“Don’t Look Up” is a satire film about humanity in denial about an impending comet collision with earth (details here). It’s a not-too-subtle play on attitudes about climate change.
Denialism is quite possibly the most striking cultural phenomenon of our time. Election, climate, and vaccine denial, and other falsehoods, are major features of rightwing politics today. Millions of people have adopted the posture that if they don’t like something, they’ll refuse to believe it or deny it exists.
With Covid-19 or climate change that’s like standing in the middle of a highway and denying that a semi-truck is barreling down on you. Refusing to believe something doesn’t make it go away; instead, if you don’t do something, you’ll get run over.
Why am I writing about climate change again? Because of a news story. A European science agency just released data showing the “last eight years have been the eight warmest on record,” meaning more or less since 1850 (see story here). Don’t look up. What you don’t know, or refuse to believe, will still hurt you; but sometimes it’s just better to not think about what’s coming, if you refuse to do anything about it.
