The Crisis Report - 25
Climate change is one of the defining issues of our time. You wouldn't know it from watching the Oscars tonight.
None of the films nominated for top awards talk about it directly.
“Avatar — The Way of Water” comes closest by addressing the subject in a metaphorical way, but that’s about it.
This reflects a larger trend in our society. Trumpublicans complain non-stop about “woke” liberals trying to brainwash everyone by pushing a “Climate Apocalypse” narrative on “the children”. The reality is that they have made the topic so toxic it’s rarely mentioned in our films and movies except in the ghetto of Science Fiction and Fantasy.
BBC will not broadcast Attenborough episode over fear of 'rightwing backlash'
The BBC has decided not to broadcast an episode of Sir David Attenborough's flagship new series on British wildlife…www.theguardian.com
The BBC has decided not to broadcast an episode of Sir David Attenborough’s flagship new series on British wildlife because of fears its themes of the destruction of nature would risk a backlash from Tory politicians and the rightwing press, the Guardian has been told.
Not even documentaries are safe now.
An analysis of thousands of scripted films and TV episodes made between 2016 and 2020 found that only 2.8 percent included any climate-related keyword.
Anna Jane Joyner is the founder of Good Energy, a nonprofit consultancy that works with screenplay writers to help them include climate in their stories. (Good Energy supported the research project that revealed the number above.)
Joyner, understands the power of stories. She credits her upbringing in a conservative evangelical family with instilling that sensibility in her.
In her view, “Religion is a set of stories used to inspire and mobilize people, for better and worse. We need a set of stories around Climate Change to do the same.”
“The reason that humans started telling stories many tens of thousands of years ago was essentially to grapple with the difficulty of being alive. So why are we not talking about what could be the biggest difficulty of all, climate change?”
Joyner is best known for the documentary series that followed her while she tried to convince her father that climate change is a reality. The difficulty?
Her father is a prominent evangelical pastor who has called on Christians to arm themselves for an inevitable war against liberals. A belief that is becoming more prevalent among Evangelicals btw.
She failed to convince her father, and the experience forced her to ask what the climate movement is doing wrong when it comes to storytelling.
In 2019, Joyner created Good Energy.
The problem wasn’t that TV and film writers didn’t care. Joyner found that some would tear up when talking about their climate anxiety. The biggest obstacle to getting Climate Change mentioned more often in scripts isn’t economic, it’s cultural and political.
In the film and TV industries, “Climate Change” is considered a “science fiction” topic.
Outside of science fiction there are almost no movies or shows that explicitly discuss Global Warming and the Climate Change it brings.
The science fiction movies tend to feature apocalyptic storylines like “Interstellar,” “The Day After Tomorrow,” “The Book of Eli,” and “The Road.” These are the movies we recall when we think about Climate Change movies.
There aren’t many examples of “non-apocalypse” films or shows depicting what life in a world with a rapidly changing climate is going to be like.
Joyner found that understanding the science around Climate Change is frequently intimidating to writers. They have to walk an extremely thin line between getting the science right, without sounding “preachy” or ‘judgemental” and alienating audiences.
A difficult task when many Conservatives think “Climate Change” is a hoax.
Many in the industry consider the whole topic as being so toxic that it’s best avoided completely.
After examining the problems, Good Energy wrote a playbook for screenplay writers. The goal is to help them accurately reflect the way climate would affect characters if their stories were taking place in the real world. Good Energy also consults on TV, film and podcast projects.
Joyner would like to see more narratives that help us envision a future that isn’t apocalyptic. Stories that deal with the uncertainty of the future. Stories that portray courage by showing how communities working together, not heroic individuals, can change things.
We adore stories about heroes and their “heroes journey” but Climate Change isn’t something “heroic individuals” can fight. We need to find a way to tell compelling stories of “people working together to change things”.
“Because you know, that is truly how we move things forward in the real world.”
Joyner would also like to see more stories that deal with the mental health toll of climate change. They help viewers who are feeling isolated and overwhelmed understand that they are not alone.
She saw it happen live on Twitter when a 2019 episode of the TV series “Big Little Lies” included a girl called Amabella who had a panic attack when she learned about climate change in school.
“So many people who were not climate people” saw themselves in Amabella. That’s a start. Now multiply that by 1,000.
Joyner’s work is only starting.
Good Energy hopes to track mentions of climate change in films and TV shows every two years to gauge how things are evolving. “Climate Change is here and we have to start talking about it, 2.8% is not good enough”.
Joyner’s recommendations for a climate watch party:
“First Reformed,” a 2017 movie about a pastor, played by Ethan Hawke, who encounters a radical environmentalist and his pregnant wife.
“Woman at War,” a 2019 Icelandic film about a 50-year-old activist fighting a local aluminum company while she is in line to adopt a child.
“Beasts of the Southern Wild,” a dreamy 2012 story about a little girl whose father is dying while her community floods.
Shows dealing with Climate Change.
There aren’t many.
Years and Years (2019) — BBC Six Episode Miniseries.
A dystopian science fiction drama/television miniseries written by Russell T Davies.
Taking place between 2019 and 2034, the six-part series follows the lives of the Lyons family, who witness increasingly tumultuous global affairs and the rise to power of Vivienne Rook, an outspoken British celebrity businesswoman turned populist politician whose controversial opinions divide the nation.
I really liked it. Although I thought it was too self consciously trying to be a second “Threads”. Climate Change is a background theme in the series which is mainly about a Fascist Strongwoman seizing power in England during a global crisis.
In the first episode, Donald Trump wins a second term as president, and China constructs an artificial island and a military base named Hong Sha Dao in disputed waters. Trump fires a nuclear missile at Hong Sha Dao.
By episode four, countries have become unstable: Greece leaves the EU, Italy’s government resigns, Hungary declares bankruptcy, and the United States leaves the United Nations in response to extreme isolationist nationalism. Spain’s government is overthrown by a far-left revolution.
By 2028, the Tories promise freedom for everyone but start arresting their political opponents. Catastrophic flooding and two dirty bombs result in huge numbers of displaced residents in the UK, prompting a new law that requires people with extra space in their homes to take in the victims (Threads).
Relocation authorities are formed to “do something about the homeless”. It quickly becomes suspicious that the poor are becoming “erstwhile”, a new social euphemism for being “disappeared” and sent to death camps.
Improbably, GOOD triumphs over EVIL and the Fascist Tories are overthrown when the death camps are exposed. The ridiculousness of the ending really killed the series for me.
Cautionary Climate Tales That Give People Pause When They Press Play
The India-born director Joshua Ashish Dawson builds digital worlds that ruminate on the future shock of environmental…www.nytimes.com
This guys “shorts” are fantastic. Hopefully he gets funding to do bigger stuff.
“Extrapolations” (2023)
by Apple TV+ is scheduled to start March 17th.
Apple has just released the first trailer for the show and I am intrigued.
The show is loaded with Hollywood A-listers, with appearances from Meryl Streep, Kit Harington, Edward Norton, Forest Whitaker, Tobey Maguire, Gemma Chan, Sienna Miller, and David Schwimmer, to name but a few.
Extrapolations has eight episodes that cover a 33-year timespan. Exploring a future Earth impacted by devastating climate change and how the necessary adaptations required to survive the environmental crisis influence love, faith, work, and family.
Besides the star-studded cast, Apple’s budget includes some stunning visual effects, judging by the considerable amount of “disaster porn” in the trailer. Our first look at the show includes futuristic tech, raging forest fires, submerged cities, and sun-scorched barren landscapes in humanity’s seemingly inevitable run-up to the end of the world.
The first three episodes of the pre (and presumably post?) apocalyptic series will debut on Apple TV Plus on Friday, March 17th, with the remaining five episodes airing weekly thereafter.
Sadly, this is typical of the comments on the trailer.
This trailer looks more like it’s trying to shove the idea of global warming down my throat (eyes). Can we have something that’s not trying to push its ideas/message into people?
Climate Change Movies of Note
They are all sci-fi.
AI. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Steven Spielberg and screen story by Ian Watson were based on the 1969 short story “Supertoys Last All Summer Long” by Brian Aldiss.
Synopsis: In the 22nd century, rising sea levels from global warming have wiped out coastal cities. Plagues and famines have reduced the world’s population. Mecha humanoid robots, seemingly capable of complex thought but lacking in emotions, have been created.
Set in this futuristic post-climate change society. The film stars Haley Joel Osment as “David”, a childlike android uniquely programmed with the ability to love.
The movie is about David and his hero’s journey. It’s incredibly poignant in places. Environmental toxins and “forever chemicals” have made the environment so toxic, that human fertility has declined below replacement level. As a species we are dying out, and we can see it happening to us.
There is a distinct “Childhood’s End” vibe to the movie.
Climate Change is a background part of the story. This is a post climate change world where the ruins of New York skyscrapers stand above a flooded city.
Don’t Look Up (2021)
Written by: Adam McKay and David Sirota
Synopsis: In a clear metaphor for climate inaction, a comet is heading to Earth and no one is doing anything about it.
It is surreal to live in a world where climate catastrophe is happening all around us. Where we have a scientific consensus. Yet, one where our elected officials are not acting.
We live in that world.
In the movie world they use an asteroid as a metaphor for Climate Change. Because everyone’s seen Bruce Willis in Armageddon, we all know “asteroids are bad”. Trumpublican America cannot complain that an asteroid movie is “woke”.
The madness of our moment is driven home by Meryl Streep’s portrayal of a self-centered POTUS (Trump) who cares more about her polling than saving her constituents’ lives. She makes the egregious, but all too believable, decision to put business interests (representing the fossil fuel industry) in charge of humanities response to the crisis.
When they predictably fail and their hubris is revealed. The 1% escape the death of the earth in their private ark
In a sense, “the public” also functions as a character. No finger is pointed directly at them. It’s pointed at those in power instead. But “we the people” are nonetheless complicit, as shown by the portrayal of those who are “for the jobs the comet will provide.”
The mindless, vapid, uninformed mob of voters who are all to willing to “Not Look Up”.
The film’s website takes viewers on a journey toward climate action, and cast videos make the climate connection clear. And here’s Adam McKay talking about tackling climate through comedy.
Snowpiercer (2013)
Written by: Bong Joon-ho, Kelly Masterson
Synopsis: On a luxury train zooming endlessly through a frozen, uninhabitable world, those forced to suffer and live in poverty in the back of the train attempt a rebellion.
Climate connection: The premise of Snowpiercer is rooted in climate catastrophe, magnified by human intervention. In a geoengineering attempt to solve the climate crisis, scientists released a new cooling chemical called CW7 into the atmosphere — but the effort backfired and the chemical froze the entire Earth.
The only way to survive is to never leave the giant, self-sustaining train that has been circling the planet for 18 years. The train itself is a metaphor for the continuing inequity of the climate crisis, and how easily powerful people can take advantage of global chaos.
The poorest passengers are relegated to the back of the train, eating processed protein bricks made out of insects and being punished by guards. While at the front of the train, upper-class passengers live in luxury.
Harassment by the trains police force causes the back of the train to stages a revolt. Emulating on a much smaller scale what could happen if we aren’t able to shift our actions to stabilize the climate and redress the injustices of the crisis.
Bonus moment in the film: the two characters that everyone writes off as drug addicts learned from an Inuit woman how to survive in the weather of the outside world (lesson: listen to Indigenous people about the climate crisis).
The Colony (2013)
Directed by Jeff Renfroe, starring Laurence Fishburne, Kevin Zegers, and Bill Paxton.
Synopsis: By 2045, humans have built climate modification towers to try and geoengineer the warming climate due to climate change. The system causes rapid cooling and a Climate Catastrophe that plunges the Earth into a snap Ice Age.
The survivors live in underground bunkers known as “Colonies” to escape the extreme cold. Their challenges are controlling disease, producing sufficient food, and fighting cannibals.
Climate connection: The Colony is another cautionary tale about the dangers of geoengineering. It involves cannibals who are attacking and overrunning Colonies and a subplot about a possible group of survivors who have fixed one of the climate modification towers to thaw out a habitable area.
CONCLUSION.
I know this sounds like a trivial thing to discuss when talking about Climate Change. But we desperately need more discussion of Climate Change in TV shows and movies.
If you are an “average” person you absorb about 80% of what you know about the world in High School. That’s where most people learn everything they will ever know about “most everything”.
Which is why the RIGHT is so obsessive about controlling the narrative for kids.
Because, BEING INFORMED, even in an age of free information, COMES AT THE COST OF DISCRETIONARY TIME.
Most people don’t allocate much time to it.
For example, what they learn about Rome once they leave HS is going to be what they absorb through TV, movies, and games. The same is true about Global Warming and Climate Change.
For most people High School is the last time in their life they will be “forced” to look at evidence which threatens the world view their parents “gifted” them with. After that they will increasingly only “see” evidence which confirms their preferred reality.
If we cannot teach kids about Climate Change in High School we need movies and shows that will get the message into the public consciousness. We need these shows NOW.
Because our planet is warming up FAST.
This is my analysis.
This is what I see.
This is my “Crisis Report”.
-rc 031223
Interesting piece, but I think most people and communities would be more willing to do the hard work needed towards mitigating the climate catastrophe (let's face it, prevention time has passed a few decades ago) if they saw those at the "top of the food chain" (billionaires, millionaires, famous actors, politicians, etc) actually working towards it, not by merely investing in tech companies with their "solutions" or writing and acting in movies and documentaries about it, but by stop using their private jets, reducing their consumption of expensive and unsustainable foods, start living in smaller houses instead of their mansions, fighting and protesting along side us against fossil fuels and other unsustainable practices.
The dream of the ordinary working class individuals across the world (due in large part to decades of american influence) isn't of making sacrifices in order to fight towards a better future for all, it is of being able to consume similarly to those at the top. So as long as the regular individual don't see the "big ones" making ever larger sacrifices towards the common good, they won't feel compeled to do it either. This was noticeable during the pandemic where politians and actors made parties, flew around and "suffered" having to stay inside their large properties while the rest of us had to actually follow what the government and health officials said.
Lead by example.