The highlight of the movie season for climate science has clearly been the release on Dec 24th 2021 of “Don’t Look Up”. While nominally about a different kind of disaster – the discovery of a comet heading to Earth on a collision course – the skewering of our current science-policy dysfunction transcends the specifics and makes a powerful metaphor for climate change, and even the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
There have been a number of good reviews and discussions (and some bad ones) about the movie, from the discussion of the excellent science advising from Amy Mainzer (Discover Magazine, the New Yorker, and a longer interview with Andy Revkin), to meta-discussions about the kind of criticism the movie has received, to articles on how effective it is as science communication (from Aaron Huertas).
The film producers are making the climate change connections explicit, directing viewers to a climate platform to promote activism on the issue (though it’s mostly focused on individual actions as opposed to tackling more systematic problems). Unsurprisingly, climate scientists have weighed in, including Peter Kalmus in the Guardian, Mike Mann in the Boston Globe, and on twitter (#DontLookUp):
I recommend diving in and seeing what folks (both climate professionals and civilians) are saying.
Some personal thoughts
Like Ayana, Mike, and Peter, I saw a number of elements that resonated clearly with my experience in climate #scicomm. The ‘deer in the headlights on live TV’ feeling you get when the interviewer starts to go in a totally bizarre direction is very familiar. I recall a situation like that with Lou Dobbs (when he was less insane, but still a massive egotist). The scene where Dr. Mindy indulges in some righteous twittering when arguing with idiots is very real. The lack of control that Dibiasky feels once their image/words get meme-ified also.
One thing that I thought was funny, but not real, was the implication that all climate science communicators are at all times just a moment away from screaming that “we’re all doomed!” and it’s only the niceties of polite society that prevent us from telling everyone what we ‘really’ think. Conceivably this could be true for some people, but I’d wager it isn’t true for most. The reason why is that the act of communication itself is an act of advocacy – people do it in order to create a change somewhere, and the “we’re all doomed” message accomplishes nothing. With all due respect to Jennifer Lawrence’s character, the message she wanted to convey was that the situation was imminent and serious but people could act to mitigate it (a deflection mission, perhaps the construction of underground shelters, and stockpiles, etc.). Because if there really was nothing to be done, why bother to communicate about it at all?
Is there really a difference between tornado politics and other science-policy issues?
In the BeforeTimes™️, the conventional wisdom was that science-based advice could be placed on a spectrum between two (somewhat idealized) end points: The first extreme is where the universality of the values at stake/immediacy of the problem mean that there was no dispute about what to do, and the only issue was making sure that people knew about it (e.g. what to do with a tornado bearing down). The second is a situation where the dispute is over basic values for which science discoveries don’t have much bearing (a classic example being abortion – at least in the US). In the first example, the science (of tornado warnings for instance) serves to guide action, while in the second, the science is often politicized and used as justification of previously held positions. In this second situation, the misuse of science, the rise of disinformation, conspiracy theories, and personal (and sometimes physical) attacks on scientists can all occur.
The ongoing pandemic, this movie and even the actions of some companies during the recent tornado outbreak in Kentucky, have all served to demonstrate that there are no circumstances where there are no values at play. Every decision we make (as individuals, employers, politicians, planners etc.) is informed by those values in the light of information from science (and other related sources). Given that values are far more embedded than devotion to rationality or logic, there is therefore always the potential for dispute. And when disputes occur, people can behave badly, especially when stakes might be high or even existential.
Just this week there were two articles, one from a public health professional (Dr. Devi Sridhar) and one from a health journalist (Helen Branswell), expressing surprise that this happens. The writers’ implicit defaults were that their science-policy issue was a pure ‘tornado politics’ case where the cause of action should be driven by the science, and the fact that it wasn’t has come as a shock.
But just because there are values embedded in all decisions, it does not mean every issue gets politicized. Differences in location, culture, governmental competence, basic levels of trust, depth of social ties etc. can make a huge difference in how fertile the cultural soil is for the kind of disinformation typical of the our most fraught science-policy disputes. But perhaps the most important factor is leadership. Opinion-formers (as opposed to opinion writers who don’t have as much of an influence) can powerfully signal to their bases what should be paid attention to or devalued. In jurisdictions where leaders choose to take science inputs seriously, much better outcomes have been seen over the length of this pandemic compared to those where science was treated as ‘politics by other means’.
“Don’t Look Up” gives as yet another clear example of leadership failing to rise to the occasion, despite the best (and worst) efforts of the scientists providing the needed information. It really doesn’t have to be that way but it’s rarely (if ever) the scientists’ fault.
So the question is: What was a scientist doing getting involved in politics and writing about nuclear war in the popular presses in the first place?
Sagan, like many at the time, believed nuclear war was the single greatest threat facing humanity. Others—including policymakers in the Reagan administration—believed a nuclear war was winnable, or at least survivable. Making the danger of nuclear winter real to them, Sagan believed, would take more than science. He would have to draw on both his public fame, media savvy and scientific authority to bring the what he saw as the true risk before the eyes of the public.
That meant a rearranging of personal priorities. According to his biographer, Keay Davidson, at a meeting in the early 1980s to plan the Galileo space probe, Sagan told his colleagues: “I have to tell you I’m not likely to do much of anything on Galileo for the next year or so, because I am concentrating most of my energies on saving the world from nuclear holocaust.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-carl-sagan-warned-world-about-nuclear-winter-180967198/
Adam McKay and Dr Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
We can’t just sit back and watch what’s happening to the planet.
We are not an audience. Like it or not, we are in this story
Clearly we need to reassess how we’re communicating this massive story.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/13/director-dont-look-up-climate-crisis-ending
Yet, you were shitty to me for talking about doing exactly that.
How serious are you? Posturing or do you have real intent?
Serious question, not a provocation. Your multiple shitty responses to me came out of the blue, so not clear on your intent or motivation.
I do not remember making shitty responses to you in particular. It’s a shitty subject matter and a shitty place to be, tbh.
I see many things online and share some of them here. Like Twits on Twitter say: Retweeting does not equal Endorsement. Initially I was curious about the responses, interest level or lack thereof. I’m not selling anything or pushing anything in particular besides a little pr for xr. Except perhaps the importance of the truth. But everyone says that, don’t they?
The data already indicates reading and sharing anything here on the topic of climate science or mitigation options is a complete waste of time and energy for everyone not only myself. Of absolutely no importance or practical use to anyone. It does not even add up to a small community of like minded individuals with shared interests. Despite the few notable exceptions now and then the rule is childish back biting bullshit by blathering idiots and useless attempts by a few reasonable people to defend themselves and shed a little light surrounded by grossly incompetent illogical moderation that is systematically taken advantage of by a number of mentally unstable internet trolls.
I really wish I could say something nice and uplifting. I cannot.
PS for a science site there is a majority of incredibly dumb disingenuous ignorant bigoted people here commenting.
What are your plans when the Republicans win the coming congressional elections in a hyper-landslide?
@Vendicar Decarian, quote:
” What are your plans when the Republicans win the coming congressional elections in a hyper-landslide?”
You think “saving the planet” depends on what party rules the US? Lol, com on.
” The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently… They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
– George Orwell, 1984
There is a saying:
” Macht macht nichts.”
” Power And The Illusion Of Control”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090303171451.htm
I’d strive for freedom, I’d strive for letting go, I’d strive for a cup of coffee and a cigarette, but I’d never ever strive for funny power nor funny money, lol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNSdOKnjUnk
For heaven’s sake, PLEASE change the page design to use a serif font for body copy. My eyesight’s declining, which doesn’t help, but even with 20/20 I could grasp the typography 101 piece I read 40 years ago that emphasised that point. There’s a reason print newspapers use serif for body copy: it’s not because they want to lose readers.
PRETTY PLEASE!! :)
To put this production behind him, DiCaprio should script himself as the Captain in a Raise The Titanic sequel in which he rams and sinks the iceberg.
Or play an experienced credible ethical moral sane climate scientist who is also a committed environmentalist with empathy and wisdom with such good leadership and communication skills he becomes so incredibly popular the global news media and the public actually listen to him and then they start voting for decent sane people to be politicians to form better governments all over the world ?
Nah, it’ll never catch on.
@XRRC
I like your style, I replied to you every now and then, but I live right beside Gavin’s bin, lol, so roughly 50% of my replies/comments go right into the trash can ;) Btw, have you noticed?:
Climate heating almost completely disappeared from the media in favour of Covid, lol, soon they will find a vaccine against climate heating resp the 6th global mass extinction… maybe.
Maybe this comment of mine will survive at least, cheers ;)
Lol, I’d love to see that sequel, cheers!
https://de.web.img2.acsta.net/r_654_368/newsv7/17/06/16/15/29/225084.jpg
There’s a lot to learn from “Don’t look up” ( up, up above where TPTB reside) about the system and how it will ultimately end. I’d like to suggest another movie:
“The trial of the Chicago 7”,
There’s even more to learn about the inner mechanics within the system- a system that will ultimately fall with climate heating and the 6th global mass extinction.
Btw, Marc Rylance ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Rylance), who played the tech CEO Peter Isherwell in “Don’t look up”, played also in “The trial of the Chicago 7”, where he played William Kunstler ( defense counsel, co-founder of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), board member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and active member of the National Lawyers Guild). And Rylance played Kunstler just perfectly, man what a fine actor. Just watch that movie showing what a farce the system was back then ( and surely still is).
Here’s Sacha Baron Cohen ( who played Abbie Hoffman in “The trial of the Chicago 7”), breaking down the movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQI6OKQQvy0
Here’s the official teaser:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsFCZ_B2o5w
The Fridays For Future movement is kids stuff compared to the civil rights movement back then, yet the civil rights movement achieved almost nothing back then. What will the Fridays For Future movement achieve? Less than nothing, they have been completely pushed aside by the covid policy, lol, what a coincidence. Just move on or “bin” as you please, nothing to see here anyway.
N: the civil rights movement achieved almost nothing
BPL: Except the end of segregation and the ability of black people to vote. You can’t possibly be black, can you? Otherwise you’d know better.
quoting BPL: Except the end of segregation and the ability of black people to vote. You can’t possibly be black, can you? Otherwise you’d know better.
Barton Paul Levenson can’t possibly be black otherwise he’d know better, wouldn’t he?
Spreading his white christian political class disinformation is a forte. But owning a BLM badge and voting for Hillary isn’t proof of not being a right wing conservative bigot, or an ignorant fascist who would be cheered on at brietbart.com and a trump rally.
Jan 20, 2022 David Sirota (of Don’t Look Up fame) and Martin Luther King Jnr totally disagrees with people like Barton Paul Levenson
Voting rights without economic rights is not democracy, it’s theater – and most Americans (except Barton Paul Levenson) – know it!
Dr. King’s life illustrated this dynamic When he moved into the battle against the Vietnam War and for economic justice, he was vilified by the same political and media class that lauded him for his fight against Jim Crow and for voting rights.
The contrasting responses underscored an axiom of American politics: The establishment will happily concede anything that does not endanger its supremacy and wealth — but will try to destroy anyone who threatens its power.
in Senate testimony in 1966 Dr King said: “It was easier to gain the right to vote, because it didn’t cost the Nation anything, and the fact is that we are dealing with issues now that will call for something of a restructuring of the architecture of American society. It is going to cost the Nation something.
We can’t talk about the economic problems the Negro confronts without talking about billions of dollars. We can’t end slums in the final analysis without the necessity to take profit out of slums. We can’t deal with the school situation in the final analysis without seeing that we are not only talking about integrating education, but we are talking about quality education, which means that millions of additional dollars will have to be spent to improve the whole education system of America.”
As calls for reparations increase, 50 years later the structural problems remain. The restructuring of the architecture of American society has never happened. The denial remains. The Democrats declared a Drug War on Black America and Militarized the Police forces across America. The Prison population exploded to the worst in the world bar none, on a corrupt evil Justice System thanks to shrill immoral demonizing Bill and Hillary Clinton in particular.
This deceitful bigotry and racism remains systemically and culturally entrenched .. only now it extends to latinos, asians, muslims and immigrants, while Proud Boys rampage through the halls of Congress at will.
Everyone not already brain dead or drug addled knows American “Politics has become one big business transaction with donors and politicians at the table, and the public on the menu!
Just because the restaurant is called “Democracy” doesn’t mean it is a democracy that lots of voters are eager to defend as they are being eaten alive.”
https://www.dailyposter.com/democracy-alone-will-not-save-democrats/
Biden is trying to outdo Obama in support of the Oil and Fossil fuel industries, of massive corporate profits and increasing economic growth, military spending, and consumption.
Cognitive dissonance is one of the defining traits of American politics.
https://www.dailyposter.com/the-democrats-are-trying-to-lose/
The Democrat Party are a living breathing joke (Obama included). It’s one of two right wing fascist parties in America who are totally captured by the corporate oligarchs, the fossil fuel energy/plastics industry and beholden to institutional wealth and militarism (bar a few rare exceptions who will eventually abandon it.)
The Democratic Party is defined by a contradiction: It simultaneously promises to enrich its corporate donors and solve problems created by those same donors. That impossibility gives us drug pricing policies that would not significantly reduce medicine prices, tax proposals that never actually address inequality, corporate handouts that don’t much help the working class, and health care policy that enriches the insurance companies already fleecing sick people.
It also gives us rotating villains who help the party’s rank-and-file lawmakers pull their bait and switch — they get to promise populist legislation they know is already doomed by Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema or some other designated malefactor of the day…. insider-trading Pelosi, Chuck Schumer or some other climate destroying right wing fanatic in sheeps clothing.
The obvious natural conclusion to draw is the Democratic Party is pathological.
Innocent Muslims remain caged like animals at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Lies and deception are the orders of the day, everyday. Two decades of rank incompetence and the ultimate abandonment of Afghanistan to the Taliban says all anyone needs to know about the Real America and her political parties and voters.
Absolutely right, Barton. The transformation for the better effected by the so-called “civil rights era” may be incomplete, but it has still proven deep and far-reaching.
In a way, the current reaction aiming to reinstitute white male supremacy is testament to that.
Being wrong for 5 decades can never make someone right as if suddenly struck by lightening while still saying and thinking the same ideological lies and historical distortions and fantasy beliefs they always believed in.
The ultra-conservative christian white male racist and educated class supremacy thing never went away, it never went anywhere. It’s always been there front and center. It’s not reinstituting nor reconstituting, it’s only being exposed for what it has always been more thoroughly than it has been before.
The ability for Americans of all kinds and classes and beliefs to be unable to see what is right in front of their faces is astounding.
The Gold Medal Winners for the Cognitive Dissonance, Excuse Making and Denier Triple Crown Olympics.
It’s always been like this. Always. Get ready for your collective and individual illusions to be ripped asunder. Some very hard times are a comin’
@BPL
” 25.1.2022 – Racism as a leading cause of death in the United States”
https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o213
” At the Urban Institute, we examine how structural racism continues to disproportionately segregate communities of color from access to opportunity and upward mobility by making it more difficult for people of color to secure quality education, jobs, housing, healthcare, and equal treatment in the criminal justice system.”
https://www.urban.org/features/structural-racism-america
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=de&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=USA+racism&btnG=
Btw, the ending of “The trial of the Chicago 7” is plain pathetic and never happened in real life. After all, the systemic establishment includes both, reps and dems, both serve the very same establishment of the super rich multimillionaires and multibillionaires. The very same establishment the civil rights movement fought against is still ruling the system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_members_of_the_United_States_Congress_by_wealth
Funny money is still ruling the system, just as if the civil rights movement never happened.
Gavin, do you know how many times I finally just “shrugged” when I talked to climate deniers/lukewarmers? A trillion times, so I got completely used to it:
“shrug”
The movie is irrelevant. Education – even in the form of entertainment – no longer reaches it’s target audience.
Game Over.
VC: “The movie is irrelevant.”
I agree. It is. I’m starting to see that possibly 99.9% of public commentary and stories about climate change and energy use are irrelevant noise of no value at all.
Even the IPCC assessment reports are irrelevant now, before they’re published. Preaching to the converted they make no difference. No one reads them who should. Not that they’d understand them. The recent chorus of propaganda for the pseudo-scientific Net Zero CO2 Emissions is the latest manifestation of irrelevant time wasting.
Everyone is asleep in their chosen Silo of inaction and procrastination kicking the can down the road to nowhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQiOA7euaYA
I felt educated and entertained by “Don’t look up”. I feel entertained a lot by politics as well, I just don’t feel educated by politics.
The denialist component of American Society will never watch.
They are too busy denying the reality of the Pandemic and worrying about where their next source of horse dewormer will come from.
These people must be steamrolled.
How do you plan to do that when they will control the senate and the house by the end of this year?
A sensible take on the science-policy issue.
Exactly.
Climate scientists need to learn their place, control their egos and specifically stick to their chosen field of expertise. Once they go beyond the guardrails they are no better than a Bar tender at human psychology and mass marketing techniques. They are no longer experts. Their opinions and ideas are no better than anyone else’s until tested and fact checked and evaluated by experts in these other fields they decide to play in.
for an example, if Michael Mann wants to keep sticking his nose into politics and preaching the Democrat Party Bible then he needs to quit his tenured Professorship, get off his ass and go run for Congress of President and actually TEST the effectiveness of his Ideas in the Public Domain like everyone else. Because at present he is abusing his status as a climate scientist and publicly abusing people who challenge his pronouncements.
Until then he’s no expert about how to run an economy, how to win hearts and minds, constrain ghg emissions or anything else to do with solving the problem of global warming, economics, trade, mass psychology, ethics, political science or corporate governance. Opinions are like ….. you know what. Being a climate scientist does not automatically mean they cannot stink.
Science informs what the data from observations say it is based on the scientific method and peer review. Horseshit opinionated commentary about Doomers, don’t look up as an educational gimmick, and the effectiveness of fear-based educational campaigns via the mass media is not in his wheel house let alone of a peer reviewed standard.
There are many others who also play these ego dominated games to sell their books and boost their public presence as *Social Media Influencers”.
Self-appointed Big fish in Small ponds. There’s always someone going to grab that Click-Bait. Of course people will freak out about such comments but in the same breath will crucify anyone who might push their own opinionated verbiage about vaccines or masks or some other topic when they are not experts in that field. Mr KIA and JDS for example.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Sound propositions will eventually grow legs and find approval all on their own. And fools will argue about anything for arguments sake and attention.
It’s good to listen to the expert on hockey stick graphs and the AMOC and so on. I can recommend an expert on GCMs if you need one. When it comes to fossil fuel energy use, to long term mitigation, to technology psychology marketing business global trade geopolitics economics, or political tactics go look elsewhere.
Movie actors and producers do not have the answers either.
The people, the economy, the kids feel like the covid policy is somewhat “inconvenient”. Life itself is “inconvenient”, hunger and thirst are “inconvenient”, heat and cold are “inconvenient”, age, desease and death are “inconvenient”, even climate heating and the 6th global mass extinction appear to be somewhat “inconvenient”. “Inconveniencies” have always been the salt of my life, I embrace em, they sharpen my mind and keep me alert in the concrete jungle. Only complete ignorance got no “inconveniencies”.
I thought for quite a while about who is behind Dr. Randall Mindy in “Don’t look up,” Gavin Schmidt or Michael Mann- now I know it’s Michael Mann:
” CURWOOD: Hey, by the way, Michael, you have a connection to this film, huh?
MANN: [LAUGHS] Yeah, it’s sort of funny…”
https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=22-P13-00004&segmentID=5
Life is “almost” like a movie, except the blood is real. Leo, you did a great job, I had lots of fun, especially with that sex hotline Dr. Mindy recommended in that little TV spot, lol, !BOOM!.
Movies and books about climate heating, science, technology and politics nor funny money will ever save us, and to be honest, I don’t know what could ever save us ( why should I?). But I know what saves me all day:
Breathing in, breathing out, embracing life and death, embracing the beauty and the horror, embracing that little flower in the backyard and that ignorant who stepped on it, embracing the infinite darkness and the infinite light within, embracing my clever comments and Gavin’s bin, embracing Michael Mann, Gavin Schmidt and Comet Dibiasky, that’s what saves me all day. There’s two sides to every coin- take away one side and you surely take away the other as well- think about that.
DLU is pointless.
The target audience no longer lives in your reality.
Given that reality.. What is the plan?
More of the same that has failed for the last 30 years?
Real astrophysicist reacts to Netflix’s Don’t Look Up
In this video: how realistic is a giant comet impacting with Earth in just 6 months?
[…]
“In terms of the whole film I actually kind of oddly enjoyed it whilst also getting immensely frustrated at the same time. There was a lot of parallels to a lot of science denial like in society today, whether it’s climate change denial or flat earthers or even stuff that you see in the pandemic as well like there was parts of it that even harked back to the Brexit debate when there was that comment about like ‘oh people are sick of experts.’ So it reminded me a lot of that and I think it did quite well in highlighting a lot of the challenges that people who communicate science like myself like actually go through.”
Nature follows art :
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2022/02/dont-look-up.html
Talk about a great fractions lesson to teach kids- how about Revelations 8- fitting if they watched Don’t Look Up movie- You naysayers, you better look up, because you got only a few seconds to accept Christ- why cut it that close- “today is the day of salvation,” you are only given this moment- Christ wants to greet you- He died and rose so YOU COULD! Ok- here’s the asteroid fraction lesson- How much of living earth remains? Poor souls left!
6 Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them.
7 The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
8 The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, 9 a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
10 The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— 11 the name of the star is Wormwood.. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.