celebrities inform understandings of the complex and conflicted relations between science, media, politics and contemporary (consumer- and spectacle-driven) societies?
Amid this multifaceted web of actions and influences, many of these questions remain dynamically contested terrain. Widening the purview to examine the role of climate change-related celebrity endeavors at the interface with climate science, media and policy, this project interrogates how these activities have varying influences on unfolding discourse, actions and climate change politics. As this project engages with these questions, it undertakes examinations of asymmetrical power and influence (shaping public understanding, discourse and epistemic framing), as well as scale (both across time and space) in popular climate change discourse and media representations. Through such critical analyses, this project seeks to tease apart some of the promises, pitfalls and contradictions of this increasingly entrenched set of non-state actors and voices in what we think of as the figure of the potentially ‘inconvenient celebrity’.