By Jessica Scott-Reid
Jessica is a Canadian writer, animal advocate and plant-based food expert. Her work appears regularly in media across Canada and the US.
The apocalyptic, star-studded hit film from Netflix, Don’t Look Up, has racked up millions of hours of streaming leaving audiences entertained and aghast, and critics mixed on the effectiveness of its message. What seems to have drawn so many viewers to the satirical science fiction movie is its scary parallels to present-day realities, and its offering of validation for those concerned with issues such as the global pandemic and climate chaos.
But there is one crucial difference between the movie and our current reality: unlike the characters in Don't Look Up, we are not sitting ducks in the crosshairs of a comet. And while audiences are connecting with the film’s use of a comet as a metaphor for the climate crisis, we still have a chance to control our destiny.
Don’t Look Up is a story about two lower-level scientists who discover a comet hurtling towards earth. The pair then embark on a mission to convince government, media and the public to recognize and take action to prevent the coming catastrophe. The scientists, seemingly alone in recognizing the impending disaster, are routinely ignored and patronized by government leaders. Their concerns and desperate cries about the extinction-level event hurtling towards earth are downplayed, placated and even mocked by a media and the public constantly distracted by the banal and inane designed to entertain and drive ratings.
Photo: Don’t Look Up, Netflix
Well-known NASA climate scientist Peter Kalmus, penned a column for The Guardian recently: I’m a climate scientist. Don’t Look Up captures the madness I see every day. In it, Kalmus says the “panic and desperation” felt by the scientists in the film “mirror the panic and desperation that many climate scientists feel.” And that the story isn’t actually about “how humanity would respond to a planet-killing comet,” but rather “how humanity is responding to planet-killing climate breakdown,” right now.
“After 15 years of working to raise climate urgency, I’ve concluded that the public in general, and world leaders in particular, underestimate how rapid, serious and permanent climate and ecological breakdown will be if humanity fails to mobilize. There may only be five years left before humanity expends the remaining “carbon budget” to stay under 1.5C of global heating at today’s emissions rates – a level of heating I am not confident will be compatible with civilization as we know it. And there may only be five years before the Amazon rainforest and a large Antarctic ice sheet pass irreversible tipping points.”
— Peter Kalmus, The Guardian
But unlike the movie, Kalmus concludes with hope, looking to the potential power of film to disseminate stories that shift public understanding and potentially motivate collective efforts to curb climate chaos: “More and better facts will not catalyze this sociocultural tipping point,” he writes, “but more and better stories might.”
In a recent column, also for The Guardian, Don’t Look Up’s creator and director Adam McKay, along with marine biologist and environmentalist Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, ponder, “Maybe some film or gif or TikTok has jostled you to think seriously about what you can do. Specifically you.” Because when it comes to climate change, they explain, “we are all in the writers’ room right now, deciding how the story unfolds and how it ends.”
Photo: Count Us In
This hopeful approach in the wake of Don’t Look Up is also being taken up by environmental advocacy organization, Count Us In, via its new campaign in partnership with the film. The campaign’s website cleverly states: “So there’s no comet. But the climate crisis is hurtling towards us. And you can have a hand in solving it with simple steps.” Focusing on individual action, the group offers helpful tips on how to hold politicians accountable, how to “get around greener,” how to eat more veggies, and more.
To avoid the same fate as the characters in Don’t Look Up, one of the film’s stars Leonardo DiCaprio, stated in an interview shared on Twitter promoting the Count Us In campaign, that “we have this very finite window of 10 years to make this transition,” and we must vote for leaders and “be supporting everything that has to do with climate mitigation.” The post has been retweeted over nine thousand times.
Environmental groups such as Greenpeace, Project Drawdown and Johnson’s How To Save A Planet, are also leveraging the awareness created by the film and offering resources to drive action.
At both the individual and systemic level, Don’t Look Up has reignited important conversations about climate chaos, and has motivated many to take action. The sheer popularity of the film, subsequent conversations by climate experts online and in the media, and an obvious uptick in alarm displayed by social media users, shows a renewed effort to look up beyond the Netflix screen and do something.
“We can’t just sit back and watch,” as McKay and Johnson say. “We are not an audience. Like it or not, we are in this story.”