At a time when climate change is inescapable, only one film nominated for an Oscar this year references the issue and deals with it appropriately, according to a new report that evaluates how climate change is represented on screen. Published by Good Energy, an organization that helps television and film writers include climate change in their storytelling, the report checked the narrative of 30 scripted, feature-length films that received Oscar nominations, crowning the film “The Wild Robot” as the sole picture that passes the test.

The climate change reality check report is loosely based on the Bechdel test, an evaluation that measures how women are portrayed in the media invented in the 1980s by cartoonist Alison Bechdel. The climate reality check measures whether climate change exists in a given story and whether a character knows it exists. The development of the test was based on interviews with screenwriters and movie executives, says Good Energy founder Anna Jane Joyer.

“We were trying to think of something similar to the Bechdel test that's creatively generative, that is easy to use, that any writer or audience member or researcher could use,” Joyer says. “We worked on development for about two years with Dr. Matthew Schneider Mason, who was at Colby College then and just moved to Rice University. We interviewed over 200 screenwriters, creative executives, and experts to make it as attractive and as usable as possible to screenwriters and executives, who are our core audience. But also, Matthew is really thinking about it through the lens of a researcher.”

The test does not seek to prescribe the inclusion of climate change into Hollywood narratives, nor does it push for climate change to be the center of the story. According to the report, the intention is to uplift stories that reflect our current reality and “help us navigate what it means to be human in the age of climate change.” The test was born out of Joyer’s disappointment with how films and TV are currently tackling climate change — or not tackling at all — while she was experiencing climate anxiety.

Read the full article about the representation of climate change by Nicole Froio at Triple Pundit.