WEBVTT - Imagining a Better Future 0:00:01.400 --> 0:00:04.720 This episode is sponsored by FX's Fleischman Is in Trouble, 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:09.399 starring Jesse Eisenberg, Claire Danes, Lizzie Kaplan and Adam Brodie. 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:12.639 The strama tells the story of recently divorced Toby Fleischmann, 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.320 who dies into the world of at bass dating with 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:17.360 the kind of success he never had in his youth. 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:21.280 Then his ex wife disappears, leaving him with their two 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:24.880 children and no hint of her return effectus. Fleischman Is 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:42.560 in Trouble streaming November seventeenth only on Hulu. Good Morning, 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.279 keep Sena. Welcome to Wika f Daily with Me your 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:50.720 Girl Danielle Moody recording from the Home Bunker. You know, folks, 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:55.080 everywhere that you look as it pertains to the climate crisis, 0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:02.840 it's bad right now. I believe that over thirty of 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:07.840 the states in Nigeria or underwater. You wouldn't be hearing 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:10.039 that from our news because we could give a fuck 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.119 about the continent of Africa or any of its countries. 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:17.959 But just to give you a quick picture, Nigeria is 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.640 responsible for like three percent of the carbon emissions, but 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:28.720 is now being hit with the overwhelming impact of climate 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:33.000 change that they didn't cause Right now, as I report this, 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:37.039 over six hundred Nigerians are dead, over a million have 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:40.560 been displaced. And if this sounds familiar, it should because 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:43.600 it was just maybe two months ago that I was 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:47.240 telling you the same story, except it was Pakistan that 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:52.640 has been underwater, most of the fucking country underwater because 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:58.400 of an uncharacteristic historic monsoon season. How many times do 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:02.160 we have to hear the word his doric right in 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:06.640 order for us to recognize that these things are historic. 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:10.240 They are our new abnormal. This is the reality of 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:15.200 how the world is moving because of what wealthy industrial 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:19.840 countries that are largely white lead countries have done. And 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.000 it is the browner and black countries that are going 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:26.240 to be the ones that face the most harm first. 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:33.320 But know that these conditions, these storms, these floods, these fires, 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:37.640 right are also happening in the United States. Case in point, 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:42.120 what just happened in Florida. Right. My younger cousin is 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:47.040 down there doing some of the demolition. Right. These homes 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.079 are completely and totally destroyed, and he's been sending pictures 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.880 home so that we can see and he's like, it 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:56.399 looks like a war zone. He's like I mean, these 0:02:56.440 --> 0:03:00.200 people have lost absolutely everything, and there's no way to 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:03.640 see even what rebuilding is going to look like because 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:07.640 we have so much damage to remove. And what I 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.600 say here is that the cost of ignorance is expensive. 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:16.320 It is in the billions. And yet people continue to 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:21.000 vote for Republicans who disavow climate changes and as even 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:23.519 being a problem because they don't give a fuck, because 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:25.920 they keep thinking to themselves, by the time it's a 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:29.480 real issue, you know, I'll be dead, right, or maybe 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.120 I'll have enough money to join Basos and the rest 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:35.400 of them on their rocket ships off of this fucking rock. Right, 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:40.000 the future in a lot of ways as we are 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.160 looking at it, and as young people generation Z is 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:45.520 getting ready to take over the helm and enter into 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.920 the workforce, are looking around and they're like, what is 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:53.480 this keeping pile of shit that you were leaving to us. 0:03:55.360 --> 0:04:01.000 I don't think any other generation before Generation Z has 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:06.920 an outlook that looks so fucking bleak, right, And No, 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:11.800 we've had past wars, we've had, you know, civil rights uprisings, 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:13.960 we've had, but we haven't had them all at once. 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:20.200 And that's where we are. And so I'm really excited 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:26.479 today for the conversation that I am going to share 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:33.599 with all of you. That provides some level of hope, right, 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:39.200 that provides some level of I don't know, imagination, that 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.839 allows us to dream of something different and something better. 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.960 I've talked about on this show that at the beginning 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:51.480 of the pandemic in twenty twenty, I got into African futurism, 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:56.360 and you know, I needed to be taken away from 0:04:56.360 --> 0:05:00.240 the current state and crisis that we were dealing with 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:05.760 and just be able to imagine and be in other worlds. Well, 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.440 I'm not the only one that feels this way, and 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:15.120 my next guest, Tory Stevens, is an award winning storyteller 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:20.400 who focuses primarily on climate fiction. The worlds he creates 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.359 serve as a means of raising awareness to the ongoing 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:29.039 climate crisis. But get this, He started a and founded 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:34.400 the Imagine twenty two hundred climate fiction initiative at Grist 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:40.080 magazine with Fixed Labs, and the idea was for people 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:48.200 to submit their stories of a uplifting climate future, something 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:52.880 that wasn't dystopian. Can we if we can imagine all 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:57.560 of the bad, can we imagine some of the good 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:02.120 that could actually happen as it pertains to our climate. 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.680 With all of the information and education that we have 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:10.760 at our fingertips, is it possible to create other worlds 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:17.000 that are good? And so my conversation with Tori I 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:22.680 really left feeling uplifted because I think that fictional writing 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:29.080 and fiction films allow us to imagine world different from 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:31.440 what we are experiencing right now. And I think now 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:33.719 more than ever, a lot of us need some type 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:38.080 of escapism, something to be hopeful about and hopeful for. 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:41.120 And I think that the twenty two hundred Climate Fiction 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:45.680 Initiative is that right. Tori will talk to us about 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:48.240 the fact that they in the first year that they 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:52.280 did it, they were overwhelmed with the amount of submissions, 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.880 and he will talk about who the winners are and 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:58.720 where they're coming from. But you know, the idea here 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:03.520 is that he started writing climate fiction after heavily looking 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:08.320 into afrofuturism and being inspired by the protests surrounding the 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:12.560 murder of George Floyd, And so imagining something good out 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:16.280 of something so tragic is sometimes where we need to go. 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:20.120 Because I'll tell you that reality these days feels really 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:23.960 really stark, and I wouldn't mind taking the time to 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:28.200 imagine something much better than our present. So coming up 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:36.280 next my conversation with Tory Stevens. Hey there, I want 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.640 to tell you about another podcast I think you'll love. 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:41.920 The Brown Girl's Guide to Politics, hosted by a Shanty Gohler, 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.480 the president of Emerge BGG, is the one stop shop 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:47.440 for women of color who want to hear and talk 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:50.320 about the world of politics. Join a Shanty this season 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:52.680 as she talks to incredible women of color who are 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.000 changing the face of politics and tackling some of the 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:58.880 most important issues facing the United States, from reproductive justice 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:01.480 to voting rights, to climb to change, and more. Tune 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:07.000 in every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts, Folks. I 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:10.040 am very excited to welcome to Woke f Daily for 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:15.120 the very first time, Tory Stevens, who is the founder 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.840 and creative manager of Imagine twenty two hundred, a climate 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:26.000 fiction initiative at Fix, which is Gris's climate solution lab. Tory, 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:31.240 let's start out with Imagine twenty two hundred, because my god, 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:33.720 do I want to imagine something other than twenty twenty 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:38.959 two So tell me, so tell us about about Imagine 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:42.480 twenty two hundred. Yeah, thank you for that, thank you 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.920 for having me as well. I guess I'll start with 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.040 that's the premise of this, that's the point of this. 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.640 The point is to get outside of our everyday usual 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:56.520 kind of dreams, musings that we have around what we 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:00.920 want out of life. And so by situating a climate fiction, 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:06.319 it's a contest that we have. We advertise globally, so 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.439 we're getting folks. The first year we got one thousand, 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:12.520 one hundred stories. We're now in the second year and 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:16.520 we got six hundred stories. We tampered down the advertising 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:18.800 because we had too many stories. It was really hard 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.320 to read all those stories, and we do want to 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:24.480 honor all the stories that come in. So the whole 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:26.800 idea is to get people to think about the future. 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:29.319 What is the future that you want and what is 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.120 the future that we all deserve. What does an abundant 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:35.080 future look like where we care for folks, where we 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:38.040 care for the planet, where we care for our non 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.800 human kin, the animals that live here as well. What 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:44.960 does that look like? You know, so many writers when 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.040 we asked them to, you know, look at the prompt 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.200 and they encountered it online or wherever they found it, 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.840 maybe in a college or in a writing community. They said, no, 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:59.280 they've never they never thought to write about hopeful, intersectional 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:06.959 and resilient, abundant futures where we're winning were where the 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:11.600 world has this imbued with justice, where it's just like 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.760 a strong world that has all these things kind of 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:18.520 being held in a good way. And so after asking 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:20.840 that question, there's some folks that have, like I would say, 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:25.520 the solar punk community, which is a genre, and those 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:29.880 folks they often ideate and write around hopeful futures that 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:34.960 were technology technology and people are working together in harmony. 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:37.600 But many of the writers, not all of them, come 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:41.080 from the solar punk community. Again, this is a global contest, 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:43.920 so some folks haven't even heard of the term solar 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:47.200 punk and they come from another angle of this, and 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:52.319 they were really excited to write about something hopeful as 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:54.880 it relates to the climate and as it relates to 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:58.880 how humans interact with each other. No, I love it, 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:01.040 and I love the idea so much. I mean I 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:03.600 joke on wok af on a regular basis that, like 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:06.360 you know, I just hold onto a mustard seed of 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.200 hope these days. So it is, you know, it is. 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:13.439 It is very hard, I think when you have been 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:18.200 showcased just such a dystopian future, right. Anytime you know 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:20.640 that we have looked at science fiction, when we've looked 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:24.680 at fantasy, it's always been placed with well, Earth has 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:28.079 collapsed and so now we're in space or we're still 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.360 on Earth. But it is, it is this tribal war, 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:34.800 you know, situation. And you know the question that I 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:37.920 want to ask you too, and I'm assuming that this 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:41.520 is kind of where you're the idea originated, is that 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:47.360 black people and brown people were written out of sci fi. Right. 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:50.680 It wasn't until the likes of you know, the late 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:57.120 brilliant Octavia Butler that we began to see a future 0:11:57.360 --> 0:11:59.719 that saw us in it. And so I want you 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:03.439 to speak to speak to that and why this initiative 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:09.240 too is so important because of who is doing the writing. Yeah, 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:11.680 that's that's definitely an important part of this, which is 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:16.360 that we want to show futures, as Adrian ree Brown says, 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:20.319 futures have black people in it, Futures have brown people 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.840 and indigenous people where we will be there and not 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:25.880 only will we be there, Because this is a part 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:30.640 that I talk about a lot. We often have black 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:35.959 or brown folks in stories adjacent or but they have 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:38.800 no culture to them. So I always say I don't 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:41.880 want I don't want lego people in my stories. And 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:43.760 what I mean by that is I don't want to 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:45.480 be able to take the head off and be able 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:47.960 to remove and switch the people. And it doesn't matter 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:51.000 like you could you made a scientist, you made that 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.719 scientist black or brown because you name check that, but 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.480 you didn't add all the culture that comes with black folks. 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:00.000 You didn't add all the culture that comes with Caribbean 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.800 and folk. Some of the stories we have shown up 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.160 this year. We have the story that won for this 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:08.520 year takes place in Jamaica. We have another story that's 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:13.040 from Trinidad, and we have another story from Rwanda. And 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.480 I think that's just like incredible. The thing that makes 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:19.719 it incredible is that they're not just lego people. They 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.640 have all this culture that is a part of the story. 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:25.800 So you mentioned sci fi science fiction always taking place 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:29.400 in space. Often you see this kind of like you know, 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.760 sanitized version of the world where there's this spaceship and 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:35.959 people have on the same materials or like, but there's 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.360 that that's not like how life is even in the future, 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.040 even if people did live on spaceships, they're going to 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:45.800 have their own vernacular, They're going to have their own culture, 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:50.160 ways of being, ways of movement, they will be danced, 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.480 they would just be people who one thing we will 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.960 show up with is culture. And so that's a big 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:58.920 thing that we're trying to do. It imagine is say, hey, 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.920 we're doing climate fiction, but we want climate fiction that 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.120 is just as important it is to address the climate crisis. 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:09.679 It's also important that the characters feel real in like 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:12.520 folks that I would hang out with or are from 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:17.920 my family, so black, brown, indigenous, Yeah, just really want 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:19.600 that piece of it. And I guess I would also 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:23.760 layer in that we want intersectional characters. You know, culture 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:26.800 is important, but all these other identities like is the 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:30.240 person working class? What up with my queer folks? Like 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.480 what you know, don't erase them from the stories as well. 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:38.360 And the whole goal is one is this is how 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.160 the world is. Right. Our world is rich and beautiful 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:44.200 and vibrant, so let's show it as it is. But 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.480 also I want people to see themselves in these climate 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:50.640 futures like ways, I want people to see that day 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.040 two can be a part of the climate solution. And 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:57.000 the fact is, like frontline folks are already fighting, Like 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:01.000 you have folks in Cancer Alley and Louisiana, black brown 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:04.800 folks who are fighting against new plastic um. There's like 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:06.880 a plastic company that was going to move in there 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:10.840 that they fought and removed from from building a new 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.640 facility because all those facilities have caused UM. I mean, 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:17.080 there's a reason that's called Cancer Alley. You know, it's 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:20.240 a very sad reason. But people are fighting on the 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:22.680 front lines right now. And those people that are fighting 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.480 on the front line are most likely black and brown. 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:30.680 Because the climate crisis is not equal. You know, our 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:37.600 folk have um disproportionately been you know, put next to oil, um, 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:42.760 what do you call it, oil derricks, oil refineries, plastic places, 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:45.840 anything that's kind of like, you know, just not beautiful. 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:49.280 And this isn't I'm making like an um, It's not 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:52.200 always the case, but better believe that, you know, the 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:54.880 very wealthy are not living right next to these kind 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.160 of like factories and plants where um, you know, there's 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:01.840 abnormally high cancer rate. Yeah, you know, and I think 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:04.000 to that point, well, one first I want to pick 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:09.000 up the Jamaicans that one, because my family is Jamaican American. 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:11.720 I'm Jamaican American. My family so from Jamaica, So pick 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:15.280 them up. And I can't wait to read that. But 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.040 you know, I think too to your last point with 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:23.000 regard to who is disproportionately impacted from the climate crisis, 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:25.720 we're seeing it right now, right, We're seeing it as 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:31.560 these hurricanes, um, you know, land and stay over Caribbean islands, 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:35.640 over low lying um you know, Api islands like and 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.680 these places, and we're saying, who are these people? Right 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:42.360 what we saw in Pakistan, right, we saw you know, 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:46.800 over eleven hundred lives lost, right to what they keep saying, 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:51.080 are these historic monsoons, historic seasons, And yet we're not 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:53.720 doing anything for the people who are putting out one 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:58.120 percent right of the carbon emissions, and they're dealing with 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:01.560 ninety nine percent of the problems. So, you know, I 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:05.399 want to also talk about is it important to you 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:10.520 as well, while you're framing this around hopefulness, around a 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:13.960 future that we can all see ourselves in, is it 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:18.000 also really important to hold up the truth of how 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:25.440 how our future can in fact sadly look like what 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:30.680 has been genre as dystopian, right, Like I brought up Pakistan. 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:33.560 We can look at Puerto Rico, we can look at Kansas, 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:36.200 we can look at Florida, we can you know, look 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:39.959 at Germany and France and Australia that lost a billion animals. Like, 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:44.359 the future doesn't look bright. So how important is it 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:48.640 to juxtapose the hopefulness with the reality that people are 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:53.200 finally starting to see. Yeah, that's a really good question. 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.280 I would say that, you know, this project is focused 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:58.359 on hope, right, And the reason we do that is 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:00.200 we're trying to carve out a space for people to 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.040 dream about the future that we want. I'm not saying 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:07.160 that dystopian stories are not important. I think they're really important. 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:10.919 They tell of a future that we could have, and 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:13.760 for some folks, they are living that future right now. 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:17.960 It's just that middle class folks are going to start 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:20.600 to feel that pain as well. White folks are going 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:22.760 to start because if you ask the folks in Cancer 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:25.199 Alley if they're live in a dystopian future, they're going 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:27.400 to say yes. Ask the people in Pakistan or they 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:29.480 live in a dystopian future right now, they're going to 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:32.600 say yes. The folks in Puerto Rico. I would say, 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:36.080 like there's been mixed you know, dystopian with like I've 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:39.399 seen some real resiliency there where folks have kind of 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:42.960 brought together and come together as a community. But it's 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:48.520 really important that we carve out space for hope, because 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:51.560 hope looks different to different people, and I want to 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:56.320 explore that. I think I've found myself looking at hope 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.880 in the middle of the pandemic and charged with founding 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:02.080 and starting. All we knew is we wanted to bring 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.720 climate fiction to Grist magazine, but we didn't know that 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:07.520 what that would look like. And I was like, wait, 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:09.560 we're going to be talking about hope in this moment. 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.919 It's really tough. But then once we started, I started 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.520 receiving the stories, I started reading them, and I started 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:19.119 seeing all the visions that people have of the world 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:23.680 where we're working together in concert to bring climate solutions 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:28.720 to all folks. It was life changing. Is probably like 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:30.480 a too big of a word, but like it was 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:33.840 close to that, like maybe even that's true. You know, 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.840 it has changed my perspective on hope. I would say 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:40.960 that I was someone who looked at hope from I 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:44.399 hope that things are going to be better. But now 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.239 I see hope. It's like a praxis. And so this 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:52.000 is why sometimes I'm not dogging dystopian stories. I think 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.760 that they're important, but I think there's too many of 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:58.359 them and not enough hopeful visions of what our world 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:03.840 could look like. So you know, we have Black Mirror, 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:08.840 we have Squid Games, we have Stranger Things. I mean, 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:12.040 you can just the list goes on. We have Mad Max. 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:16.320 There's like just such a long list of dystopian stories. 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:18.520 But then when you ask about, like what's the most 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:22.480 hopeful thing you watched recently, they're like more of these 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:26.240 like Will Smith like movies that are like about hope 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:29.040 in a kind of happy, feel good way. But that's 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:31.040 not the type of I mean, those are great, that 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:34.840 they're good for society. But what I'm trying to get 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:38.639 after and get stories written and submitted to the contest 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:41.679 about our stories where hope is driving us to a 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:45.439 better reality in a it's not about feel good. It's 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:52.159 about changing systems, changing norms, tackling white supremacy, patriarchy, and 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:56.000 just going after these systems that are oppressing people so 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:59.440 that other folks in folks that like and even myself 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:03.920 just feel more liberated in this world. Get a behind 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.520 the scenes look at Comedy Central's The Daily Show on 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:09.520 Beyond the Scenes, an original podcast from The Daily Show 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:12.320 with Trevor Noah. Every week, host Roy Wood Junior goes 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:14.760 deeper with the notable guests and experts from the Emmy 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:17.960 Award winning series. Together, they use comedy to tackle current 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:20.840 topics from gentrification to gun laws and take a closer 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:23.280 look at how and why these topics matter. Listen to 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:25.800 Beyond the Scenes from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:28.840 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:36.280 your podcast. New episodes every Tuesday. Tory, I love the 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:40.320 phrase hope as a practis my goodness. You should coin 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:43.600 that and I when you said it, because it triggered 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:49.600 for me this idea of our ancestors and activism and 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:53.399 what it meant to, for instance, fight for the abolition 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:56.159 of slavery. At the time that it was beginning to 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:59.600 be fought, you had to be hopeful of a future 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:05.440 that you hadn't seen right, centuries centuries of terrorism, abuse, torture, 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:11.439 and brutality, and your abolitionists were imagining a time that 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:14.680 they were never going to necessarily live in, and that 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:20.160 to me embodies the hope as as practis right as 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:24.639 somebody who is super political. You know, the framing of 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:27.280 the future has always I think a lot of the 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:32.160 times been by the opponents of that future, right, people 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:34.600 who have said, oh, well, we can't spend money on 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:38.200 clean energy, right because what about big oil and big coal. 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:41.880 We can't you know, talk about the reality of science 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:45.280 and climate change because it will hurt people's feelings. I 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:48.680 think that we've allowed people to drain us of that hopefulness, 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:52.320 and we've kind of fallen into this dystopian narrative that 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:56.040 says to us that the future is already written, right, 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:58.439 and what you're doing, and what you're doing is saying, no, 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:01.000 it does not have to be. And I think that that, 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:05.320 you know, that of itself is a form of activism 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:08.000 that I don't think that we talk about nearly enough. 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:11.640 That hopefulness isn't just about that I wish for and 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:14.560 that I hope for, like we're blowing out candles, It 0:23:14.600 --> 0:23:17.520 really is in the doing of the thing. And so 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:22.359 for you know, story for people who again have not 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:27.440 seen their future and have not seen their path be written. 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:31.760 Just just talk a bit more about the importance of 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:35.840 us writing our own stories and ones that are framed 0:23:35.960 --> 0:23:42.120 not about our deficit but in the face of abundance. Yeah, 0:23:42.160 --> 0:23:45.040 I would say that the way you framed it around 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:49.040 like folks being like, you know, abolitionists, that's a really 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:52.360 good example of folks that really had no clue if 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:55.760 they were going to live, they would live in the 0:23:55.760 --> 0:23:58.000 world in which the one that they were dreaming of. 0:23:59.359 --> 0:24:02.359 So you know that that's a good reference point. That's 0:24:02.400 --> 0:24:04.760 a good thing that I should even remember, like as 0:24:04.880 --> 0:24:08.359 when I'm talking about this, the thing that I also 0:24:08.400 --> 0:24:12.879 want to bring up is, so you before we started 0:24:12.920 --> 0:24:16.440 the show, you were talking about afrofuturism. And so when 0:24:16.480 --> 0:24:20.880 I was looking into who's hopeful in the feet, who's 0:24:20.880 --> 0:24:23.199 hopeful in this kind of way? Who are folks that 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:25.840 are like oppressed but still looking at a hopeful future, 0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:30.600 I was looking at you know, disabled futurisms. I was 0:24:30.640 --> 0:24:35.200 looking at afrofuturism, Latins futurism, Indigenous futurism. I didn't even 0:24:35.240 --> 0:24:37.560 know there was all these futurisms like until I started 0:24:37.560 --> 0:24:39.240 this project, and so I started to look into that 0:24:39.600 --> 0:24:43.080 and there was all these folks dreaming of like their 0:24:43.680 --> 0:24:48.159 version of Wakanda basically yes and right, and so I 0:24:48.840 --> 0:24:51.240 I that gave me hope, right, And so then I 0:24:51.280 --> 0:24:54.040 started to write the bones of this project in a 0:24:54.119 --> 0:24:56.720 different frame. You know. When I first started, before I 0:24:56.720 --> 0:24:59.840 started diving into these other futurisms, I was, you know, 0:25:00.160 --> 0:25:02.679 looking at climate solutions and the place that I'm at Grist. 0:25:02.720 --> 0:25:05.920 We've fixed the lab that I'm in. We've always had 0:25:05.920 --> 0:25:08.560 like an idea of like turning stories from gloom and 0:25:08.600 --> 0:25:13.359 doom to one of hope in you know, solutions. So 0:25:13.720 --> 0:25:17.240 that was there, but these other pieces bringing in threads 0:25:17.240 --> 0:25:19.800