INDUSTRY 101 EVENT SERIES

Climate Change 101:
Writing Our Climate Reality
Wednesday, April 23, 2025 | 4:30-6:00 PM PT | Online

2025 marks the 55th anniversary of Earth Day, so this year we’re highlighting the reality of climate change, and how writers can weave this reality into their stories in ways that are authentic to any storyline and resonant with audiences.

Join us as we examine how Hollywood has so far portrayed climate change, what disaster films say about our collective consciousness, and how stories can point the way forward.

Please note, the timing for this event is 4:30-6PM PT.

Lucy Alibar

Lucy Alibar’s writing has been published in Zoetrope, Oxford American, and The Wall Street Journal. Her plays have been workshopped/performed at the Sundance Theatre Lab, National Theatre Studio, Joe’s Pub, Ojai, Berkeley Rep, and Williamstown. Her first movie, Beasts of the Southern Wild, written with Benh Zeitlin received the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and the Cannes Film Festival Camera D’Or. The screenplay for Beasts was nominated for the Scripter, BAFTA, and Academy Award. Winner of the Ray Bradbury Nebula Award, the Humanitas Prize, and the Nantucket Film Festival New Voices in Screenwriting Award. She wrote and produced Troop Zero for Amazon and wrote the screenplay for Where the Crawdads Sing for Sony. She recently performed her solo play, “Burnpile” at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. She is a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop, and ALWAYS wants to see a picture of your dog.

Carmiel Banasky
VP of Editorial and Learning Initiatives, Good Energy

Carmiel Banasky's career spans novels, television, film, and audio. She staffed on the Amazon series Undone, for which she wrote a climate-related episode, and she created a climate-centered sci-fi podcast for Wondery, The Last City, starring Rhea Seehorn, which reached #1 in fiction. She also co-wrote a short film starring Margaret Cho, which premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, and which she’s developing into a climate-themed feature. She was a Film Independent Fellow, and an Unreasonable Conversation Climate Storytelling Fellow. As Head Writer for the nonprofit Good Energy, she co-led the creation of the Playbook for Screenwriting in the Age of Climate Change, and curates workshops to help screenwriters integrate climate across genres with joy and humor. Prior to LA, she spent time aboard a sailing vessel in the Arctic, studying and writing about climate change, and she once tried her damndest to open a Planned Parenthood in Mississippi. She is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, The Suicide of Claire Bishop.

Anna Jane Joyner
CEO, Founder, VP of Story Consulting, Good Energy

Anna Jane Joyner is a climate story consultant and the founder and director of Good Energy. With over fifteen years of experience in climate communications, she is driven by a passion for storytelling - and helping people find courage in the face of climate change. Anna Jane has worked relentlessly to establish bridges between artists, musicians, faith communities, Southerners, young audiences, and the climate movement. As a strategist at the intersection of climate and entertainment, she produced film and music videos and organized over 300 global partners around a youth-mobilization campaign for the 2015 Paris Climate Summit. Her work has been featured by Rolling Stone, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Glamour, Deadline, CNN, The Associated Press, The New York Times, and more.

Anna Jane’s prior experience spans state and national climate campaigns for “Beyond Coal,” water pollution, federal climate policy, voting rights, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and more. Her efforts to engage evangelicals on climate – including her own father, a prominent pastor – was featured in Years of Living Dangerously, an Emmy-award winning Showtime documentary series on which she collaborated with Ian Somerhalder and Lesley Stahl. For the last five years, Anna Jane has co-hosted “No Place Like Home,” a podcast that gets to the heart of climate change through storytelling.