Bristol resident Leigh Medeiros has talent to spare. She’s an artist, author, and screenwriter who, when she isn’t working on her own projects, dedicates her energies to fostering other artists and writers in their creative pursuits.

She’s the author of “The 1-Minute Writer: 396 Microprompts to Spark Creativity and Recharge Your Writing” (Simon & Schuster, 2019), and founder of the Linden Place Writers’ Residency. Her screenplays have placed in numerous competitions, including the Nicholl, Project Greenlight, San Diego International Film Fest, and PAGE, and have garnered two Screenwriting Merit Fellowships through the State of Rhode Island.

Medeiros has long been concerned about the impacts of climate change, but as one woman from little old Rhode Island, she felt powerless to do much to impact the trajectory. Then serendipity intervened.

The ‘aha’ moment

“There's this podcast that I listen to called America Adapts,” said Medeiros. “The host's name is Doug Parsons, and I really like listening to it because I was trying to understand the science issues, and how we are going to adapt to climate change.”

Then one episode featured a pair of screenwriters who discussed how Hollywood was approaching the climate crisis, and they mentioned a consultancy, started through the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) that was working to advise studios on climate issues. Medeiros started researching the intersection of screenwriting and climate issues and uncovered a whole world — and screenwriting genre.

“It was like, oh my God, two things I'm interested in have an overlap,” she said. Wanting to know more, she attended the Hollywood Climate Summit online in 2022 and began networking. 

“I was chatting with some of the folks who are part of the Producers Guild of America,” she said. “And I said, so, how do you guys deal with screenplays? Once it goes into production I hear everybody talking about sustainability, fuel use, plastic, and food waste…but are you going through the scripts before production? Everybody kind of looked at me blankly. I realized nobody had thought to bring screenwriters into the fold around some of these issues.”

So Medeiros took action. Today, she is the co-founder and co-director of the Hollywood Climate Summit’s Writing Climate: Pitchfest for Film and TV. Sponsored by NBC Universal, it is essentially a contest that does outreach globally for screenwriters who have stories that include a climate change angle. Their works are vetted by expert judges and about 20 are chosen for the opportunity to schedule multiple pitch meetings with studio executives. In addition to promoting the work of other screenwriters, Medeiros is working on her own climate scripts, both alone and in collaboration with other writers.

She is also a member of the United Nations Entertainment and Culture for Climate Action (ECCA) working group, and she writes a column, The Climate Screenwriter, for Script Magazine.

“That was only three years ago,” she said of her introduction to the world of climate screenwriting. “But the amount of people now in Los Angeles and beyond who are doing climate screenwriting has really gained traction.”

What is ‘climate screenwriting’?

It’s actually not as limiting a genre as you might think — and it’s not all about a doom and gloom, Mad Max apocalyptic future. Plenty of mainstream film and television shows have climate science elements to them. “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is an example, as it discusses access to natural resources as well as the interconnectedness of racial justice and climate justice. “Glass Onion” touched on renewable technology and a new fuel source. The episode of “Ted Lasso” in which Sam Obisanya taped over the Dubai Air logo on his jersey because they were owned by a polluting oil company is another example.

“Climate scientists have been getting louder and louder but still nothing changes,” said Medeiros. “The gap is storytelling. There is a crucial need for storytelling to fill in this bridge between the scientific community and the general public…scientists have been talking about this for decades in very dry scientific ways that hasn't filtered down to the average person, like myself. We can use storytelling to elevate storytellers whose work reflect our lived reality right now and also storytellers who can help us see what it might look like on the other side of a climate disaster, or on the other side if we were able to mitigate it.”

Medeiros also credits Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist, for creating a venn diagram that helped inspire her to action — and maybe it can inspire someone else too. It asks three questions: What are you good at? What work needs doing? What brings you joy? That intersection is the place where an individual can find their own roadmap to contribute to climate action, as Medeiros has.