Nish Kumar

I thought for a while I should call the show Climate Wanker.

just to let people know what they're getting.

But you have to say to people, look, come and see this.

It's going to be funny.

It's going to be uplifting.

Yes, some of it will be scary, but you're scared anyway, or I'm feeling you probably should be a bit scared anyway.

So you have to try and get people into it.

So I remember the first time I did a show in Edinburgh in 2023 was that debut show.

It was called Spoilers.

because I wanted to allude to climate.

But I didn't realize at the time that this big conversation I was having with myself, like what am I going to call the show, is completely representative of the macro challenge of how does anyone get anyone to listen to it.

If you want to give a talk to people about the climate and you call it a talk about the climate,

then the only people you'll get will be, you know, people who are already opted in, nice older couples in North Face and, you know, really wild-eyed crusties.

And, you know, it concerns absolutely all of us.

Increasingly these days, I have to mention my own hypocrisy because otherwise I can't risk having them sit there for five minutes going, well, how did you get here and how are you?

Do you mean, like, it shouldn't be about us judging each other about what good climate people we are.

Because that's a classic problem of the left, isn't it?

You're not good enough, you're not in this thing, people's front of Judea kind of territory.

And all of that plays into the hands of the fossil fuel companies.

There's a guy called Chris DeMeyer, who's the head of climate outreach at UCL, and he says we just have to tell stories of action.