Climate Change Influences in Entertainment

Influences of Climate Change

“Climate change is the greatest threat to our existence in our short history on this planet. Nobody’s going to buy their way out of its effects”, Mark Ruffalo. Climate change is the change in environmental conditions due to many internal and external factors. These changes have become a global concern in recent decades, impacting life on the planet in various ways. These changes have impacted society to pay more attention to and consider these matters more than ever. It became such an important and well-disused topic that it sparked importance in our entertainment. Many movies like the Lorax and Wall-E and more display different effects of climate change and navigate to a better future.

The Lorax is a movie that opened our eyes to what environmentalism was at a very young age for most of us. The creator behind the original book was the great Dr. Suess, known for his artistic expression and rhyme scheme in his children's books. According to Ipsy.org, “His books inspired children and those who have picked up one of his unique and intriguing books and began to read. Dr. Seuss impacted the world by encouraging others to be different, working as a military advocate, and enhancing children’s vocabulary. Dr. Seuss was an artist, writer, and cartoonist that used his work to shape the world”.

In this movie, it shows a world where there was a lot of destruction of the natural environment.  In the movie, the humans live in a town that is mostly made of plastic. There were no plants and no trees, and no animals. The movie shows people buying air in a can. Outside of the town, the world was dark.  There was no sunlight.  The land was dirty and dusty, and dead. Despite the fact that the natural environment is gone or destroyed, humans are doing just fine. When the main character asked his mom and grandmother if he could get a real tree, they laughed at him and acted like it was a silly question. However, by surprise, the main character finds a real tree, and it amazes the public.  As a result, people began wanting to plant trees again and get rid of all the plastic. By the movie’s end, however, the main character finds a real tree, which amazes the public.  As a result, people began wanting to plant trees again and get rid of all the plastic.

First off, this movie creates a narrative that life can still be harmonious after deforestation. In fact, there really isn't anything in this movie that discusses climate change. Instead, this movie focuses on what will happen if humans cut down all the trees. The purpose seems to be to raise awareness of saving animals and plant life. However,  I can see how they tried to bring attention to environmental destruction.  However, this is not the actual story of climate change.

Another Influence in today’s society is the well-loved WALL-E. WALL-E is another movie that targets young children about the importance of climate change. This American computer-animated science fiction film was produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The creator of this movie is Andrew Stanton, also known for directing Finding Nemo and the sequel Finding Dory. To many people's surprise, all three of these movies have an environmental message of some sort.

This movie depicts our Earth covered completely in the trash that was left behind by humans. There’s no plant life and no animal life, just complete dessert. Extreme weather conditions like harsh sandstorms often reoccur, and there’s no rain. In this movie, there’s a small robot named WALL-E, which is short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth Class, that’s left there to clean up after the humans so that they can return to a clean and better earth. While he’s cleaning up, he sees that a sandstorm is near and begins to take shelter, but he also sees another robot and saves her before she gets swiped up by the storm. This robot’s name is Eve, and she’s on earth searching for plant life so humans can come back to earth. Eventually, the two embark on a journey to find plant life on earth, and when they finally do, she takes the plant back to the ship of humans in space. 

For starters, this movie gives us the idea that after we destroy the planet with trash and leave it because life is unstainable, we can one day return when it gets better. Climate change can get to the point where its effect is unreversible, and if humans have to leave because they can no longer live life on earth, then the planet’s effects are too extreme to return. Another factor to pay attention to is how this movie is not about climate change, and there are some signs like extreme weather conditions that they show; however, those conditions were not caused by the burning of fossil fuels like natural gas, coal, and oil. This movie’s message is more about environmentalism, the infamous Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. We make and use too much stuff, and if we continue going down this path, our planet will eventually be overwhelmed with toxicity and threaten every life form to extinction. Pollution of the environment and consumerism will end life, and humans will fail to protect nature. As humans, we must do everything we can to preserve our planet because it is all we have. If we can think about the many other species living on this planet with us, at least think of our future generations to come. Think about how they would have to live. Our children are living in a heated oven that continues to get worse every year. That's a horrible way to live. Our planet is practically baking.

In the book HE ALIʻI KA ʻĀINA: LEARNING TO LIVE AND TEACH SUSTAINABILITY IN HAWAII, Christian Palmer talks about what real climate change is in chapter one. He explains in great detail what it is, how it affects life on earth, and what we can do further to try to prevent it. Climate change is the effect of burning fossil fuels. It is “the most significant global environmental crisis.” According to Palmer, “Since the beginning of the industrial revolution when humans began using fossil fuels for energy, human activities have been releasing extra carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.” This has caused the well-known greenhouse effect, which is where heat is trapped inside the earth; it has also been described as covering the earth like a blanket making it warmer and warmer over time. These gasses consist of carbon dioxide,  methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, chlorofluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and even water vapor is considered a greenhouse gas. Palmer also discusses how climate change would affect humans by how “the warming climate and failing agricultural systems will also create mass human migrations as people flee areas that are too hot to live and head to cooler areas or those that are less prone to natural disasters.” He talks about how extreme weather patterns will get and how it will affect our ability to grow and produce food. “Severe weather events like floods, hurricanes, droughts, heat waves, and wildfires will become more common and more severe. Warmer air holds more moisture which can impact the formation and size of hurricanes and subsequent floods. In fact, we are already seeing these impacts. These disasters can destroy homes and infrastructures, kill people, but perhaps even more significantly, challenge our ability to produce enough food to feed ourselves.” Palmer stresses that it will affect human life, but what about animal life? What about other places on the planet where human life cant inhabit?

“There are a number of impacts on other plants and animals. Warming ocean temperatures kill coral reefs which support huge amounts of biodiversity and impact fisheries worldwide. Forest fires will reduce wildlife populations already stressed by overhunting and habitat reductions. Shifting habitats as temperatures change will drive many more plant and animal species to extinction.”  Phys.org goes more in depth into how marine life will be affect, “This isn't the only species having problems with adapting to the extreme warm water temperatures either. An estimated 60 percent of the world's marine ecosystems have already been degraded or are being used unsustainably. A warming of 1.5°C threatens to destroy 70 to 90 percent of coral reefs, and a 2°C increase means a nearly 100 percent loss - a point of no return. Coral reefs will be one of the most immediate victims of climate change if we do not take action very quickly.” 

We can no longer stand around and wait for somebody else to do something about it, especially not someone of power. It hasn’t been working, and the cycle of passing the blame has just been continuing in a circle, and we’ve barely made any progress. Just doing little acts like using less electricity, unplugging appliances, and switching to more energy-efficient light bulbs(LEDs) will help. Even though it seems like it wouldn’t do much in actuality, it really does.