‘Don’t Look Up’ director donates $4m to climate activists

In director Adam McKay’s ‘Don’t Look Up,’ a 2021 satire about two scientists who try in vain to warn the world about a planet-destroying comet, the scientists’ desperate plea for action ultimately doesn’t work.

But don’t take that as McKay’s view on the power of activism to change the course of the climate crisis, the existential threat his movie was really about.

McKay on Tuesday plans to announce a $4 million donation to the Climate Emergency Fund, an organization dedicated to getting money into the hands of activists engaged in disruptive demonstrations urging swifter, more aggressive climate action. It’s the largest donation the fund has received since it started in 2019, and McKay’s biggest personal gift. He joined the organization’s board in August.

Climate change is “extremely alarming, extremely frightening, and quickly becoming the only thing I’m thinking about on a daily basis, even as I’m writing scripts and directing or producing,” McKay said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

From the overthrowing of monarchies to labor movements and the Civil Rights Era, activism is an “incredibly kinetic, powerful, transformative” force that’s created change throughout history, he said.

The Climate Emergency Fund has awarded $7 million to organizations supporting mostly volunteer climate activists around the globe. Those activists have done everything from marching in the streets of France to urge people to “look up” — a reference to McKay’s film — to demonstrating on the water near West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s boat about the need for federal climate legislation.

The fund’s goal is to provide a bridge for more traditional wealthy donors with activists looking to make a statement — two groups that don’t always see eye to eye, said Margaret Klein Salamon, the fund’s executive director and a clinical psychologist.

McKay, 54, started his career in comedy writing and became known for movies like ‘Anchorman’ and ‘Step Brothers.’