In 2021, I began following a group of conservative climate activists for a documentary. The movie is titled the [Conserv]ativesThis book grew out of months I spent in Louisiana on a Smithsonian Institution project on coastal erosion, where I watched conservatives seriously engage with environmental issues, on their own terms and in their own language. I saw the ways in which they advanced environmental conservation, mostly from within the Republican tent.
I am ashamed to say that I was surprised. Any historian can tell you that conservatives have a long legacy of environmental engagement. Yet that commitment has been lost in our national discourse, drowned out by years of trained media attention on Republican lawmakers who have largely abandoned those historic values in the service of deregulated corporatism. What I was experiencing, I later learned, was what researchers call a “perception gap,” a distance of about 30 percentage points between what Americans really believe about climate policy and what they imagine their fellow citizens believe. And with this administration rolling back dozens of environmental protections, understanding how our media landscape contributes to this perception gap is more urgent than ever. Focusing on themes and crafting stories from in-group voices that live and breathe the group’s values may be the best tool we have left to build a more sustainable coalition of environmentally conscious voters.
When I started casting this film, I interviewed more than a dozen conservative leaders who described themselves as engaged on climate issues. They approach environmental action through market competition, personal responsibility, stewardship and a pro-life ethic that extends to how extreme heat and environmental degradation threaten the health of the unborn, the elderly, and the broader community. I learned that their commitment to preserving the environment is not despite their conservative tendency, but rather an expression of it. These are the cultural actors who can reach audiences, which progressive environmental storytelling never does.
So I embarked on what would become a five-year journey to document it. I followed them from Iowa to Wisconsin, from Tennessee to Ohio, and from South Dakota to Florida. I met dozens like them, but more importantly, I watched them work in the places where polarization had done its damage, reaching conservatives who had not abandoned their connection to the land but had long since stopped identifying with a movement that never spoke their language. Between the fieldwork and the research surrounding it, some clear lessons emerged that I think every environmental storyteller should sit with.
Conservative audiences extend their trust to people with first-hand knowledge and physical skills, rooted in a specific, well-known place. The most effective messengers are not grassroots activists or up-and-coming politicians, but farmers, wildland firefighters, fishermen, cowboys, trappers, game rangers, and foresters. They care deeply about family and legacy. Talking broadly about what is good for “society” or “the planet” is not convincing, but talking about leaving a single piece of land in better condition for their children is not convincing. These are people whose relationship with the land is not ideological, but practical, everyday, and inherited. For storytellers, it’s among the most pressing topics in America, and as it turns out, it’s already on television.
from Yellowstone to Joe Pickett, Ransom Canyon to Untamedthe rural American viewer has already been found connected to the land. For ecologists, these worlds are full of people whose livelihoods depend on healthy lands, clean water, and thriving ecosystems. What was missing was the intentional, skillful hand of storytellers willing to draw out those threads and make them visible to an audience already watching and already ready to care. Documentary filmmakers in particular have been slow to act on this. While scripted television follows audiences instinctively, documentary filmmaking claims to lead by conviction, and yet we have done more than anyone to widen the perception gap we claim to want to close. We have the tools, access, and tradition to provide honest testimony. What we lacked was the desire to point the camera in a different direction.
Republican lawmakers and corporate interests bear a great deal of responsibility for misleading the public about climate. But the failure of the media and storytellers to distinguish between people and politics has set the movement back in ways that are harder to see and slower to correct. When story after story presents conservation and climate change as a progressive issue, it’s not just preaching to the converted. It actively reinforces the illusion that conservatives don’t care, making the perception gap wider, making crossing the partisan divide more difficult, and making lasting climate action more distant. Our storytelling has contributed to the polarization that is the root cause of legislative failure, yet the way forward is not complicated. Telling authentic stories across partisanship is not a compromise. This is, at this point, the only approach we have not tried.
This story appears in “Hollywood Reporter”Sustainability issue for 2026. Click here to read more.
