Don't look up climate change

Hollywood’s third strike on climate change?

"Don't Look Up" is ambitious—but trips over its subject matter.

You’ve got to cut a break to the superb cast and an A-for-effort try on “Don’t Look Up.”


The film’s failings are due to its subject matter: it’s that the real-life catastrophe of climate change would make an awful major motion picture. It already has. Twice. Before a few words on “Don’t Look Up,” let’s look back at its futile predecessors.

Waterworld 

Back in 1995, “WaterWorld” released to an indifferent audience. Realistic? Not so much. The movie was set centuries in the future. Kevin Costner was a lonely mariner on a flooded planet. He drank his own pee and grew a scraggly lemon tree— the vitamin C in citrus fruit helped him fend off scurvy.

Oh, and in a grand evolutionary touch, he had gills.

Costner’s character is also unrealistically hunky for a pee-swilling, water-breathing desperado. This comes in handy when upon a ramshackle ship the passengers include a Hollywood requisite—a comely woman to provide the love interest for the lonely hunk with gills.

The woman has a young child with a back tattoo that’s actually a map to the rumored Dry Land—what’s left of terra firma after melting polar ice caps swamp the Earth.

But wait! There’s more!

Another rustbucket, which turns out to be the centuries-old Exxon Valdez, is crewed by nasty pirates hell-bent on kidnapping the inked kid. The late Dennis Hopper played the swaggering, maniacal skipper as only he could.

Stay informed: sign up for Above the Fold
The most consequential news on your health and the planet: delivered to your inbox every morning. (Weekly roundup also available)

Anyway, Costner defeats “The Smokers,” finds Dry Land, and gets the girl. Alas, there’s nothing he can do about climate change. The end.

“WaterWorld” released six years after real-world NASA scientist James Hansen’s powerful Congressional testimony on the perils of a warming Earth. It was thought that Hansen’s chilling scenario would be, to use today’s most overused cliché, a game changer. But almost 34 years later, the game has barely changed.

“WaterWorld” received one Oscar nomination for sound editing. It didn’t win. At the box office, it barely broke even.

The Day After Tomorrow 

The Day After Tomorrow” debuted in 2004. It featured multiple climate impacts expected by scientists to roll out over decades. As a storytelling convenience the screenplay has them roll out in about 72 hours instead.

Waves hit as high as the Statue of Liberty’s belly button and ungodly cold hit much of the Northern Hemisphere. You can’t hail a cab in Midtown Manhattan because the cabs are under 50 feet of ice. A cadre of young people trapped in the upper floors of New York’s main library keep warm by burning books. A trio of tornadoes hit Hollywood (while Hollywood tornadoes are virtually unheard of, there’s no consensus on a climate change-tornado link).

Dennis Quaid played a climate scientist trying to save both the Earth and his marriage; dreamy Jake Gyllenhaal played his son, holed up in the book-burning library while trying to ignite a romance. And book-burning isn’t the worst heavy-handed metaphor in the flick: A Vice President who looks and talks a lot like Dick Cheney, the ex-oilman and then-current VP, is played by Kenneth Welsh.

“The Day After Tomorrow” cleared nearly a quarter billion over its production costs. One might think that’s a pretty good Hollywood motive to crank out a few more climate flicks—good, bad, or in between. But this December’s allegorical satirical “Don’t Look Up” is the first in 16 years, and it doesn’t even mention climate.

Don't Look Up 

The real-life Leonardo DiCaprio spends a great deal of his time and money on causes close to his heart. Meteors or comets striking the Earth was never one of them. But as a dreamy astronomer whose dreamy Ph.D. candidate student (Jennifer Lawrence) discovers a “planet-killer” comet that’s two months away from a direct hit on Earth, Leo and J-Law have a hard time convincing vapid talkshow hosts and politicos that the Earth is in peril.

Moviegoers like me are left to connect the dots to climate change: It won’t provide a lethal threat in a mere couple of months like Comet Leo. But there it is.

Aren’t tens of millions of us having a hard enough time coughing up the reality that the 2020 election wasn’t fixed? Or that COVID-19 vaccines aren’t a massive effort to steal our breath?

In its earliest weeks, “Don’t Look Up” is a hit with viewers. Beyond its headliners, the all-star cast includes Meryl Streep as a cynical U.S. President; Jonah Hill as her more cynical son and Chief of Staff; Ariana Grande, and Cate Blanchett.

I’m just not convinced its “Doctor Strangelove” dark humor vibe is going to result in many more climate converts to jump the line ahead of the pandemic and its vaccines, MAGA, the economy, Putin, infrastructure and God-knows-what else is ahead the immediate disaster hopper.

Does it change the game? I’m afraid not.

Peter Dykstra is our weekend editor and columnist and can be reached at pdykstra@ehn.org or @pdykstra.

His views do not necessarily represent those of Environmental Health News, The Daily Climate, or publisher Environmental Health Sciences.

Banner photo: "Don't Look Up." (Credit: Youtube screenshot)

A gleaming glass skyscraper with the word Allianz on the top.

Insurers warn climate change could unravel financial markets and endanger capitalism

A top executive at Allianz says the climate crisis is pushing insurance and broader financial systems toward collapse as rising temperatures and extreme weather make entire regions uninsurable.

Damian Carrington reports for The Guardian.

Keep reading...Show less
Senator Whitehouse & climate change

Senator Whitehouse puts climate change on budget committee’s agenda

For more than a decade, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse gave daily warnings about the mounting threat of climate change. Now he has a powerful new perch.
Hands of a man sitting at a desk with a laptop filling out a paper form with a pen.

Lawyers turn to pro bono work to drive climate solutions beyond the courtroom

A growing virtual bootcamp trains legal professionals to support climate initiatives through everything from contracts to corporate advising.

Claire Elise Thompson reports for Grist.

Keep reading...Show less
Wind turbines in the distance with a yellow field in the foreground and a blue sky in the background.

Trump tariffs may raise U.S. wind energy prices and stall project growth

Tariffs proposed by President Trump could raise the cost of building wind power projects in the U.S., threatening the already fragile momentum of the renewable energy sector.

Stanley Reed reports for The New York Times.

Keep reading...Show less
A sign in front of a Max-Planck Institut building with bushes nearby.
Credit: ginton/BigStock Photo ID: 71957491

Trump’s anti-science agenda is pushing American researchers overseas

A growing number of U.S. scientists are fleeing restrictive policies under Trump and finding support in Europe, where institutions are rolling out the red carpet for displaced talent.

Fred Schwaller reports for DW.

Keep reading...Show less
hands holding food scraps above a green food composting bucket.
Credit: digitalista/BigStock Photo ID: 468529199

New approach to composting in Massachusetts relies on hands-on help, not just rules

In Massachusetts, a state composting mandate for businesses gets a major assist from a down-to-earth consultant who helps restaurants rethink what they throw away.

Somini Sengupta reports for The New York Times.

Keep reading...Show less
An African man smiles as he stands in front of rural solar infrastructure and water tanks in a golden field.
Credit: Hamish John Appleby / IWMI Flickr Photos

How solar is helping African farmers beat drought and diesel

Solar-powered irrigation is quietly transforming small farms across Africa, helping farmers boost yields, cut costs, and ditch dirty diesel.

Aimable Twahirwa reports for Mongabay.

Keep reading...Show less
A pig on a farm pokes its snout through a rusted cage with more pigs in background.
Credit: Tzido/Big Stock Photo ID: 4126064

Rural families use innovative DNA tool to track pig farm pollution

Communities living near factory farms are using a new scientific tool to track pig feces in their homes — and fight back.

Hana Mensendiek reports for U.S. Right To Know.

Keep reading...Show less
From our Newsroom
Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro speaks with the state flag and American flag behind him.

Two years into his term, has Gov. Shapiro kept his promises to regulate Pennsylvania’s fracking industry?

A new report assesses the administration’s progress and makes new recommendations

silhouette of people holding hands by a lake at sunset

An open letter from EPA staff to the American public

“We cannot stand by and allow this to happen. We need to hold this administration accountable.”

wildfire retardants being sprayed by plane

New evidence links heavy metal pollution with wildfire retardants

“The chemical black box” that blankets wildfire-impacted areas is increasingly under scrutiny.

People  sitting in an outdoors table working on a big sign.

Op-ed: Why funding for the environmental justice movement must be anti-racist

We must prioritize minority-serving institutions, BIPOC-led organizations and researchers to lead environmental justice efforts.

joe biden

Biden finalizes long-awaited hydrogen tax credits ahead of Trump presidency

Responses to the new rules have been mixed, and environmental advocates worry that Trump could undermine them.

Op-ed: Toxic prisons teach us that environmental justice needs abolition

Op-ed: Toxic prisons teach us that environmental justice needs abolition

Prisons, jails and detention centers are placed in locations where environmental hazards such as toxic landfills, floods and extreme heat are the norm.

Stay informed: sign up for The Daily Climate newsletter
Top news on climate impacts, solutions, politics, drivers. Delivered to your inbox week days.