Climate change is showing up in blockbusters and binge watches. So what?
By Amelia Urry
Dec 32, 2055 A.D.
Link to original post
http://linkis.com/grist.org/living/0FdVM
EXCERPT:
At one point midway through the first episode, the camera pans past the skyline of New York. It’s both familiar and uncanny: There’s One World Trade Center, standing in a thicket of shinier, spindlier towers that announce we are now in The Future. And standing sentinel outside the city is the Statue of Liberty — except now she is ringed by a reinforced seawall, set in ten feet of angry surf.
That’s it. That’s all the reference to climate change we get in the 45 minute-long pilot of The Expanse, SyFy’s new space drama. In fact, only a handful of those minutes are spent on Earth at all.
We’ve talked about cli-fi before; this is something different.
...... There are a couple of reasons these kinds of understated references — what should we call them, by the way? “cli-sly”? — could be cropping up more and more often, especially in science fiction. For one thing, as we saw a surge in public awareness of climate change this year, it’s becoming harder and harder to build a credible world without it, especially when that world is set in the future. It’s just another quality of evolving life on this planet, taken for granted the same way we assume buildings will get shinier and more forms of transportation will involve flying.
EXCERPT:
At one point midway through the first episode, the camera pans past the skyline of New York. It’s both familiar and uncanny: There’s One World Trade Center, standing in a thicket of shinier, spindlier towers that announce we are now in The Future. And standing sentinel outside the city is the Statue of Liberty — except now she is ringed by a reinforced seawall, set in ten feet of angry surf.
That’s it. That’s all the reference to climate change we get in the 45 minute-long pilot of The Expanse, SyFy’s new space drama. In fact, only a handful of those minutes are spent on Earth at all.
We’ve talked about cli-fi before; this is something different.
...... There are a couple of reasons these kinds of understated references — what should we call them, by the way? “cli-sly”? — could be cropping up more and more often, especially in science fiction. For one thing, as we saw a surge in public awareness of climate change this year, it’s becoming harder and harder to build a credible world without it, especially when that world is set in the future. It’s just another quality of evolving life on this planet, taken for granted the same way we assume buildings will get shinier and more forms of transportation will involve flying.
No comments:
Post a Comment