It’s a startling image, and a potent reminder: our baseline for environmental degradation shifts quietly, generation by generation. Today, she’s a documentary producer with Cornwall Climate Care, but it’s this early, tactile confrontation with pollution that laid the groundwork for her uncompromising approach to environmental truth-telling.

From Tabloid Stings to Truth-Telling

Claire’s path wasn’t linear. A former international journalist, she cut her teeth in the ethically murky waters of 1990s tabloid journalism — wiretaps, stakeouts, and all. One assignment required her, aged 25, to go undercover with a hidden mic to entrap a man allegedly dealing drugs. He wasn’t. “He was a lovely man,” she says.

“That was a huge wake-up call. I didn’t want to be part of that world.”

What followed was a redirection, not just away from journalism’s darker corners, but toward a more constructive, values-led mode of storytelling. Reporting stints in the Philippines and Venezuela exposed her to the vast chasm between natural abundance and human deprivation — insights that now inform her climate work.

Microplastics, Macro Awakening

Returning to Cornwall years later, it wasn’t oil but plastic that struck Claire.

“The whole beach looked like it was covered in confetti — except it was microplastics,” she recalls.

The scene catalysed her founding of Rame Peninsula Beach Care, a local clean-up group that grew into a movement. “You can’t clean a beach on your own,” she says — a phrase that could double as a metaphor for climate action.

But it was a scientist’s despair at a marine plastics conference that triggered her shift to climate filmmaking:

“He said, ‘Plastic is terrible, but the real issue is climate change — and we’re not talking about it.’”

That comment became the seed for Cornwall Climate Care, which now produces powerful documentaries on how climate change affects local communities.

No Voiceovers, No Preaching — Just Real People

Claire’s films are pointedly non-preachy. They’re fronted by “real people” — a farmer, a fisherman, her own hairdresser — to break down social and political polarisation.

“We interviewed a climate sceptic for our latest film. He was lovely. We agreed on far more than we didn’t,” she says.

That intentional dismantling of echo chambers is part of her ethos. In a media landscape often soaked in outrage and binary conflict, Claire’s approach is quietly radical: listening.

The Power and Peril of Film

The tension between storytelling and impact looms large.

“Film is powerful, but it can also greenwash,” Claire warns.

Referencing a recent Mintel article and Hollywood’s reluctance to mention climate change even in disaster films, she calls it “a cowardly, commercially driven neglect of artistic duty.”

But she’s not naïve about the industry’s carbon footprint either. Disney’s “Snow White”, she notes, had higher emissions than the latest “Fast and Furious”.

Her team uses electric vehicles and rechargeable kit — modest measures, perhaps, but ones that reflect her core belief: if you’re going to critique the system, you’d better examine your own house first.

The Real Risk: Not Being Fair

When asked what she’d change with a magic wand, Claire doesn’t hesitate: “Fairness.” She believes climate action fails not due to facts, but because people sense — often rightly — that the burden will fall on those least able to carry it. “People at the bottom are told to give up things, while the wealthy fly private,” she says.

“We need to tax the rich, and tax the corporations dodging responsibility.”

It’s not just a moral point. It’s a strategic one. “You can’t build a movement on resentment,” Claire suggests.

“But you can build one on fairness.”

A Vision Worth Watching

For Claire, the antidote to fear-based messaging is not false optimism — it’s agency. Her screenings aren’t just passive viewings; they’re catalysts for discussion, community action, and change. “Don’t just tell people it’s all terrible,” she insists.

“Give them something they can do.”

Whether or not climate cinema can “save the world” may be an open question. But in the hands of people like Claire, it can certainly make us want to.