“Don’t Look Up” has justifiedly been praised as a strong statement for climate action. But I got the feeling that a comet is not a great metaphor for climate change because it distorts what is happening in a way that makes individual engagement harder.
In “Don’t Look Up”, a comet is closing in on earth on a trajectory that is obviously desastrous, but global politicians refrain from listening to the scientists report and keep on doing business as usual, until it is too late. While this image is certainly great to highlight many aspects of the presents climate politics, I think there is one central aspect that differs between the risk of a comet impact and climate change. A comet impact of this size is so fatal, that all live on earth will end, if heroic last time efforts to completely eliminate the danger would fail. The impact of a large enough comet impact on earth is basically a binary event: if the comet hits, it is game over for everybody within seconds. So the sanest thing in the immediate advent of the impact might as well be to have a last good dinner with friends, hold your hands and sing to enjoy the last seconds.
The final dinner in “Don’t Look Up”, shortly before the comet hits.^[Image Source]
Climate change in it’s worst scenarios may be almost as devastating as a direct hit from a big comet, but the process of it’s impact is a completely different one:
- it does not happen within seconds, but within decades
- every ton of CO2 worsens the impact, no matter how much effects of past emissions are already visible
- it’s not a singular impact, but a distributed one, so instead of one single nuke shot to divert the danger completely, we have to take countless measures of different size to soften the impact
In short, a big comet impact reaches a clear “Game Over” situation, as soon as the big technology fix has failed. With climate change, the fight will never be over, at least for this century, because down the line we can always avoid a future worsening of the situation.
Pathways of global GHG emissions (GtCO2eq/yr) in baseline and mitigation scenarios. Source: IPCC, AR5, WGIII, Figure SPM.4.^[Image Source]
Comparing climate change with a comet impact gives in to the adaptionist side of climate action in the most fatalist way with holding a last coping dinner, just waiting for the impact. I think this is not helpful because it avoids accepting our responsibility to descendant generations.
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