Zeus: Climate change goes Hollywood

Photo of Trey Thoelcke
By Trey Thoelcke Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

By David Callaway, Callaway Climate Insights

SAN FRANCISCO (Callaway Climate Insights) — I wasn’t a big fan of the Oscar-nominated movie Don’t Look Up.

It was funny in its cynicism about how different groups of people treat global warming, but I always felt that climate change — like the meteor in the movie — was largely just a prop for the writers to make a point about how divided we are as a society in the U.S.

That’s why a story this week about a group that measured the use of climate change in screenplays caught my attention. The group, a non-profit consultancy called Good Energy, released a playbook for writing about climate change to address their findings that less than 3% of movie fiction between 2016 and 2020 used words that referred to climate change or global warming.

The story said that apparently one of major obstacles to writing about climate change has been that writers viewed any stories about it as having to be apocalyptic. A meteor destroying the earth (Don’t Look Up), or a world after some devastating environmental event (The Day After Tomorrow or Waterworld). . . .

To read this column and more about what David Callaway says about climate in Hollywood, subscribe: How about Housewives of Silicon Valley, where all the wives are either billionaires who run clean tech companies or give away money to sustainable efforts or divorce their billionaire husbands and give some of that money to sustainable strategies?

Callaway Climate Insights Newsletter

Photo of Trey Thoelcke
About the Author Trey Thoelcke →

Trey has been an editor and author at 24/7 Wall St. for more than a decade, where he has published thousands of articles analyzing corporate earnings, dividend stocks, short interest, insider buying, private equity, and market trends. His comprehensive coverage spans the full spectrum of financial markets, from blue-chip stalwarts to emerging growth companies.

Beyond 24/7 Wall St., Trey has created and edited financial content for Benzinga and AOL's BloggingStocks, contributing additional hundreds of articles to the investment community. He previously oversaw the 24/7 Climate Insights site, managing editorial operations and content strategy, and currently oversees and creates content for My Investing News.

Trey's editorial expertise extends across multiple publishing environments. He served as production editor at Dearborn Financial Publishing and development editor at Kaplan, where he helped shape financial education materials. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer-producer at SVE. His freelance editing portfolio includes work for prestigious clients such as Sage Publications, Rand McNally, the Institute for Supply Management, the American Library Association, Eggplant Literary Productions, and Spiegel.

Outside of financial journalism, Trey writes fiction and has been an active member of the writing community for years, overseeing a long-running critique group and moderating workshop sessions at regional conventions. He lives with his family in an old house in the Midwest.

Featured Reads

Our top personal finance-related articles today. Your wallet will thank you later.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618