It was progressive buzzword bingo night on PBS during Monday’s Amanpour and Company as host Bianna Golodryga welcomed environmental activist and director Josh Fox to promote his new HBO documentary. According to Fox, it is fascist to oppose the mass admittance of “climate refugees” into the U.S. and the developed world should pay reparations for colonialism, which is also to blame for climate change. Unfortunately for PBS, a lot of what Fox said was simply wrong.
Golodryga set Fox up by wondering, “You go to South America, you go to Brazil, you go to Europe and Italy, where your family originally hails from. But you start the piece with a family who was impacted by the Paradise fires in California. They were displaced in 2018. Why open with their story, and what did you learn from them?”
Director Josh Fox stopped by PBS to promote his new climate change documentary and play some Liberal Buzzword Bingo, "What's home going to be on a planet that is ravaged by climate change? With, you know, a third of the planet on the move, what does the future look like? How do… pic.twitter.com/OG5YYIwSUt
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) June 23, 2026
Fox lamented that, “American cities are being destroyed by climate change faster than they can be rebuilt. There is very little stability in the future when we think about climate change. So, the American dream is burning at people's feet. And that was one of the first interviews that I did. And I wanted to redefine what it meant to be a climate refugee, to be a climate survivor. A lot of people don't think of those Californian Americans with children who have lost everything as climate refugees. But we have to redefine everyone.”
He added, “I mean, right now we're talking about some estimates saying one out of every three people will lose their homes due to climate change, which means that either we're going to be on the move ourselves or we're going to be tasked with welcoming those who are.”
That’s not quite accurate. Some studies claim that many Americans are at risk, which is very different than saying they will definitely lose their homes. Of course, when you redefine every wildfire, hurricane, flood, and other natural disaster as being the result of climate change, it is easy to get an eyebrow-raising number.
Nevertheless, Fox continued, “So, the question became, where is home? What's home going to be on a planet that is ravaged by climate change? With, you know, a third of the planet on the move, what does the future look like? How do we start to redefine what it is to be human?”
Answering his own question, he claimed:
And certainly, the response of these fascist governments is to wall people out or to incarcerate them, to abuse them, to detain them, to torture them. And that can't be the answer for billions of people. So, when we look to the future, we have to ask, what future do we want, a future of that kind of hatred and violence or a future of generosity and sharing and togetherness and collaboration, which can often be the answer to a crisis, right?... And we have to start to think about what will we do to counteract this, to stem this tide of hatred that is coming at migrants. I mean, there's an age-old relationship between fascists and the hatred of immigrants.”
He further asserted, “I wanted to do with this film is show the stories of people who are normally portrayed as being wrestled to the ground by ICE. We don't hear those stories. We don't see those stories. But these are the people in this film. Any one of us could be subject to those conditions. And, you know, our human reaction has to be to come together and work together or else the future is madness. So, that's what this film is about.”
Later, Fox turned his ire on the West more broadly, “And certainly, when we think about the broader global picture, right, it's the countries of the Global South who are not responsible for climate change, right? They're not burning a lot of coal, oil, or gas. They are the victims of centuries of colonialism and empire. And it is the Global North which is doing all the damage to the climate.”
Later, Fox endorses climate reparations, although he doesn't use that word, "And certainly, when we think about the broader global picture, right, it's the countries of the Global South who are not responsible for climate change, right? They're not burning a lot of coal, oil, or… pic.twitter.com/r7AB09AKBD
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) June 23, 2026
That is simply not true. There is no correlation between a countries CO2 emissions and it being in “the Global North” or “Global South.” The Middle East is considered the Global South, and they produce all sorts of oil. Furthermore, developing countries aren’t going to refuse to power their economies just so Fox can feel good about himself. Then there are China and India, two large CO2 emitters that are also considered part of the Global South.
Using a euphemistic term for reparations, Fox added, “So, a big question in this film and what we advocate in the film is for a loss and damage fund, for responsibility coming from the Global North, which certainly would mean to welcome the victims of this crisis, you know, rather than treat them inhumanely. But it was so important to me to find those human moments as a documentarian that are cinema, that are telling that human story.”
It is not credible to claim that the reason why people are in the U.S. illegally is because they are escaping climate change. PBS can’t simply use buzzwords like “fascist,” “colonialism,” and “climate refugees” as a substitute for substance.
Here is a transcript for the June 22 show:
PBS Amanpour and Company
6/22/2026
BIANNA GOLODRYGA: And in filming this piece, you travel around the world. You go to South America, you go to Brazil, you go to Europe and Italy, where your family originally hails from. But you start the piece with a family who was impacted by the Paradise fires in California. They were displaced in 2018. Why open with their story, and what did you learn from them?
JOSH FOX: Well, there's a very, very long arc of this movie across six or seven years. Of course, we had to take a break during COVID. But, you know, a lot of Americans are losing their homes. American cities are being destroyed by climate change faster than they can be rebuilt. There is very little stability in the future when we think about climate change.
So, the American dream is burning at people's feet. And that was one of the first interviews that I did. And I wanted to redefine what it meant to be a climate refugee, to be a climate survivor. A lot of people don't think of those Californian Americans with children who have lost everything as climate refugees. But we have to redefine everyone.
I mean, right now we're talking about some estimates saying one out of every three people will lose their homes due to climate change, which means that either we're going to be on the move ourselves or we're going to be tasked with welcoming those who are.
So, in terms of the fires in California, I mean, the hurricanes in the South, certainly the things that we're seeing in the Northeast in terms of incredible climate impacts, there is no geographical answer to where will I be safe? So, the question became, where is home? What's home going to be on a planet that is ravaged by climate change? With, you know, a third of the planet on the move, what does the future look like? How do we start to redefine what it is to be human?
And certainly, the response of these fascist governments is to wall people out or to incarcerate them, to abuse them, to detain them, to torture them. And that can't be the answer for billions of people. So, when we look to the future, we have to ask, what future do we want, a future of that kind of hatred and violence or a future of generosity and sharing and togetherness and collaboration, which can often be the answer to a crisis, right?
The climate crisis is here. It's here now. This movie is documenting it all across the world, whether it's fires or floods or famine or extreme weather or landslides. These impacts are happening to us now. They're happening in real time, and people are being displaced everywhere across the planet, whether that's Australia or that's Europe or it's the United States.
And we have to start to think about what will we do to counteract this, to stem this tide of hatred that is coming at migrants. I mean, there's an age-old relationship between fascists and the hatred of immigrants.
GOLODRYGA: Yeah.
FOX: And, you know, what I wanted to do with this film is show the stories of people who are normally portrayed as being wrestled to the ground by ICE. We don't hear those stories. We don't see those stories. But these are the people in this film. Any one of us could be subject to those conditions.
And, you know, our human reaction has to be to come together and work together or else the future is madness. So, that's what this film is about.
…
FOX: And certainly, when we think about the broader global picture, right, it's the countries of the Global South who are not responsible for climate change, right? They're not burning a lot of coal, oil, or gas. They are the victims of centuries of colonialism and empire. And it is the Global North which is doing all the damage to the climate.
So, a big question in this film and what we advocate in the film is for a loss and damage fund, for responsibility coming from the Global North, which certainly would mean to welcome the victims of this crisis, you know, rather than treat them inhumanely. But it was so important to me to find those human moments as a documentarian that are cinema, that are telling that human story.
