by Judith Curry
Some reflections on the movie Don’t Look Up.
If you haven’t seen the movie, it is worth watching (available on Netflix).
The movie is a satirical black comedy, with a large number of A-list actors. It’s about scientists giving 6 months warning of a comet striking Earth and mass extinction. The story is about how politicians, the media, scientists, the public and space entrepreneurs react to this. The Director, screen writers and lead actor (Leonardo DiCaprio) all say that it is a satirical film about climate change.
If you ignore for the moment that this movie is supposed to be about climate change, you can enjoy it for what it is. The style is reminiscent of Dr Strangelove (but not nearly as good). The A-list actors give entertaining performances, but I wouldn’t expect any of them to be nominated for awards (the most likely award will be for the theme song, sung by Ariana Grande). The movie is fast paced, plays into amusing stereotypes, and is good fun.
However, if you are looking for some grand allegory for climate change, its communication, our failure to act, and a subsequent existential crisis, you will be sorely disappointed and may not even think that the film is funny. The movie is about an existential risk on a time-scale of a few months, that you can actually see happening. In spite of the rhetoric and declarations that every severe weather is caused by climate change, at the end of the day very few lives are being lost by extreme weather (let alone by manmade climate change).
There has been substantial discussion on twitter of the movie, with climate scientists saying that finally they feel heard, and feel vindicated by this attention that is provided to their plight of effectively trying to communicate the risk of climate change and effect their desired policies to prevent climate change. They seem to think that the moral of the movie is Believe Experts.
There is no scientific debate over whether the comet will actually strike Earth, when it will strike, or the catastrophic consequences. However, throughout the movie, every scientific institution ends up lying about the risk – the head of NASA, big tech CEO, government officials, and eventually the protagonist professor (Leonardo DiCaprio). The only scientist who maintains their integrity is the female graduate student (Jennifer Lawrence), who ends up bagging groceries. Trusting the experts doesn’t end up being such a good idea, when the end result is extinction.
The issue is what should be done about the comet strike. Here is where we find some meaningful analogies with climate change. The more pragmatic choice is to use rockets to deflect the path of the comet away from collision with the earth; there is some confidence this can work based on experience with asteroids. By analogy, the pragmatic climate change solution is to adapt, hang on to your nuclear power and develop better technologies. The competing solution for the comet gets wrapped in the economic opportunity associated with rare metals in the comet, job creation and presidential politics. The analogous climate solution wraps in all sorts of additional objectives such as environmental justice, job creation, anti-nuclear sentiments, anti-capitalist governance, punishing fossil fuel companies. The problem is that the complexity of the competing solutions fails to address the original problem and causes new (and even worse) problems.
The movie isn’t about a simple battle between those who want to take action to address the problem and those who don’t. There’s a genuine lack of consensus scientists, government, etc. as to what should actually be done about the problem. This is invariably the case when the the problem is multifaceted and the solutions are technically challenging.
The fundamental policy challenge of climate change is that it involves making changes now for the sake of preventing harms that occur largely in the future to people living in other countries. This challenge can be addressed by producing technological breakthroughs that make these tradeoffs less painful and progress easier.
It’s far more interesting to interpret this movie as part of the cinema of existential risk, rather than climate change. Comets are a great topic for this, especially since they are much more difficult to deflect than asteroids. Deflecting comets would be a great endeavor for the billionaire space cowboys (Bezos, Musk, Branson) to take on.
And what about supervolcanoes? Does anyone have a plan for this? These genuine existential risks fall outside of ordinary political conflicts. Instead, we focus on the faux existential risk of climate change, with solutions that focus on first-world perceptions of environmental justice and punishing fossil fuel companies.
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I agree with the above article by Judith Curry and add my own comment that I circulated elsewhere in the morning of 27 December 2021.
Richard
Dear John,
I, too, have watched Don’t Look Up.
diCaprio, Street & et al, support the AGW-scare so I wondered why they would want to participate in a movie that satirises political scares. Having seen the movie, I now know why.
The movie’s plot can be spun either way. It can be seen as
(a) a take-down of politicians who fail to act on a scientific warning of a threat
or, alternatively,
(b) a rebuke to all who fail to accept the message of THE scientists promoted by politicians.
The movie, Don’t Look Up, has this duality of possible purposes because good satire can be enjoyed at several levels but, Don’t Look Up, is low-brow satire which has all the subtlety of a pie in the face. It portrays politicians as being self-seeking fools with advisors whose only considerations are political advantage. This portrayal could be thought to be an approximation of the present (and probably very temporary) UK government but the film is set in the USA.
The movie’s heroes are scientists who try to draw attention to a real problem, but few people believe them, and the US President does not care whether they are right or wrong. Politicians and commercial interests unite to make use of the scare, and the female scientist who tries to provide a message of truth is vilified (Willie Soon is not female but has Asian ethnicity and I suspect he may feel some affinity with the fictional female scientist). Her mentor is male and ‘sells out’ to the politicians until the situation reaches a state of inevitable catastrophe because the government persuades the public to avoid investigating the reality of the scare for themselves; i.e. “Don’t Look Up”.
This movie is not a classic and IMHO is best ignored to avoid it obtaining the Streisand Effect.
Richard,
PS For those who don’t know of the Streisand Effect; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
It was reassuring seeing Leo doing his part to accelerate co2 emissions partying hearty with the super yacht crowd in st barts for new year . Guess theres nothing to worry about .
“However, throughout the movie, every scientific institution ends up lying about the risk – the head of NASA, big tech CEO, government officials, and eventually the protagonist professor (Leonardo DiCaprio).”
That summary is a good analogy to “climate change“™.
Since 1990, every single major scientific institution has ended up lying about the risk of CO2 emissions – the head of NASA, big tech CEO, government officials, and even all the major universities. In large part to keep the grant money flowing.
There are standout scientists with integrity, most notably Richard Lindzen, Willy Soon, and David Legates. Even Freeman Dyson. But they’re ignored by all the powers that be.
Here’s Judy Curry’s big failing: “The fundamental policy challenge of climate change is that it involves making changes now for the sake of preventing harms that occur largely in the future to people living in other countries.”
Judy believes climate models, and believes she knows something about the impact of CO2 emissions on the climate.
She shouldn’t, and she doesn’t.
Judy talked about the uncertainty monster but when it actually showed up in the flesh, she ignored it. And seems blind to it.
”Judy believes climate models, and believes she knows something about the impact of CO2 emissions on the climate”
Yep. She is too close to the issue. Firstly, there is no proof that anything other than medium term weather has changed slightly. (if that) Certainly not the climate – first we would need to agree on a definition of that, and the current definition is some kind of joke. Secondly there is no proof or even evidence that the mild change in weather is 1, unprecedented, 2, set to continue and 3, even the slightest threat.
She maintains that we can measure the impact of human co2 through observation. Utter nonsense.
You never see the benefits either. I always look at like Kansas will have temps like Oklahoma, Nebraska like Kansas, South Dakota like Nebraska, etc. We will have corn, wheat, and soybeans being stored on the ground all over the place.More food than you can shake a stick at. How is that bad?
England will be raising crops like France does now. How is that bad?
You’re right, Jim. I recall someone pointing out that “climate change” means that people would come to experience the climate present now 100 miles to the south. Nothing scary in that.
How long until griff pops up again to assure us that only paranoid people believe there is any connection between global warming and international socialism?
MarkW,
Perhaps you could tell what you mean by “international socialism”.
The obscure hypothesis of AGW existed for a century before it was elevated to become an international scare by Margaret Thatcher who was a Tory and not a “socialist” of any kind (“international” or otherwise).
The AGW-scare grew because it was promoted by people of all political ideologies until the Chinese communists prevented a successor Treaty to the Kyoto Protocol at the Copenhagen CoP in December 2009.
At present the AGW-scare is championed by Tory UK PM Boris Johnson who appointed his Tory chum as Chairman of the recent Glasgow CoP who gave a tearful public apology for failure to resurrect the AGW-scare which is suffering a slow demise.
So, please say what you mean by International socialism” and what is its “connection” with “global warming”? And is the “connection” part of the imaginary “Jewish problem” which the far right has been claiming for more than a century?
Richard
Couldn’t get past the first 15 minutes. The satire is so juvenile that a first year creative writing class could have done better. Clumsy is a term that fits.
“The fundamental policy challenge of climate change is that it involves making changes now for the sake of preventing harms that occur largely in the future to people living in other countries.”
Can someone help me out? What is the harm that supposed to occur in the future? The IPCC says a 2-foot rise in sea levels by 2200. That will cause some problems with coastal cities and coastal areas. But it’s hardly a catastrophe. It’s less than one quarter inch per year. Private enterprise is more than capable of dealing with it.
But it’s worse. The trend for the past 40 years has been for a 1-foot rise by 2200. Over the last 100 years, sea levels rose 8 inches. So, the current trend is for a sea level rise 4 inches higher than the last century? Where’s the catastrophe of climate change? Where are any problems for climate change? Hurricanes haven’t increased. Droughts haven’t increased.
What’s the harm we’re trying to prevent in mitigating climate change.
The real issue is unfortunately summarily ignored.
That is the damage that will be done in any effort to mitigate their imaginary problem, which will be orders of magnitude worse than their Bullshit Boogeyman if it was real.
I really enjoyed the show. Jonah Hill had by far the best performance. The corporate guy who wanted to mine the asteroid was great too. I didn’t even mind Decaprio, although his monologues shouting into the camera were the worst scenes of the show.
The cognitive dissonance of the producers was super fascinating. The two scientists are portrayed as the little guys fighting against the machine, yet in reality the climate change industrial complex is the machine. It’s the alarmists and zealots who are diverting attention away from real climate solutions like nuclear power and adaptation.
This.
Only…
There is no spoon.
The movie is the purest example of gaslighting I’ve ever suffered to watch! It is propaganda of the sickest sort; that which glorifies the psychopathy of those that created it. And Judith has swallowed it all – hook line and sinker – along with that very, very stupid parroting of the doublespeak word “existential” which unthinking fools imagine makes them sound intelligent! For god’s sake, just say what you mean, stop using the planted words of ideologues! Use constructions like “a threat to our existence” or “real risk” or “imaginary risk” (If that is what you mean to say), instead of the esoteric jargon gobbledegook fuzz-words proffered by totalitarians.
The movie is a hot mess.
I can make a specific prediction about the phrase “Don’t look up!”
In the movie, it is used by those denying the existence of the comet as it hurts towards the Earth. Much is made of how foolish these people are, how cultish in their refusal to see what is in front of their face, obviously intending to lampoon the “climate deniers” and supporting he impending thermaggedon hypothesis.
I suggest this phrase be adopted immediately by the catastrophe sceptics and talk about the sun. The IPCC and especially a small clique of corrupt climate scientists, lead a cult that chants “Don’t look up” because one might spot the sun. The sun is ignored, even by AR6, to the disgrace of the authors and editors.
“It’s us! Don’t look up! It’s not something visible in the sky! There is nothing in the sky that affects the climate! The sun is constant! Don’t believe those fools who looked up!”
Willie Soon will have a field day lampooning the uneducated Hollywood A-list clowns participating in that freak show. It was political, it was obvious and it was scientifically illiterate as a parody. One finger pointing away, four pointing back.
Wow.
The prime “earth gets hammered” sci fi is still the book: Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. While there probably some nitpicking errors in the science, the drama and factual reality is outstanding. There must be 20 or more characters that are fully developed and many lesser ones that play key roles. The whole story is based on scientifically sound premises. Love and other emotions play a big role also.
Read it if you can get it. Published in 1977. Never made into a movie. The craft apparently wasn’t up to it at the time.
Hopefully never WILL, especially with what Hollywood would do to it. I have found that reading it for the first time gets people thinking about things differently. Therefore I keep several copies around to hand out.