When former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger walked on stage in Annenberg Auditorium on Thursday morning, he was met with applause. But this time, Schwarzenegger wasn’t onstage to hit a side chest or lat spread. He was ready to talk about climate change, though he later called the phrase “stupid.”

During his panel, which was a part of the Aspen Institute’s first Planet Media Summit, Schwarzenegger talked about ways to shift climate change communication to make a bigger impact. He said climate change will never be a top-10 issue for voters and suggested using the phrase pollution to evoke emotion.

Schwarzenegger said his 2010 campaign against Proposition 23, which would have suspended a state bill regulating air pollution, was failing while using climate change in its materials. He said when the opposition campaign changed its marketing to show a child getting asthma due to pollution, the polls flipped, which eventually defeated the proposition.

“[Environmentalists] mean really well, and they’re working very hard, but … they talk and it goes right over people’s heads,” Schwarzenegger said. “We’ve got to find ways to communicate better about pollution and the danger of pollution, rather than calling it fancy names: climate change and carbon neutrality and going green and going blue and everyone has a different color.”

Laura Schifter, senior fellow at the Aspen Institute’s This Is Planet Ed initiative, which ran the event, said the initiative’s goal is to educate youth on climate change to be able to make changes in sustainability practices. She said the initiative has listed principles of climate change, which it tries to share through “fun and engaging” content like podcasts, songs and YouTube videos to reach youth audiences. 

Schifter said the summit — which also included content screenings at the Natural History Museum, panels focusing on climate response in a variety of industries and a celebration of Los Angeles following January’s wildfires — served as a way to create “tangible partnerships” with media creators and executives to expand the message’s reach.

“We are seeing people connect across these different sectors, and that’s been a really important thing to see, and I hope we will continue to see and that the conversations won’t end today, but they will continue going forward,” Schifter said.

According to This Is Planet Ed’s 2025 National Snapshot, which was displayed during the event, a majority of teenagers are worried about climate change, but many had “misconceptions,” including 46% of the surveyed teenagers saying human greenhouse gases were not the largest contributor to climate change when it is.

During her remarks, Schifter said around six years ago, while a lecturer of education at Harvard, she had similar misconceptions about climate change. Schifter said her life changed after realizing the looming impacts of climate change and she felt her previous career in education was “meaningless.” Less than two years later, she began her role at the Aspen Institute.

“I looked at my three kids playing in the basement and everything I felt about motherhood and grief converged on me in that moment,” Schifter said. “I knew that this was not a problem for my children’s children’s children. This was a problem that was going to fundamentally shape my kids’ lives and the potential for their future.”

While the summit was being developed before the L.A. wildfires, Schifter said the institute was considering canceling the event until its L.A. partners said it was more important in the wake of a “climate-amplified disaster.”

“They were like, ‘This conversation is more important than ever. We have just been through this traumatic event with the wildfires, and we know that wildfires are made worse by climate change, so we need to have this conversation now,’” Schifter said. “This is a reality of living in a changing climate, so we can’t hide from the topic. We need to figure out how we move forward.”

Schifter said the partnership with USC was “tremendous” because of the venue, the University having multiple experts working in the intersection of education, climate and media, as well as multiple appearances from University leadership, including Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism Dean Willow Bay, who moderated Schwarzenegger’s panel.

In response to a question from Bay, Schwarzenegger said President Donald Trump’s policies should not be an excuse to hold back United States climate change policy. Schwarzenegger said around 70% of climate policy is set at the local and state levels.

“When I was governor, we had the Bush administration. Do you think they were excited about my climate stuff?” Schwarzenegger said. “We never just bowed down and said, ‘Oh, okay, you’re more powerful federal government, so we’re going to stop doing anything environmentally friendly.’”

Schwarzenegger said to improve the climate situation, it is important to be “worldly” and utilize ideas and innovations from around the world, similar to his strategy for developing a bodybuilding physique.

“I didn’t invent the curl. I didn’t, I swear to you, but I copied the curl. I copied the bench press. I copied the squat,” Schwarzenegger said. “That’s what we have to do. We can copy all this stuff, this great stuff, all over the world.”

In another bodybuilding analogy, Schwarzenegger compared the handling of climate change to his origins as a weightlifter. He said growing up, he wanted to be the first Austrian Mr. Universe but was told he couldn’t until one coach told him he had potential and complimented his arms despite Schwarzenegger saying they were “skinny.” The bodybuilding legend went on to win four titles.

“We have a tendency of always telling young people the world they’re inheriting is terrible. It’s doom and gloom. It’s the end of the world,” Schwarzenegger said. “It is so much more important to be positive and to give people hope.”

Sara Eyassu, a junior majoring in environmental studies, said the event was “really cool” because it allowed her to interact with people in the environmental field and said she appreciated Schwarzenegger’s perspective on climate change.

“[The climate] impacts everyone. It’s going to impact everyone. It’s impacting people now. So it’s just a pressing issue that we really need to work together [on],” Eyassu said. “I’m an environmental studies major so [I’m] just very much interested in this work, what people are doing currently, what these conversations are about, because there are varying perspectives.”

When asked how to support young people in decreasing climate change, Schwarzenegger said making individual changes, including purchasing energy-efficient items and utilizing solar power, can add up to large-scale change.

“Each and every one of us has a certain amount of power to get things done, and that together is really the great power — people power,” Schwarzenegger said.