From Des Moines to Don’t Look Up

How an Iowa native is using satire, viral videos, and late-night-style comedy to shake up climate communication

When it comes to climate change, the headlines aren’t working. The charts aren’t moving people. But maybe—just maybe—satire will.

On the latest episode of Three Degrees, we spoke with Iowan native and Yellow Dot Studios Managing Director Staci Roberts-Steele, who is helping reinvent how we talk about the climate crisis. “Look,” Staci told us, “I think we’ve done this so wrong for so long. If the headlines aren’t telling people, ‘holy shit, this is a crisis,’ you’ve got to find a new way to do it.”

Staci’s journey from Des Moines to Hollywood is anything but conventional. She grew up in Iowa in the 1980s and ’90s, and remembers it as a place that was not only kind and close-knit, but more diverse than outsiders assume. “It really lives up to the stereotype that everyone in Iowa is nice,” she said. “Even when I go back, I kind of forget how welcoming Iowans are.”

We had a little fun early on, surprising Staci with a photo of her childhood home—the same house where, as she joked, her acting career peaked at two weeks old when she was cast as baby Jesus in her church’s nativity pageant. “Once you play Jesus, you can’t really go up from there,” she laughed.

But what brought Staci into the climate world was her work as a co-producer on the Oscar-nominated film Don’t Look Up, the satirical allegory about climate denial in the form of an incoming comet. The success of the film led to short-form climate videos featuring stars like Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence—and eventually, a now-infamous parody ad targeting Chevron.

That ad, which dropped seemingly out of nowhere, went viral overnight. “Adam [McKay] texted me an idea for a Chevron parody ad,” Staci recalled. “We met with an editor, put it together, posted it—and got five million views overnight. That’s when we realized, ‘oh, maybe we should do more of this.’”

They did. Under Yellow Dot Studios, Staci and her small-but-mighty team have produced brutally funny, painfully honest climate videos that blend parody, rage, and comedy in a way that sticks. In one viral clip mimicking an Exxon ad, the narrator sneers, “You’re letting us get away with it, you dumb bitches,” followed by the line, “Get off your asses and do something, you fucking peasants.” It’s not subtle—and that’s the point.

“We’ve had decades of documentaries and science explainers,” Staci said. “There’s a whole group of people who respond to being spoken to directly—and through humor. If you can make people laugh, they’re more likely to be open to the message.”

Yellow Dot has also taken their mission on the road. One of their newest shows, So You Think You Can Science, is a climate-themed game show featuring comedians answering absurd science questions—with me, of all people, playing the role of “climate fact-checker.” It’s a live event that’s part improv, part education—and by the end, the comedians often surprise us all by nailing the lightning round.

“A lot of people walk away from the show saying they forgot they were learning climate science,” Staci said. “That’s kind of the magic of it.”

As Staci pointed out, not everyone who participates in Yellow Dot’s productions comes in as a climate advocate. But many walk out as one. Some comedians are drawn to the project after experiencing climate-fueled disasters like wildfires firsthand. Others are simply curious. But the end result is always the same: humor opens the door, and truth walks in.

When we asked about Yellow Dot’s evolution in the wake of increasing threats to climate advocacy—from censorship of protest to government rollbacks—Staci didn’t shy away. “We’re doing more of what we call the ‘Extreme Weather Report’ now,” she said, referring to a video series that recaps climate disasters largely ignored by mainstream news. “Even though we do comedy, we feel like we’re having to be the warning center, too.”

That balancing act—between laughter and urgency—is what makes Yellow Dot unique. “There are certain things about parody and comedy that open up the scope,” she said. “You can say things in parody you can’t say in normal life.”

When asked what she’s proudest of, Staci listed their first Chevron ad (“It was pure”), a Game of Thrones parody with Rainn Wilson, and a commercial-style spot on food waste starring The Good Place’s D’Arcy Carden that felt “poppy and for the masses.”

Despite the darkness of the climate crisis—and the challenges ahead—Staci remains hopeful. “Everyone can do something,” she said. “Maybe you have a skill in the climate world, or maybe you just talk about it. Getting people educated and excited about it is kind of the best foot forward. It’s really all we have left.”

And that Iowa optimism? Still intact. “We’re gonna need all hands on deck,” she said. “But I think we’ll get there.”

Listen to the full episode of Three Degrees: Comedy, Climate & Calling BS wherever you get your podcasts. And if you haven’t yet, check out Yellow Dot Studios at weareyellowdot.com.

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