How to gain perspective in a climate crisis (w/ David Finnigan)

Summary

Podcast Summary: How to Gain Perspective in a Climate Crisis (w/ David Finnigan)

Podcast Information:

• Title: How to Be a Better Human
• Host: Chris Duffy (TED)
• Guest: David Finnigan, Playwright and Game Designer
• Episode Release Date: October 28, 2024

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Introduction to David Finnigan and His Work

In this episode, host Chris Duffy engages in a profound conversation with playwright and game designer David Finnigan. David is renowned for his satirical approach to climate change, particularly through his provocative play titled Kill Climate Deniers. The episode delves into David's creative process, the backlash his work received, and the broader implications of climate denial in society.

Overview of "Kill Climate Deniers" Play ([06:58] - [09:32])

David Finnigan introduces his controversial play, Kill Climate Deniers, which he wrote in 2014. The play depicts a hyperbolic scenario where eco-terrorists take over Australia's Parliament House during a Fleetwood Mac concert, demanding an immediate end to climate change. The narrative intensifies as the Australian environment minister retaliates violently against the terrorists.

David Finnegan:

"Kill Climate Deniers was a theatre show that I wrote in 2014, which was about a group of eco terrorists who take over Australia's Parliament House... it's a ridiculous high octane action thriller that kind of placed different political perspectives of the Australian climate debate in the same space."
[06:58]

Controversy and Reactions ([09:32] - [16:39])

The provocative title of the play sparked significant controversy, attracting fierce opposition from right-wing media outlets like the Murdoch press, Breitbart, and Infowars. Accusations ranged from accusing the play of inciting real-life eco-terrorism to provoking hostile reactions from climate deniers.

David Finnegan:

"As soon as people got wind of the title very quickly, inevitably the title attracted a lot of controversy and there was a big right wing blowback... that led to us having to cancel the production."
[08:15]

Facing backlash, David spent the subsequent years finding alternative ways to disseminate his work, including releasing an album with musician Ruben Engel and conducting guerrilla walking tours of Parliament House. Despite initial setbacks, Kill Climate Deniers eventually gained traction, culminating in its production by the Griffin Theatre in Sydney in 2018 and numerous subsequent performances worldwide.

David Finnegan:

"Since then it's gone on. It's been about 15, 20 productions in cities worldwide. So it's been extremely successful for a kind of indie production and had a real unexpected life..."
[09:32]

Insights on Climate Denial and Understanding ([19:27] - [26:51])

David explores the psychological underpinnings of climate denial, emphasizing that many deniers deeply understand the consequences of climate science but choose to reject it to avoid facing uncomfortable truths.

David Finnegan:

"Climate deniers understand the consequences of the science, so they don't accept the science. They know what it means if it's true, so they won't allow it to be true."
[19:27]

He introduces the concept of "soft climate deniers"—individuals who accept climate science but fail to internalize its long-term implications, leading to inaction. David stresses the importance of practical steps such as evaluating one's living situation, career choices, and personal carbon footprint to better align actions with climate realities.

David Finnegan:

"The climate system is on a 30 to 50 year lag. We're putting in greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that are going to really see their impacts in the second half of the century."
[24:56]

Engaging with Opposing Viewpoints and Societal Cohesion ([26:51] - [29:38])

Chris and David discuss the critical need for engaging with those who hold opposing views on climate change to prevent societal fragmentation. David shares his experience of facing threats and harassment from climate deniers, highlighting the emotional turmoil such interactions can cause.

David Finnegan:

"The individual threats are not the sort of... enormous amount of anger that was directed at me... it's no good. You don't want that."
[20:45]

Despite the challenges, David advocates for understanding and articulating the perspectives of climate deniers to bridge divides and foster meaningful conversations. He believes that by empathizing with opponents, artists and individuals can contribute to societal resilience in the face of climate crises.

David Finnegan:

"The goal that you have is to always be able to articulate your opponent's perspective better than they could themselves."
[23:55]

Advice for Artists and Community Building ([38:03] - [41:28])

David provides invaluable advice for artists interested in addressing climate change through their work. He emphasizes the importance of finding a specific niche and becoming an expert in that area to create unique and impactful art.

David Finnegan:

"Find a niche and then find the niche of that niche and then go deeper still and become the world expert in one tiny thing."
[38:13]

He also highlights the significance of being part of creative scenes and communities, which foster collaboration and innovation. By engaging with peers and supporting independent work, artists can develop distinctive voices that resonate more profoundly with audiences.

David Finnegan:

"The best work is coming out of scenes. It's coming out of artists who are responding to their peers and making work in response to the work around them."
[40:05]

Closing Remarks

The episode concludes with Chris expressing his admiration for David's work and the enlightening conversation they shared. David reiterates his appreciation and underscores the importance of continuous dialogue and community support in combating climate change through art.

Chris Duffy:

"David, it sincerely has been such a pleasure talking to you. I know I said this before, but I'm such a fan of your work and this was such a great conversation. Thank you so much for being on the show."
[41:28]

David Finnegan:

"Thanks so much Chris. Really appreciate it."
[41:36]

---

Key Takeaways:

• Art as a Catalyst: David Finnigan's work exemplifies how art can provoke discussion and challenge societal norms, even in the face of significant backlash.
• Understanding Denial: Recognizing that climate denials often stem from a deep-seated understanding of potential consequences provides a pathway to more empathetic and effective dialogues.
• Community and Niche Expertise: Building and participating in creative communities, while honing expertise in specific areas, can lead to more impactful and innovative art.
• Practical Actions: Individuals are encouraged to assess and adjust their lifestyles, support meaningful causes, and engage in conversations to contribute to climate resilience.

Notable Quotes:

• David Finnegan:

  "Climate deniers understand the consequences of the science, so they don't accept the science. They know what it means if it's true, so they won't allow it to be true."
  [19:27]

• David Finnegan:

  "Find a niche and then find the niche of that niche and then go deeper still and become the world expert in one tiny thing."
  [38:13]

• Chris Duffy:

  "If there's someone who's listening, who's thinking like, I'm an artist and I want to make art about climate change, what advice would you give them?"
  [38:03]

---

Final Thoughts: This episode of How to Be a Better Human offers a nuanced exploration of climate change discourse through the lens of art and personal responsibility. David Finnigan's experiences underscore the complexities of addressing climate denial and the pivotal role of creative expression in fostering understanding and societal resilience.

Transcript

[Chris Duffy]

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[David Finnegan]

Made its way into the world, something else started happening. I started hearing from climate deniers. Not fossil fuel pundits or right wing journalists, real climate deniers, regular, normal people. Now I couldn't get my head around it. Like, why did they care so much? Like, if you're an ExxonMobil executive, then you have a financial incentive to downplay climate science. But if you're a high school teacher in Queensland or a massage therapist in Massachusetts, why would you spend your nights and weekends desperately trying to debunk earth science research?

[Chris Duffy]

We're gonna find out the answer to that and so much more right after this quick break. Please don't let them play some sort of ad for big oil right now. Wouldn't that be so hilariously ironic if I sent us to break and then the ad was like, ExxonMobil, we're stronger together. I don't think that's going to happen, but there's really only one way to find out. So fingers crossed. We'll be right back. It's 2025 and if your B2B marketing strategy for the new year doesn't include improving your ad targeting, you know what I'm about to say, right? Your ads can get lost in the noise. LinkedIn ads can help by ensuring your message makes it to the right audience. And that is so key if you are running a business or you are trying to find the best people for the openings in your company. With LinkedIn ads, you can precisely reach professionals who are more likely to find your ad relevant. Stand out with LinkedIn ads and start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads. Today you will have direct access to and build relationships with decision makers. A billion members. 130 million decision makers. I know as a small business owner, I have to be on LinkedIn because that's where everyone's at. And if you are trying to propel your B2B business in 2025, what better place to be than LinkedIn? 79% of B2B content marketers said LinkedIn produces the best results for paid media. Go where the best is. Start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today. We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Go to link LinkedIn.com TedAudio to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com TedAudio terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be. To be.

[David Finnegan]

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[Chris Duffy]

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[David Finnegan]

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[Chris Duffy]

Today we're talking with playwright David Finnegan about climate change satire engaging with hostile audiences and the artistic process.

[David Finnegan]

Hi, I'm David Finnegan. I'm a playwright and game designer from Ngunnawal country in Australia. I'm an artist who works with research scientists, mostly climate and earth scientists, and I make work that looks at big planetary transformations. One of the plays that I've produced is called Kill Climate Deniers.

[Chris Duffy]

Can you give us just like a super quick overview of what that play was?

[David Finnegan]

So Kill Climate Deniers was a theatre show that I wrote in 2014, which was about a group of eco terrorists who take over Australia's Parliament House. They violently lay siege to Australia's Parliament House during a Fleetwood Mac concert and take the entire Australian government hostage and demand an instant end to climate change, at which point the Australian environment minister breaks free and goes on a killing spree through Parliament House, taking out eco terrorists left and right and finally throwing the head terrorists to their death from the top of the Australian flagpole at the top of Parliament House. So ridiculous high octane action thriller that kind of placed different political perspectives of the Australian climate debate in the same space. As soon as people got wind of the title very quickly, inevitably the title attracted a lot of controversy and there was a big right wing blowback from the Murdoch press, from websites like Breitbart and Infowars, this big sort of wave of climate deniers sort of attacked the work and that led to us having to cancel the production. People sort of said this show will incite terrorists, this show will incite a real life copycats who will take over and carry out eco terrorist attacks so no theatre company would touch it. So the result then was That I spent the next two or three years finding other ways to get the work out into the world. And that included ultimately releasing an album with my musician friend Ruben Engel, where we sampled dialogue from the play. Reuben wove that into a series of original electronic dance tracks. And we launched that album with a dance party, a live kind of music tour around Australia, and then with a guerrilla walking tour of Parliament House. Each time we kind of put some version of this out in the world, there would be another wave of right wing outrage. After we'd done a few years of putting it out in different ways and there had been no eco terrorist hostage takeovers during Fleetwood Mac concerts, it became less of a threat and eventually the plague kind of gathered momentum. And one theatre did take it on, the Griffin Theatre in Sydney took it on in 2018 and produced it. And since then it's gone on. It's been about 15, 20 productions in cities worldwide. So it's been extremely successful for a kind of indie production and had a real. Yeah, an unexpected life that Australian satirical political theatre doesn't usually have.

[Chris Duffy]

You know, obviously even just hearing your plot description of the show, it's like an over the top satirical in some ways, like, obviously comedic look at, like the. What would the most heightened version of this be? And yet I think much of the controversy around it doesn't actually come from the substance of the play. It comes from literally the three words in the title, Kill Climate Deniers. And it's not people engaging with the actual work as much as it is those three words being put in a public place.

[David Finnegan]

Which is a fascinating thing about a piece of art, right? Because in a way, you can look at any piece of art and think of it as two layers. There's the work itself, and in the case of a theatre show, the work itself is literally what's on stage that an audience sees. And then there's the conversation around the work, which is happening in the foyer. It's happening word of mouth, it's happening increasingly online and social media and online spaces. The conversation around the work is always bigger than the work itself. In this case, it was just magnified. As an artist, you can control the work itself. You can control what happens. If you're a theatre maker, you can control what happens on stage in that performance, but you can't control the conversation with Kill Climate deniers. Really what I was doing was putting that statement in the world and it would be really naive and disingenuous of me to pretend that I didn't know that I would be doing that. When I put that statement out in the world, I 100% did. It was my kind of learning journey on this work was being like, oh, lots of very serious people identify as climate deniers, not just sort of fossil fuel pundits. I had not meant to sort of directly target them. And suddenly I was in conversation with hundreds of them. And so the second layer of the work was this meta layer, which was about the writing of the work, it was the story of the production and it was also the story of what I learned about climate deniers through this multi year sort of engagement with them and what I learned through doing that. At the core of that was the question of, did I screw up? Was it a mistake to put this in the world? As an artist, I think you always want to be open to that possibility that your work is actually you would have been better off not doing it at all. I wanted to put that question on the table and answer it honestly.

[Chris Duffy]

You do something in your work that I find really challenging, which is to make work that is engaging and entertaining on its own form and it is good in the larger sense of it is serving some sort of broader purpose, it is educating or it is part of an activist movement, or it's pushing for the world to be better. And I think that those often don't go together so effectively as you were able to make them go together.

[David Finnegan]

That's very flattering and very kind of you. And I feel like I want to disagree with you in the sense that I started out trying to do exactly that. For many years I tried to make work that was in service of a goal, of an ideal work that could communicate concepts from climate science and connect the dots between what was happening in the research and people's understanding in the hope that would help people move towards taking action on the climate. One of the big things that you get told as an artist who works in climate is that you have to reach out across the aisle, you have to get out of the echo chamber, you have to engage with people who aren't in your tribe. And as a result of that, I made some just profoundly bad art and some really unwatchable plays. When I came to making Kill Climate deniers, I made that work out of a place of sheer frustration and just a sense of like, you know what? The hell with it. I'm going to satisfy myself. I'm going to like, make something that isn't going to change anyone's minds. It's not going to like, it's certainly not going to reach across the aisle. It's not going to lead people towards better life choices. It is a purely indulgent, nihilistic piece of entertainment about the world.

[Chris Duffy]

As I see it, you actually ended up as your talk is largely about having the most honest and deepest connection with the people who actually do disagree with you.

[David Finnegan]

Yeah, it was a strange and unexpected thing because I had, as I said in the talk, never really expected there to be a grand mass of real life climate deniers. I thought it was this largely artificial movement constructed from think tanks and from marketing firms. I was wrong. So to encounter this huge mass of people with these strong opinions about climate and how it's climate change is all a myth. I wasn't prepared for that. Also, you know, the work was being critiqued from the left by people who were saying, well, you're feeding this. You're not creating something that's constructive and bridging the aisle and helping people make better life choices. You've made something that's actually worsening the culture war. So I had this sort of two part critique from the right and from the left and that put me in a really interesting position of being like, okay, well, I've screwed up in some way, shape or form. What have I missed? And when you kind of get to that point, you can really start interrogating your own mistakes and try to find out the point in your thinking that was lost. And I'm not saying that I did that well in the show, but if you do that well as an artist, I think you can actually show up a bigger, like something about how we all think and how we all are processing this moment. So the really interesting part of that project for me was being like, okay, well what is going on with these climate deniers? Why are they so passionate?

[Chris Duffy]

So let's talk about this idea that when you say something or you make a statement or just exist, that you can be making a mistake, that you could be maybe making the situation worse. And a lot of times people tell us like, don't read the comments, don't engage with the haters, right? Like ignore them. And you did the exact opposite. And I'm very convinced that engaging and not ignoring is the correct answer. But tell me why you did that and what that comes from in any.

[David Finnegan]

Kind of work of art. It's interesting when you've missed something critical. And I missed something critical here. I missed something really important, which is the story that a lot of people genuinely and very emotionally have invested in the idea that global warming is not real. It's not just that they are like, oh, I don't know, I'm not a scientist, I couldn't be sure. I saw an ad that may have been paid for by fossil fuels that said there's a lot of controversy, I don't know. No, people are really passionately invested in it. It matters to them. So I was very curious as to how I'd, how I'd missed that. And also that was a big gap in my understanding. That was the first thing. The second thing is that I think as an artist, if you can be the target, you can also, you can create something interesting. If you can kind of find the mistake that you've made, honestly, genuinely and legitimately critique it, then I think other people can see their own mistakes in you. They can kind of read back from your error and be like, oh, well, I won't do what he did. That's a useful thing. That's a useful role that you can serve for other people.

[Chris Duffy]

We will be right back with more from David in just a moment. Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two year contracts, they said, what the are you talking about, you insane Hollywood. So to recap, we're cutting the price of mint unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a [e-mail] Switch $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees, extra Speed slower above 40 gigabytes.

[David Finnegan]

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[Chris Duffy]

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[David Finnegan]

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[Chris Duffy]

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[David Finnegan]

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[Chris Duffy]

LinkedIn the place to be to be and we are back. One of the things that this conversation with David has really highlighted for me is how while I think of myself as a person who accepts climate science, I haven't really internalized what that science means. Because, for example, I live in Southern California, and a lot of the plans that I'm making for my life don't fully factor in how dramatically our world might change in the next 30, 50, 100 years. As David says, there's this real disconnect in my life. Here's another clip from David's TED Talk.

[David Finnegan]

Climate deniers understand the consequences of the science, so they don't accept the science. They know what it means if it's true, so they won't allow it to be true. I think we can learn from climate deniers. I want to be more like that high school teacher in Queensland, that massage therapist in Massachusetts, because they live what they believe. You and I who think we know better, we're the ones in denial. And I know deep down that the longer we deny reality, the harder the shock when it hits.

[Chris Duffy]

You have experienced two of the threads that often get condensed into this one idea of cancel culture. And the first is people who didn't like your work threatened your play in a way that actually did make it so that your play was canceled, literally canceled, and then was not producible. There was this outrage, and that outrage made it so that you actually couldn't perform your work for years. But then the other part is people were angry with you, and they were. I think some people would maybe phrase this as, like, harassing you, but instead of viewing that as, you know, you being punished and you're some sort of martyr, you engaged with them earnestly.

[David Finnegan]

Yeah, okay. I would never. I wouldn't have used the word cancel. I will say from the experience of just being like threatened and harassed by a bunch of anonymous people online, it's no good. You don't want that. Like, I wouldn't recommend that experience to anyone. And I got a pretty light version of it because climate deniers as a species, they track to being essentially older white men aged 50 to 70. So they're not the most sort of Internet literate people. Like, if you want any one group stalking you, elderly boomers is probably a safe bet. So lots of phone calls, lots of direct letters, and, you know, trying to track your workplace down. But it wasn't like I kind of critiqued gender politics within video games. The other thing being I'm a, I'm a straight white man. Like, even when the pundits were coming after me. So when it was the Murdoch press or Infowars or Breitbart, there's only so aggressive those guys can be bothered to be about a middle aged, middle class white guy because their audience, that's not the red meat that they want. But it wasn't a pleasant experience and I don't recommend it to anyone. But the individual threats are not the sort of. They were not where the interesting stuff lived. Theodore Sturgeon, the science fiction writer, had his famous quote where he's like, 90% of everything is crap. And he was talking there about science fiction. Someone had critiqued science fiction as being 90% crap. And he was like, well, look, 90% of everything is crap. 90% of classical music, 90% of ballet, 90% of any art form, any kind of field or discipline is crap. And the same is true of climate denial. Most of it is just a sort of backwash, filler, the dregs of the web, idiot commenters. But if you sort of sift, you will find some interesting worldviews articulated. And the more sophisticated deniers, the more intelligent and thoughtful people are putting together a worldview that is coherent and has some sophistication behind it. That when I started to sort of see the strains of that, I was like, okay, this is interesting. The goal that you have is to always be able to articulate your opponent's perspective better than they could themselves. Ideally, you want your opponent to be able to be like, oh yeah, the way that they've kind of grabbed my thinking, I couldn't have put it better myself. If you can do that, then I think you're getting close to something. So that became the project. Like, how can I articulate the mindset of climate deniers better? Perhaps than some of these people sort of just spraying invective could themselves. And this was where the concept in kill climate deniers, the notion that actually at their best, at their most sophisticated, I think climate deniers do appreciate the scale of the transformation that we're looking at when it comes to climate change. They do appreciate the significance of what is unfolding around us. And they don't like it. They do not like it one bit. And they, they are kind of ready to shut down any possibility that it's real and happening because they can see what it means. The denial comes from a sort of dim understanding of the reality of the situation. Better perhaps than a lot of people like myself who claim to understand the situation that I think is something they have that we don't.

[Chris Duffy]

That is the idea that has really stuck with me on a day to day level in the months since I heard you give this talk, is the idea that the people who deny the science actually understand the consequences much more viscerally than those of us who claim to accept the science. That as you put it, I try and lower my carbon footprint, but then I get on a plane to give a talk. I do things that are counterintuitive. I personally, I live in Los Angeles. That is not a place that seems to be the most resilient of cities to live in already dry place. But I'm like, oh, but my friends are here and I like to have proximity to nature, right? So the idea that I am actually a soft climate denier, as you put it, right? Someone who claims to accept the science but does not really engage with the consequences, that is something I have truly thought about most days since I heard your talk.

[David Finnegan]

That concept of the soft denier or the stealth denier, that was originally Jonathan Rosen put that idea out in the world in the mid 2010s and it hit me in the same way. I kind of really couldn't put it down. The climate system is on a 30 to 50 year lag. We're putting in greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that are going to really see their impacts in the second half of the century. And the impacts of global change won't hit in a single burst and nor will they hit in a smooth continuum. They are accelerating. So we are in for a chaotic 2020. But the 2030s will be worse. The 2040s will be much worse. 2050s will be worse again. No one alive today is ever going to see a new normal, because as soon as the crisis reaches one level, it will escalate and that means that every time we reorganize our society and our lives to respond to some huge global shock, we have a small window before we're hit by another shock. We have to reorganize again. And the size of those shocks keep growing and the time between them keeps shrinking. And given the fact that we can change the size and shape of those shocks by what we do now, there's so much we can do now, but we can't stop those shocks. And that will kind of keep escalating for the rest of our lives. If you accept all of that, and I think anyone who has seriously looked at the sort of science of climate change would accept, there's a set of questions about how you choose to live your life that I think most of us are not asking ourselves really practical, granular questions. Where should you live? I mean, you're right, LA maybe not the most long term, resilient climate city, but also what communities and institutions will hold together through the coming decades, which are going to be fragile? And how can you live and build a life in a way that your happiness is not hostage to sudden shocks, big impacts. So really practical things about just the way that you choose to live your life.

[Chris Duffy]

So that's the one level, but then the other level is how can we keep society's fabric from tearing completely? And that level requires us to engage with people who don't see the world the same way as us, don't believe the same things that we do, come at things differently. It's a very tempting desire to view people who disagree with us, especially about things like the facts of climate science, to view them as unserious and not worth talking to. And that is a path that is not going to lead to society staying together or as things get more intense to things being better. Right. That leads to things being worse, in my opinion. So I think the fact that you're trying to bother keep society together and keep our planet habitable at the same time, those are two things that so few of us actually do day to day.

[David Finnegan]

It's not that I disagree with you, but I actually don't know that I have come to those same conclusions. So in terms of the first thing, Yeah, I think 100% we should all be thinking about this. We should be thinking about how climate change is going to impact our own lives and the lives of people around us. And that should affect our life plans, where we choose to live, what jobs we choose to do, those things that are going to be really important in building a stable life as Citizens, we should be thinking about what we can contribute, what we can do to help to support, minimize our impact, but also support the massive transition. We need to basically build a new world amidst the ruins of the old. And we need to do that in the face of escalating shocks. So it's a huge, extraordinary task that we all have to put our shoulders to the wheel in as citizens. But the second part, engaging with people who have very different opinions. In my instance, I put something out in the world and through happenstance and through my own ignorance and naivety, I triggered a whole bunch of these people to reach out to me and make their opinions known. And I found that fascinating and had some really interesting talks. And as I say, it opened up some gaps in my thinking. I found that really rewarding for me personally. I have one life, the idea of going out and looking for people who I actively disagree with and trying to have conversations with them for the sake of it. It's not that I disagree with that as a useful way of holding the fabric together, but I'm not sure I'm completely convinced. So can you tell me what's your thinking? Why do you feel like engaging with people we don't, we disagree with is a kind of critical part of how we get through this?

[Chris Duffy]

Here's how I would put it. Several years ago, at a low point in my ability to make money as a comedian, I took a part time job working at a public pool. And one of the things that they did at the public pool was train me and the teenagers who were working there. It was exclusively me and people who were in high school. They trained us in, you know, some basic lifeguard stuff. And one of the things that they taught us that I've thought about a lot is they said you cannot wait for someone to look like they're drowning because what you think drowning looks like is something you've seen in the movies and tv. And that's actually not what drowning looks like at all. And if you wait to see the person gasping for water and waving their hands, someone is going to die. What drowning actually looks like is not the dramatic thing. It looks like someone face down, not moving. So don't wait for the dramatic thing, wait for the actual thing. And the reason I'm saying this as the path in is I think that your work and the thing that it has sparked for me is the idea that it's easy to fall into the tv, the movie, the false dramatic idea of what people who believe different things look like, and also of what it would look like to change someone's mind. Right. Is this like, big, dramatic moment where a single tear rolls down their eye and then you say, it's so true. Climate change is real. Thank you, Christopher, for saying it that way. When you engage with these people, it wasn't like you're some oil company shill. It was. This is a person who has real concerns and thinks about these things in a real way. They're not a caricature.

[David Finnegan]

Yeah, I agree with that. The drowning metaphor, I think, speaks beautifully to the ways that actually a lot of the people that are probably the most sharing the most extreme and intense stuff are actually probably in a pretty low point at their life. I certainly think that anyone who's sending death threats to a stranger on the Internet is probably not someone who's. Who's happy in who they are as a person. I agree with all of that. I think the reason, perhaps I've hesitated with this is, as I said, I came from this place as an. As a young artist where I really thought art could kind of reach out to people across the divide and change people's minds. I don't think that's an uncommon thing that young artists have. It's probably. It's a bit of arrogance and naivety. And as I got older and more experienced as an artist, I learned that actually the idea of making art that could change someone's mind, that is profoundly hard. It is actually very hard to make art that people would like to come and see on a Friday night. Your art has to be better than that. People in my experience are not going out to see art to be like, I'd like to have my mind changed and my kind of opinions about the world fundamentally rewired.

[Chris Duffy]

The truest sign of an actual professional working artist is being like art that changes people's mind. Wow. I would love just art that anyone saw. Literally anyone seeing it is my first step.

[David Finnegan]

Art that feels like a step. Step up from doing nothing.

[Chris Duffy]

Yes.

[David Finnegan]

So the. The kind of. There's this humility that comes with. With getting a bit better at the artist, at the art. I'm realizing, actually, you know, it's an incredibly difficult thing to pull off, to make something worth seeing, to make something worth participating in what, you know, at this stage in my life, and I'm 41 years old, what. I've been doing this for a minute. What I believe that art can do is a couple of things. I think art can shine a light on the thinking that we use to grapple with the world and certainly with Something like kill climate deniers or a lot of my shows. I've used the work to kind of shine a light on my own thinking and my own, the way I kind of am grappling with these issues. But the biggest thing that art can do, and I say this particularly as a theatre maker, is theatre has the power to bring a bunch of people together under one roof and give them an experience, a shared experience, and let them know, basically, that they're not alone in grappling with this thing, that none of them have the answers. But actually, you know, we're all together in this thing. One of the things I think, particularly making climate work is this has just absolutely shifted in the last few years. You know, I was making climate work in the 2000s and it was a very different story, a very different audience. But after, I think, particularly 2018, was this real sort of watershed moment. Everything changed after that. Audiences now are coming in, much bigger audiences, younger audiences, more diverse audiences. They're not coming in to be told about the situation, they're not coming in to be lectured to or learn about climate or anything like that. They're all coming in with their own perspectives and opinions. And what I've found is that we're all basically on our own journey with processing this huge thing. So, you know, we're going through experiencing anger and experiencing dread, experiencing excitement or optimism or nihilism or all of these different emotions about the way the world is transforming around us and the way that our expectations about the world have evaporated and we're faced with this new reality as we kind of get to grips with what climate and global change means. If you get 100 people together under one roof in a theater show, you've got 100 people who are all experiencing very different things at that same moment, and put them together with one story and they're going to have a hundred different responses to it. And the joy of making theater and getting a group of people together live, and I know you know this from the comedy world, is you just cannot predict what is going to happen in that room. And it's so much about really just the pleasure and the joy of getting to curate a live gathering of human beings together in one place. That's a really special thing that art can do.

[Chris Duffy]

What do you think it would look like to move past being a soft climate denier?

[David Finnegan]

You know, it's a very practical thing that we could all do, which is to take a serious look at the neighborhoods we're living in. I mean, the place you're living in will be the single biggest determinant of your climate experience. And ask really what is going to happen in the next 20, 30 years? And that's very pertinent for me as an Australian living in parts of the country where water security is a real risk, fire risk is sort of escalating. California is not a completely dissimilar experience. And then following on from that, there's a set of questions you want to be asking about the kind of career that you might pursue. Because if your career, for example, requires you to live in a place that is a vulnerable, exposed place, then that is something you're going to want to factor in. Those two very practical questions I think everyone should be asking. Beyond that, I think there's a. The only things that I really have to suggest. I'm going to borrow from my friend Ben Yeo here, who kind of sums it up quite neatly. He says there's three things that we should all be doing and that is the first is to take our biggest impact and work on lowering it. So I'd say it's worth always doing one of those carbon footprint calculators. They've gotten a bad rap because they were. The concept was heavily marketed by BP as a way to shunt responsibility for the situation onto individual consumers. Climate change is not an individual consumer responsibility. But I think it's really interesting to do a little footprint calculator. It takes you five, 10 minutes. There's one on the WWF website. It will, yeah, take you five minutes and you'll see roughly what your carbon impact is and where it's mostly located, and then take the biggest impact that you have and work on lowering it. And I really recommend not trying to do everything. I think there's a really paralyzing thing that can happen when you try and be like, well, I'm going to fix my meat consumption and my transport and my travel and my house and every. Like, I'm going to switch to canvas bags or whatever it is. You can kind of completely burn out by trying to do too many things at once. Pick one, work on lowering it. When you've lowered that, work on the next one. Second thing is find one cause, one institution, one group, one ngo, one volunteer organization, and support it. And so put your energy, whether it's money or time, find something that means something to you and support it. And I think, particularly, I always think for people in richer countries, there's actually a lot of benefit you can get from supporting NGOs, small NGOs happening in Southeast Asia or Africa, doing incredible work where your money can really go a lot further. And the third thing is have a conversation. So much of the time we kind of paralyze ourselves out about talking about this stuff because we don't feel qualified to talk about it. So that'd be it. Find your biggest impact and lower it. Find a cause that you like and support it and have conversation.

[Chris Duffy]

If there's someone who's listening, who's thinking like, I'm an artist and I want to make art about climate change, what advice would you give them? What would you tell them?

[David Finnegan]

I think the joy of being a young artist is that you don't have to listen to old artists. If anyone out there is at the beginning of their career and you hear a 41 year old white man on a podcast, then turn it off.

[Chris Duffy]

Yes, yes, yes.

[David Finnegan]

You can be doing. You can be kind of making your own mistakes. For people who are interested in making climate work, the thing that I always suggest is to go very specific and get really deep into one thing because into like something very particular. Find a niche and then find the niche of that niche and then go deeper still and become the world expert in one tiny thing. Because climate is so big and so broad and increasingly so many people are making work about this. But of course, if we're all drawing from the same reference points and those reference points are, you know, New York Times articles or very kind of broadly accessible, similar sorts of inputs, then the work is going to look probably quite similar to what other people have made. So I would say you need to become an expert. The way to become an expert is to follow your nose and follow your curiosity and find the thing in the space that gets you excited. Keep going, keep going, get weirder and more and more niche until you can legitimately say no one in the world has thought about this thing as much as I've thought about it, and then bring that back and that will be something wholly new to the conversation that will be exciting.

[Chris Duffy]

I know that you've written a little bit about this on your substack in your newsletter, which I really think is fantastic. And I encourage everyone listening to check out the idea of becoming part of a scene, of finding a creative scene. You wrote about how like in this one pocket of Australia, you found this incredible scene of people making independent theater. And then you also found this scene of people making climate work. And those have really influenced you because you're not doing it alone.

[David Finnegan]

I stand behind that 100%. I think the best work is coming out of scenes. It's coming out of artists who are responding to their peers and making work in response to to the work around them and in this sort of friendly rivalries where you're trying to be better than the people around you, but at the same time you're supporting the people around you. What happens in big communities like New York, Louisiana, London is when stuff starts to get exciting, the big institutions swoop down, pluck it up and then start selling it, package it up and sell it so the stuff doesn't have the chance to really get weird and really get strange. But if you go see Independent Theatre in Manila in the Philippines, you'll be finding some of the most exciting and dynamic and weird work that is just not going to get profiled in those big institutions because there isn't, you know, the huge, well resourced theaters coming down and programming it. So I think wherever you are, the smaller and stranger the community the better in some ways because you'll be kind of taking your own, you'll be putting your own spin on the inputs that are coming in and creating a language that only people from your scene and your community can understand and that makes work that is so strange but so exciting when other people finally access it. And you know you're going to become a better artist by building a community around you of people you love and respect.

[Chris Duffy]

David, it sincerely has been such a pleasure talking to you. I know I said this before, but I'm such a fan of your work and this was such a great conversation. Thank you so much for being on the show.

[David Finnegan]

Thanks so much Chris. Really appreciate it.

[Chris Duffy]

That is it for this episode of how to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to today's guest, David Finnegan. You can find out more about his work and also his contact information. If you would like to send him an unhinged email which we know that he gets a lot of, you can do that@david finnig.com that's David Fin I gave I am your host Chris Duffy and you can find more from me including my weekly newsletter and other projects@chris duffycomedy.com how to be a Better Human is put together by a team that is dedicated to eradicating podcast non listeners. On the TED side we've got Daniela Belarazzo, Banban Chang, Chloe Shasha Brooks, Lainey Lott, Antonia Ley, and Joseph De Bruyne. This episode was fact checked by Julia Dickerson and Mattea Salas who tackle reality denial at every turn. On the PRX side, all the world's a stage and several people are making sure that that stage is mic'd up correctly. We've got Morgan Flannery, Norgill, Maggie Goreville, Patrick Grant, and Jocelyn Gonzalez. And of course thanks to you for listening to our show. You make this possible. You make it a show. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Please share this episode with someone who you think would enjoy it. Give us a positive rating and review. Help us get out to new people. Word of mouth is the number one way that we get new listeners. We will be back next week with more episodes of how to Be a Better Human. Until then, take care and thanks again for listening. I used to think buying foundation online was impossible. How am I supposed to find my shade when I can't even get it right in store? Then I discovered IL Maquillage. I took their AI powered quiz to find my custom match and wow. This foundation is literally my skin in a bott. Undertone and coverage are spot on. It's so neutral and weightless I can't even tell I'm wearing makeup. Plus with try before you buy, you can try your full size at home for 14 days. Take the Power Match Quiz now at ilmaquillage.com Quiz I L M A K I A G E.com Quiz renew your health and wellness purpose this new year with the reset on Alo Moves, a curated weekly program of Pilates, strength and step goals to kickstart your fitness journey. It's a 30 day week by week program. Three days of Pilates, two days of strength and 8,000 daily steps plus bonus nutrition tips from Sakara. Plus for only $99 you get a year's worth of access to Allomoves on demand. Full studio experience wherever you are. Get moving [e-mail] Are you still quoting 30 year old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you still think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide and every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now it pays to Discover. Learn [e-mail] credit card based on the February 2024 Nielsen report.