Playwright David Finnigan explains his fascination with climate deniers

The Scenes from the Climate Era writer explained the "rich fascinating humanity" of climate deniers and the emails he received from them.

Video transcript

DAVID FINNIGAN: Dig deeper into any of these archetypes, and there's this rich, fascinating humanity. I did-- I did a show called "Kill Climate deniers" a few years ago. And because I gave the show that title, naturally I ended up hearing from a lot of climate deniers. And I was-- I never intended to spend years fielding emails from them. But doing that, I was like, oh, wow, there's actually-- these people are really fascinating. Like, there's a-- what drives a person towards dedicating their life to denying the science of climate? That's a really strange life choice, as far as I can tell.

But what sits behind that is this complex stew of ideology and paranoias and feelings, and all of which are quite relatable. Same with activism, any-- same with scientists, same with policy makers, same with people-- anyone on the front line who's grappling with these impacts. Every single person, when you get deeper into it, is, yeah, a fully-rounded, complex, fascinating human being seen refracted through the light of this extraordinary thing that's happening in the world.