Perhaps it’s ironic that a TV channel owned by Rupert Murdoch is going to start airing a landmark series on climate change and clean energy just days before the U.S. presidential election. We’ve got some exclusive video interviews with some of the celebrity correspondents.
National Geographic Channel, whose majority owner (73 percent) is Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, will begin airing the second season of Years of Living Dangerously on Sunday at 8 p.m. (ET). The first episode, starring David Letterman and Saturday Night Live’s Cecily Strong, takes a look at battles over solar energy in the United States and India.
I caught up with two of the celebrities from this season at the New York City premiere at the American Museum of Natural History in September.
Executive producer and correspondent Arnold Schwarzenegger explained the he joined director James Cameron on the project to help spread the word about climate change. “Communications, communications, communications, that is the main thing,” he told me.
(Full disclosure: I’m chief science adviser to the show. And, yes, I will keep my day job.)
Schwarzenegger also talked about the secret behind California’s climate leadership. “The key thing always was that the people of California bought in, that they became our partners,” said Schwarzenegger, who served two terms as a Republican governor in California.
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I also interviewed Bradley Whitford, who appears in episode seven. Whitford is best known for his Emmy-winning turn as White House deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman on NBC’s The West Wing. He recently won another Emmy for his work on Amazon’s Transparent.
“”I have a lot of frustration around the politicization of [climate change],” Whitford said. “It’s easy for us to say the people we disagree with are idiots. It feels good but we never move the issue forward.”
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In his Years of Living Dangerously episode, Whitford spends time with Citizens Climate Lobby talking to Republicans about climate change and whether they would support a carbon tax. “I think this issue, politically, may turn with the sort of speed and surprise with which the marriage equality issue turned,” Whitford said.
The first episode airs Sunday at 8 p.m. (followed immediately by Leonardo DiCaprio’s climate documentary, Before the Flood), but the rest of the series will air Wednesdays at 10 p.m. (9 p.m. CT), beginning with episode two, starring Jack Black and Ian Somerhalder, on November 2.
Episode three, starring Don Cheadle and Tom Friedman, airs November 9. Episode four, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gisele Bündchen, airs November 16. Episode five, starring Joshua Jackson, airs November 23. Episode six, starring Aasif Mandvi and Nikki Reed, airs November 30. Episode 7, starring Ty Burrell and Bradley Whitford, airs December 7. Finally, Episode 8, starring Sigourney Weaver and America Ferrera, airs December 14.
Here is the trailer, mashed up with clips from my interviews, which were filmed and edited by Zachary Shields:
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