The Copenhagen summit has just ended. A few politicians are putting a positive spin on the outcome saying that much progress has been achieved and this is a good first step. But the emerging consensus seems to be that this was a flop – a summit that oscillated between tragedy and farce and has achieved very little that is meaningful. However you judge the summit and its outcome, one fundamental question remains: will the human race be able to grapple with the fact that it is destroying its own planet and take meaningful steps to change course?
This is the question that is addressed in a recent Hollywood movie entitled “The Day The Earth Stood Still”.
Given Hollywood’s power to shape our culture, it is regrettable that Hollywood seems to be dragging its heels about engaging meaningfully with environmental issues. This in spite of actors, directors, producers and sundry other claiming to be concerned and committed to environmental issues.
“The Day The Earth Stood Still” (a 2008 remake of a 1951 movie of the same name) does take environmental issues head on. Here is a brief synopsis:
Beings from another planet land on Earth, sending Klaatu – one of their own in human form (in fact in the form of Keanu Reeves) – to speak to world leaders about the need to stop destroying the planet. Needless to say, Klaatu doesn’t get a civilized invite to the White House but, instead, is met by bullets, capture, interrogation and other well known welcome methods that humans have adopted for centuries towards anything, or anyone, that is not considered of their own kind.
Finally Klaatu reveals that his mission is to destroy the human race and all that it has created as the only option left to save the planet. “If you live, the Earth dies. If you die, the Earth lives”. There is no other option.
A cloud of tiny robots (nanobots) is released and the destruction begins. Until the attractive Dr Benson (Jennifer Connelly), persuades him otherwise. Witnessing the strength of a mother’s love for her son, Klaatu is persuaded that the human race has some merit after all. He believes that, once we see the edge of the precipice, we will do something about it and mend our ways. The destruction is halted.
Did Klaatu get it right?
I have to admit, that watching this movie, I wondered about the outcome. I wondered whether destruction of the human race and all our intrusions on the planet would have been a preferable ending. I did not really believe that we were capable of turning back at the brink. Would the world be better off without us?
After Copenhagen, what do you believe? Did Klaatu make the right call or was he had? Leave a comment with your verdict.
This movie is not the most gripping or best acted movie ever made but it’s a reasonable story line, it is one movie that addresses environmental issues head on and the special effects are great. You can view a short trailer here.
Let’s put things into perspective. Regardless of any climate treaty, the natural world on Earth will continue to exist in some form long after humanity. There’s a difference between the end of the world and the end of the world as we know it today.
A far greater man-made threat to the natural world from humanity is a all out nuclear war. That threat has receded from imminent global threat in 1962-1989 to merely “possible” or “regional” threats in the post 1989 world. However, I would argue that nuclear weapons still pose one of the greatest threats to the long term survival of the natural world. An asteroid hitting Earth is also possibly a preventable extinction level event.
This doesn’t diminish the threat to the natural world by climate change. But I think the greater threat, as with global nuclear or asteroid, is that humanity would cease to exist. Thus, I think Klaatu framed the question incorrectly. If a good portion of the natural world dies and the oceans rise, we will be the species that is losing our food supply and habitat.
Harming the natural world harms humanity’s long term survival. It’s in our own interest to fix the climate change problem. As the book, the World Without Us illustrates, nature can heal itself really quickly if given as chance.
And all of this assumes we’ll even have fossil fuels in large quantities to burn in 100 years….
Interesting comment Glenn. Particularly since, in its first incarnation, this same story line was actually about the dangers of nuclear warfare rather than environmental destruction. You may be right about us sowing the seeds of our own destruction (and not only through climate change) but I suspect that when we go we will have taken everything else with us. It’s difficult to imagine what ‘Nature’ will be left to recover at that point.
Yes, I think the original story was more compelling. Nukes are 1000x more long term destructive than climate change. That would be taking it all with us.
It takes a high degree of complexity and malice to do lasting (think geological time scale) damage to the whole biosphere. Once we start running out of fossil fuels in 30-50 (or maybe 100) we will have to move to a lower level of complexity if we can hold together civilization.
Barring global nuclear war, I think nature will recover quite well when we are gone. I recommend both Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” and the book mentioned above – “the World Without us”.
I think the worst case scenario of what we could do to the biosphere is something akin to what happened to Chernobyl and most likely scenario is something like Detroit’s abandoned buildings. Again, when thinking of the biosphere, I think over geological time. But humanity and it’s complexity is fragile and could probably not withstand major climate change without either extinction or major loss in complexity.
We don’t have a crystal ball: perhaps humanity will pull itself back from the brink, but I for one am sceptical. Unless we have a major attack of good sense in the near future we don’t stand much of a chance. In the meantime we drag so many other life-forms into extinction.
One factor gives me hope: even if we fail as a species, even if countless other species fail, the planet will bounce back as it has done over and over again in the past (it helps to know my paleology) and with it, life of some sort. Perhaps we’ve reached the K-T boundary for Homo Sapiens. In that case, it’s consoling for me to know that life will continue in one form or another.
…. umm forgot to answer the question: should we be destroyed? –
Who would make that judgement call? Quis custodieret ipsos custodies?
Maybe it’s happened already and we’re like passengers on the Titanic: not yet aware that we’ve been destroyed, just staggering around with empty heads while the iceberg looms.
Thank you for your comments. I like your idea that we’re just staggering around with empty heads towards the brink and that life will bloom after we’re gone.