It feels impossible to seriously consider the reality of the climate crisis for longer than a few seconds without feeling depressed, dispirited, guilty or simply helpless: Earth is getting hotter, the frequency of extreme weather events is predicted to increase and our rivers and water are under constant threat of pollution.
But should we change the subject before we grow too despondent?
“It’s important to humanise these things,” comedian and television presenter Martin Beanz Warde says on a Monday midmorning, the first light of spring making him feel more hopeful than not. “We all deal with climate anxiety because we’re not psychopaths – we feel anxious for other people. You take on board the pains of other people when you meet them. I mean, my house isn’t falling into the sea, but someone else’s is – and with this series, I met that person. And when you meet someone, who is visibly getting upset as you’re speaking to them, they’re no longer just a statistic.”
The series to which Warde is referring is The End Of The World With Beanz, his new RTÉ show which sees him travel to a myriad of places where climate change is hurting people the most. He does this with the help of different co-hosts – Neil Delamere, Roz Purcell, Emma Doran among them – who, across six episodes, attempt to demystify climate misconceptions.
The biggest thing he learned? To confront his own ego. “In the second episode we travelled to Nairobi,” he says. “It was the first overseas bit we filmed. And of course, going away as an Irish person, I wanted to look good. I had a plan of what to wear each day, and it was all lined out. I spent stupid money on clothes.
“And then we did the Kenya episode, which was all about fast fashion and its impact, and I learned that to produce the amount of cotton needed to make one pair of jeans and one T-shirt, you would need to use anywhere between seven and 10,000 litres of water.
“Then, we went to the markets, where traders buy bales of second-hand clothes from countries like Ireland, France and Spain to sell. But the thing is that these second-hand traders buy on the blind; meaning they don’t know what’s going to be in the bales until they have them. And so, on average, 30 per cent of what’s in there is unusable.
“So really think about that, 30 per cent of the clothes we send over are unusable in one of the poorest countries in the world – how bad they must be. So they get sent to the landfill, furthering the problem.”
Warde grew up in Galway, the eldest of four boys. They moved around until he was six or seven, before settling in Tuam. “I asked my parents about it before, and I always thought they wanted to settle us for school,” he says. “But they actually didn’t want to be on the road themselves.
“My mother has always said there seems to be this romantic notion about travelling around, but it’s anything but – you’re exposed to the elements, unsheltered from the rain and hard work all around.”
Warde is increasingly well-known as a stand-up and writer from the Irish Traveller/Mincéir community. He has performed at every big venue and festival in Ireland, is a graduate of sociology and politics from the University of Galway.
He comes to climate activism with curiosity , but no formal knowledge. “The whole thing is that I’m not an expert,” he says. “This is not a preachy, finger-pointy show that is asking anyone to change their habits. It’s simply asking everyone to come along on this journey with me, and learn alongside me.
“It would be nice for the show to start a conversation, but I’m also aware that if you go to the average person in a rural community and tell them that they’re not allowed to burn turf any more, it’s not going to go down well. Similarly for anyone living on the breadline – who is going to pay for them to retrofit their home or the new clothes that are made sustainably as opposed to the cheaper alternatives?
“I think comedy is a great vehicle for delivering subjects with substance, and I’m hoping we can really get people thinking with this series.”
“The show is entertainment-focused, certainly,” he says. “There are moments about more serious topics, sure, but what I hope people really get from it is how it’s possible to make small changes; using less plastic; buying loose vegetables; buying one new T-shirt a year instead of five, that sort of thing.
“I don’t have all the solutions, and even if I did, I’d be in no place to suggest them, but [I’m just hoping] to bring up conversations with this show. And not just for the average person, but for those in power, too. Let’s have the conversation, that’s all I ask.”
Warde acknowledges what he calls the “glaringly obvious hypocrisy” of using environmentally unfriendly means of travel during the series, adding: “we chose the green route – ferries, electric vehicles – where we could, but the reality is that if you’re going to report on a place like Nairobi, you’re going to have to fly to get there”.
In a statement, RTÉ said the series was commissioned following Coimisiún na Meán’s Sound & Vision Climate Change funding round to specifically bring Irish viewers global stories of how climate change is both directly affecting overseas communities. It also highlighted attempts to help prevent climate change in different parts of the world.
“We chose to minimise travel as much as possible, doing stories closer to home where possible, minimising crew on location, and using one car when travelling by road. We minimised air travel travelling by boat to Scotland for one episode, doubling up and filming two episodes in the US on the same trip, and filming one whole episode in Ireland. They flew to France and got a train to Nantes. The carbon of this was offset.”
The End Of The World With Beanz is on Tuesdays on RTÉ One at 7pm
