Elphaba wants you to use green energy

NBCUniversal is leveraging "Wicked: For Good" to promote rooftop solar, electric cars and plant-based foods.

Decoration at the movie theater where I saw “Wicked” last year. (Photo by Sammy Roth)

“Wicked: For Good” arrives in theaters on Friday, and I can’t wait to see it. The first installment was glorious — maybe even better than the stage musical. I’ve listened to the soundtrack so many times.

The sequel is going to kill at the box office. And to NBCUniversal’s immense credit, the studio is using it to promote climate-conscious living.

If you go see a movie this month, you may catch a 60-second video before the film featuring Cynthia Erivo. In a clever tie to her character in “Wicked” — the green-skinned witch, Elphaba — she tells viewers that green “can be more than a color. It can be a way of showing up.”

“Elphaba taught us that standing up for what’s right, even when it’s hard, is its own kind of magic,” Erivo says. “Being green for good means showing up for the environment, for the people protecting it, and for the wild places and creatures that we love.”

It’s a simple message, bland but admirable — especially given the White House’s hostility to environmental advocacy of any kind.

“Our actions big and small can help us reconnect with the outdoors and restore nature in our own neighborhoods, building stronger, healthier communities for good,” Erivo says. “Gather your friends and join me in showing the world what it means to be green for good.”

If that were the extent of NBCUniversal’s “Green For Good” campaign — a product of the company’s GreenerLight Program — I would have nodded appreciatively but not taken the time to write anything.

The end of the video, though, directs audiences to begreenforgood.com. And this is where the real fun begins.

The website features personal action “toolkits” created with help from conservation nonprofits Rare and Re:wild (the latter co-founded by Leonardo DiCaprio). A “Green-ify Your Community” toolkit explores the benefits of planting pollinator gardens, and directs visitors to a form where they can tell Re:wild they’re interested in getting more green space at their schools. A “Protect Our Wildlife” toolkit explains how habitat loss and climate change fuel extinctions. It suggests donating to Re:wild.

My favorite toolkit is “Everyday Actions Matter.” This one advises “Wicked” fans to consider installing solar panels, replacing gas appliances with electric alternatives (such as inductions stoves and heat pumps) and eating plant-based meals — even once or twice a week. It also recommends green transportation.

“We can carpool with friends, ride bikes, switch to hybrid or electric cars, or join our neighbors in taking public transportation to school and work,” the toolkit says, opposite an image of Elphaba holding tight to her broomstick.

Another video on the “Green For Good” site features director Jon M. Chu and actor Bowen Yang. The site says NBCUniversal will pay to plant up to 2,000 native trees through a matching challenge that encourages fans to take actions supporting the environment.

For a major studio, this is a good approach to sustainability storytelling: Use your biggest stars and loudest megaphones to remind people to care about nature. Then offer more detailed climate content to the audiences who seek it out.

Would I prefer to see Cynthia Erivo on big screens across America, and on NBC too, reminding people that climate change is a crisis and we need to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy as fast as possible? Well, yeah. Absolutely.

But I’ll take what I can get, given the circumstances. NBCUniversal and its parent company, Comcast, are some of President Trump’s favorite punching bags, thanks in part to NBC’s annoying habit of accurately reporting the news. Just this week, Trump urged the network to fire late-night comedian Seth Meyers. Trump has also attacked Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, calling him and his company a “disgrace to the integrity of broadcasting” and saying they “ought to be investigated.”

Trump’s bullying has gotten so bad that Comcast volunteered to help pay for his fancy White House ballroom, probably in hopes of avoiding his wrath.

We’ll see if it works. There’s a lot on the line for Comcast: It’s one of several bidders for rival studio Warner Bros. Discovery, a potentially massive deal that would reshape Hollywood. Other suitors include Paramount, whose bid is backed by billionaire Trump ally Larry Ellison. Initial bids are due today — and any sale will require Trump appointees’ approval.

Speaking of Paramount and sustainability storytelling…

“Landman” is back

Sam Elliott is featured on a “Landman” ad at a Los Angeles bus stop. (Photo by Sammy Roth)

I’m not sure how many of you are watching “Landman,” the Paramount+ oil and gas soap opera co-created by Taylor Sheridan (of “Yellowstone” fame) and set in Texas’ Permian Basin. It’s pretty ridiculous — explosions, drug cartels, a few characters who can charitably be described as caricatures — but it’s fun.

And now it’s back for Season 2, which premiered Sunday.

As Season 1 wrapped up, I wrote a column arguing that “Landman” would be a better show if there weren’t so much distracting fossil fuel propaganda — like an anti-wind power rant delivered by Billy Bob Thornton that had little to do with the story. I thought Sheridan could have created more drama if he’d ditched the misinformation and tried pitting fossil fuels and renewables against each other, like what’s happening in real life.

I was curious whether he’d go that route this year — especially after a scene in the Season 1 finale where Billy Bob Thornton’s character, for all his bravado, seemed to acknowledge that oil and gas have a limited future.

Having now watched the Season 2 premiere…I don’t have much to report. The opening montage features dramatic close-ups of wind turbines, and later there are rooftop solar panels visible in a key scene. But so far, no storylines about renewables.

No fossil fuel propaganda, either.

Taylor Sheridan is one of Hollywood’s most influential showrunners, so I continue to hope he’ll look to clean energy for interesting stories — if not for Paramount, then for Comcast. It was reported last month that he’ll be taking his TV talents to NBCUniversal starting in 2029.

In the meantime, I’ll keep watching “Landman” and let you know what happens.

Go, Floodlight, Go!

Before our news roundup, a recommendation. Since 2021, Floodlight has been the only U.S. newsroom with a specific mission to hold climate polluters accountable. They’re a nonprofit, and I was proud to collaborate with them a few years back, for an investigation finding that residents around the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach were paid to show support for natural gas trucks at community hearings.

More recently, Floodlight has been busy exposing the “dark roof” lobby (which I still almost can’t believe is a real thing) and telling the stories of Americans whose homes are threatened by rising seas.

You can sign up for Floodlight’s weekly newsletter here.

In other news

Tom Steyer speaks at a Democratic Party convention in San Francisco in 2019. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)

The Golden State:

• It looks like we’ll have a legitimate climate candidate on the ballot next year. Tom Steyer is running for governor. (Seema Mehta, L.A. Times)

• California now has nearly 17,000 megawatts of battery storage. That’s enough to power about 13 million homes for four hours. (Hayley Smith, L.A. Times)

• A court has paused a state law requiring large companies to disclose their climate-related financial risks, handing an early win to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in its lawsuit to block the law. (Sophie Austin, Associated Press)

Climate consequences:

• Trump’s policies could lead to 1.3 million additional temperature-related deaths globally post-2035, a new analysis finds. (Sharon Lerner, ProPublica)

• California has proposed rules that would force landfills to respond more quickly to methane leaks — a climate menace. (Tony Briscoe, L.A. Times)

• A study finds the vast majority of city kids in California public grade schools have hardly any trees or shade on campus. (Tyrone Beason, L.A. Times)

More bad news:

• It doesn’t appear that CBS, NBC or ABC sent anyone to Brazil to cover the global climate summit. (Dharna Noor and Jonathan Watts, the Guardian)

• Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is a former oilman who once called for divesting federal lands. (Jimmy Tobias, Public Domain)

• Global carbon pollution from fossil fuels is projected to reach an all-time high in 2025. (Ruby Mellen, Washington Post)

In better news:

• China’s carbon emissions are no longer rising. (Amy Hawkins, the Guardian)

• A start-up is drilling into the flank of an active volcano in Oregon, in an attempt to unlock abundant geothermal power. (Nicolás Rivero, Washington Post)

• Disney is spending $5 million to rebuild and reimagine Altadena’s Charles White Park, which burned in the Eaton fire. (Dominic Patten, Deadline)

Now playing…

I saw a film festival showing of “Out of Plain Sight” at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood earlier this year. (Photo by Sammy Roth)

For those of you in the L.A. area, another movie recommendation: The award-winning documentary “Out of Plain Sight,” about the hidden history of DDT dumping off the Southern California coast, is making its theatrical debut at the Laemmle Theater in North Hollywood this week and next. It’s worth your time.

I am slightly biased, because the film was directed and produced by my former L.A. Times colleague Rosanna Xia. But seriously, it’s fabulous. You can get your ticket here!