Celeb-packed 'Years of Living Dangerously' wants to make climate change a voting issue

The 2016 U.S. presidential election has been memorable for many reasons, but a nuanced discussion about climate change isn't one of them.

With just weeks to go before election day, the producers of the documentary series Years of Living Dangerously said they are hoping to break the climate silence with the premiere of the show's second season on Sunday.

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The first season, which won a 2014 Emmy Award, was the highest profile program on climate change since Al Gore's groundbreaking 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth. 

The Showtime series paired celebrity correspondents with climate scientists and grassroots activists to highlight the threats that a warming planet poses to families and ecosystems worldwide.

Season 2 of Years will air on a new outlet, the National Geographic Channel, and will have a stronger focus on renewable energy solutions.

David Gelber, who created the show with Joel Bach, said he hoped Season 2 would influence U.S. voters before they hit the polls on Nov. 8. 

"We want to put this issue where it belongs. It's the single biggest issue facing the planet right now," Gelber told Mashable at the Sept. 21 season premiere party in New York.

"Our hope is to develop a political consensus that this is an urgent matter," he said, adding that if countries don't address climate change, "We're screwed. I got an 11-year-old and a 7-year-old, and their world is going to be turned upside down."

Season 2 will revive the successful mix of Hollywood stars, high-profile scientists and environmentalists. The show's executive producers include Gelber, Bach, James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Image: Anthony Behar/National Geographic/PictureGroup

Mashable spoke with a few of this season's correspondents on the sidelines of the September launch party at the American Museum of Natural History. Here's what they had to say about their upcoming episodes:

Arnold Schwarzenegger. The former California governor and actor visited with U.S. soldiers in Kuwait. He traveled in a fuel convoy — one of the military's most dangerous missions — and learned how the military is working to reduce its own carbon footprint.

"I wanted to travel to the Middle East and be part of the big fuel convoy, because so many of our men and women get killed delivering fuel to the military installations," Schwarzenegger said. "Now, by the military going green and powering their installations with solar and wind, rather than with fuel, they save a lot of lives."

"The military is very efficient and they think ahead, years ahead," he added, "unlike some of our politicians that don't think way ahead."

America Ferrera. The actress traveled to Waukegan, Illinois, where Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign is working to clean up a retired coal-fired power plant. Environmentalists say the hulking facility continues to taint the air and water and harm the health of nearby residents.

Ferrera said she was attracted to Waukegan's story in part because it addresses the environmental injustices that many minority communities face around the country.

"A large percentage of the population is Latino and low-income, and they're living around this coal plant that is essentially non-functioning but still continuing to pollute and toxify the air," Ferrera said. "They continue to endanger not only the environment but the lives of people who live around them."

Aasif Mandvi. The comedian and former Daily Show correspondent visited Kenya's wildlife preserves to understand how the effects of climate change, including increased drought and irregular rainfall, are affecting endangered species that are already vulnerable to poaching and habitat loss.

"There's only 500,000 elephants on the continent of Africa today, and we're losing 30,000 a year," Mandvi said. "I don't think people realize how close we are to that kind of complete devastation of a species."

The actor said the experience had a profound impact on his personal life. He met with members of the Maasai ethnic group in southern Kenya, who are now seeing elephants stampede their farmland as the animals escape their own withering habitats. 

"Our ecosystem is interdependent and interconnected, and we forget that in our First World lives," Mandvi said. "The water just comes out of the faucet. We don't worry about things like that."