Netflix’s most popular satire-comedy “The Creator”Don’t look up” Recently, I spoke with a climate scientist to learn how the movie contributes towards the discussion about global warming.
Space.com has exclusive access to the interview. It is a 24-minute audio conversation between Adam McKay, a filmmaker, and Kate Marvel, an associate researcher scientist at Columbia University and NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
McKay starts the conversation by saying that he was in a “real terror” state and couldn’t go to sleep for three nights after reading “The Book of Fear.”The Uninhabitable Planet” (Tim Duggan books, 2019) by U.S. climate journalist David Wallace-Wells. It describes possible after-effects such as severe economic plunges and climate wars.
McKay explained that “I couldn’t get past it, so I went to a kind of fact-finding missions just to talk with people,” McKay stated in the interview. “I spoke with climate reporters and scientists, but I just kept asking questions. Every answer I received was more dire than I expected.”
Related: The greatest sci-fi movies
This all plays into the plotline in “Don’t Look Up”, which uses metaphors of a impending comet to describe the public’s reaction to climate change.
“This [climate change]The biggest storyMcKay described the asteroid that many scientists believe is responsible for the greatest threat to human history, arguably the most serious since the Chicxulub Comet 66 millions years ago.” The end of the dinosaursAfter crashing into the Earth.
Marvel stated in the conversation that she agreed to McKay’s assessment of climate change. “The urgency and threat are absolutely accurate.”
She said that she was a climate modeler and what struck her most in her research was the fact that many of the 1980s predictions of global warming are still valid today. (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s climate dashboard stated March 2021The climate has warmed by 0.32 degrees Fahrenheit (or 0.18 degrees Celsius) per decade since 1981.
Global warmingThis is due to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as a result of human activities like industrial emissions or car exhaust. Even better, we can see the emissions in real time through websites such Bloomberg Magazine’s website “Bloomberg GreenMarvel called it “just horrifying”.
Related: Adam McKay, director of ‘Don’t Look Up’, discusses comets and climate change.
Marvel also described a sense if sympathy when Marvel watched the astronomers in “Don’t Look Up”, who are warning humanity about the impending comet.
“I actually trained to be an astrophysicist. That’s what my Ph.D. in.” Marvel stated, “So I really related with the astronomers.” “It was really painful for me to watch a scientist trying communicate their results and being terrible at it because they don’t have any media training.
Marvel continued, part-joking: “As Scientist.” [also]I felt personally attacked by Kate, who tried to warn the world. I was able to relate to Kate because she didn’t sign-up for this. She wants to study comets. She wants to do science and is suddenly thrust into a world she doesn’t understand. That was something I felt deeply.
Marvel acknowledged that Dibiasky, as in the film, has suffered personal attacks. But she doesn’t engage with people who don’t believe that climate change is occurring.
She stated that the internet is full “crazy people who are saying mean stuff all the time” and pointed out the Yale Program on Climate Change CommunicationThe American public’s opinion on global warming is surveyed periodically by. She stated that only seven percent of Americans believe climate change to be a hoax. That segment “is way too over-represented online.”
Marvel also stated that climate change communication has been poor for many years. She said it was along lines like this: “Look here at this polar bear. This polar bear will die. It’s your fault. Marvel continued, “I think this doesn’t really resonate among people.”
In recent years, she said, the science of attribution has increased – both in part to better measurements, and also in part because global warming is just so clearly visible. She said, “The…” Heatwave in the Pacific NorthwestWe experienced this [past] summer, that would have been basically impossible without climate change.”
However, she stated that the scientific community recognizes how important outreach is with “people telling stories”, with social scientists and environmental justice advocates, among other groups. “We must explain why this matters and help people find solutions.”
What can ordinary people do to help? Marvel encourages more political engagement, in addition to avoiding activities that contribute towards global warming. “Call Congress now. Call your senators. Tell them that you want climate action. Tell them this is important to you. And also,” she added, again somewhat joking, “it’s really cathartic to yell at senators — or their voicemail.”
She said that the world needs to be kept below the poverty line on a larger scale. Paris Agreement1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming. “We need emissions to drop by seven percent every single year.” She stated that global activities cannot be shut down because it is not sustainable and called for “huge systemic change”.
Marvel stated that “a lot of this is already underway.” It isn’t fast enough. We can make it faster, however. If you organize, if you yell, if you demand political action — if you pay attention — this is a problem with a solution.”
Marvel added she loved the comedic tone of the film because she is “extremely pro-laughter” – it lets people unite, she added. She has some more suggestions for Hollywood, including a “climate-change rom-com” as well as “a climate change revenge movie,” where Liam Neeson punches off a bunch fossil fuel executives.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter @Spacedotcom
