In Digger, Tom Cruise plays an oil tycoon whose rig sets off a tsunami. Within days of release, it was written off as a flop. Christiana Figueres has seen it twice, and she has questions about how quickly that verdict arrived. As she sees it, the film puts the fossil fuel lobby squarely in the frame.
This week, Christiana, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson meet in person, with a stack of your questions and a bigger one underneath them all: what actually moves people to act? Is it fear, or hope? And what are the hidden influences behind the messages that move us?
If evidence on its own changes so few minds, what does? Christiana has a theory involving cake, but Tom and Paul have different ideas in the oven.
Christiana once asked a Saudi minister what his country needed before it would let the Paris Agreement through. The answer fitted on a napkin. And why does she want to take back the word "tribalism"?
Nearly three in four UK newspaper stories on June's record heatwave didn't mention climate change. Oversight, or a firewall of the kind Christiana saw on screen in Digger? Would a general strike cut through? And what happened when Paul stood at a G8 summit, alone, with a 20-foot sign?
Is there a film or a book that speaks to all this for you? Send it our way. And if you think something stranger is going on with Digger's reviews, Christiana would like to hear from you.
🎬 Watch the trailer for Digger, Alejandro G. Iñárritu's black comedy starring Tom Cruise as a tycoon trying to save the world from a disaster he caused
🗞️ Read ECIU's analysis of UK heatwave coverage, which found 72% of national newspaper articles on June's record heat didn't mention climate change
✊ Explore Erica Chenoweth's 3.5% rule, including her own cautionary update on what it can and can't tell us
📱 Watch the trailer for The Social Reckoning, Aaron Sorkin's film about the Facebook Files, which Paul recommends
🌳 Read the Dasgupta Review, the Treasury-commissioned study of the economics of biodiversity and the case for counting nature in a nation's wealth
💡 Read IRENA's Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2025, which found over 90% of new renewable power added last year was cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives
🎤 Leave us your voice notes and questions for upcoming episodes on SpeakPipe
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Senior Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Assistant Producer: Saoirse Wilson
Showrunner: Caitlin Hanrahan
This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.
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