Cop 26 in Glasgow had the feeling of a Sci-Fi premiere. An all star cast turning up for the event including: Leonardo di Caprio, Greta Thunberg, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, David Attenborough, Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones), Ellie Goulding and Idris Elba, to name a few, and of course the politicians.
No one is denying that the climate is changing and the planet looks to be on course for man-made destruction. The seas are losing their fish, deforestation is still occurring, ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising, temperatures are rising, insects are disappearing and freak weather is becoming a more frequent occurrence. The evidence is here and indisputable. Some lands are starting to become uninhabitable due to the climate change, and migration is on the increase.
Politicians argue that the planet can be saved and we can tolerate a temperature rise of 1.5 degrees. With no change in current policies the temperature rise will be 2.5-2.9 degrees by 2100. Pledges and targets to change could bring that forecast down to 1.9 degrees, but more needs to be done. Politicians are paying lip service to the plight, flying in on private jets. Nuclear plants and coal plants are still being built in the UK, when viable green renewable alternatives exist.
What was predicted in ‘sci-fi’ movies 20 or 30 years ago now looks less of a fantasy and more like the documentaries currently being produced. What was fiction for a previous generation is now looking like reality for this and the next generation.
Interesting, during the early days of the pandemic, Steven Soderbergh’s film ‘Contagion’ was watched avidly. The movie appeared to have anticipated the pandemic and to have predicted the future. One viewer said: ‘It felt like I was watching a documentary that has all these movie stars playing real people’.
It is a fearful time, when you see the super rich and the elite investing heavily in ‘space-tech’, and maybe for a future Sci-Fi life. Elon Musk has SpaceX, a company that designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. Other billionaires playing in the space game include Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos. Whether this is just space tourism to humour the super rich or rumours that Elon Musk is looking to colonise space have any truth its hard to distinguish.
The space race amongst the super rich, the destruction of planet earth has all the requirements for the script of a sci-fi movie blockbuster. Is fantasy becoming a reality? Do we have the time to turn back the momentum of climate warming?
Its hard to listen to the politicians at Cop 26 without feeling a level of cynicism. They are paid to turn up and present and talk as it is their day job and not their passion.
Watching Sc-Fi in the 80s was easy, Star Wars, Blade Runner and other Sci-Fi movies were just a fantasy, to be watched with childhood innocence. The first Blade Runner produced by Ridley Scott in 1982, predicted a state of urban decay for the year 2019. However, the tech predictions were not that crazy. They predicted video calling, keycards to open doors, virtual assistants, holograms all of which have become a reality with increasing AI. How much harder is it to watch Sci-Fi now, knowing that it can be so accurately predictive?
Leonardo DiCaprio is well aware of the power of film to raise awareness. He has produced several environmental and animal welfare documentaries as well as two short web documentaries called ‘Water Planet’ and ‘Global Warming’. He has worked as an executive producer on ‘Cowspiracy’ and ‘Sea of Shadows’, as well as producing ‘The 11th Hour’. His 2016 film about global warming ‘Before the Flood’ was one of the most watched documentaries in history. Produced with National Geographic, the film received 60 million views in just 3 months.
With reality and sci-fi getting closer than ever, it seems right that Cop26 has actors, film producers, environmentalists at its heart. Of course it is no surprise that the space explorers were absent.
Rebel Economics 