— Ch. 1 · The Silence Before The Storm —
Climate change in popular culture.
~5 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
Science historian Naomi Oreskes noted in 2005 that a huge disconnect existed between what professional scientists had studied and learned in the last thirty years and what was out there in popular culture. An academic study from 2000 contrasted the relatively rapid acceptance of ozone depletion as reflected in popular culture with the much slower acceptance of the scientific consensus on climate change. Sheldon Ungar wrote about this knowledge gap in Science magazine, noting that cultural responses have been posited as an important part of communicating climate change. Commentators observed that covering the topic has posed challenges due to its abstract nature. References to climate change in popular culture have existed since the late twentieth century but increased significantly during the twenty-first century. The prominence of climate change in popular culture grew during the 2010s, influenced by the climate movement, shifts in public opinion, and changes in media coverage.
Fictional Films And Climate Reality Checks
An analysis of two hundred fifty of the most popular fictional films released between 2013 and 2022 found that only twelve point eight percent passed the first part of the Climate Reality Check. This check requires that climate change exists within a narrative and that at least one character knows it is happening. Only nine point six percent of these films passed the second part where a character acknowledges the crisis. A global environmental problem such as freshwater pollution or species extinction appeared in twenty-six percent of these films, yet climate change remained rare. When climate change did appear, it was generally mentioned in just one or two scenes without emphasizing gravity or urgency. Research analyzing thirty-two commercially significant fiction films from 1972 to 2023 showed portrayals of environmentally motivated violence tended to present extreme acts of climate defense as morally illegitimate. Recent and commercially successful films favored binary hero-villain characterizations over morally complex narratives. Early examples like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea from 1961 depicted a meteor shower igniting the Van Allen radiation belt causing abrupt global warming. The Day the Earth Caught Fire from 1961 showed nuclear weapons testing tilting Earth's nutation by eleven degrees toward the Sun.