Unfinished - 200

 One of the challenges of being a climate science activist is your job never ends. This is my 200th column and, relative to other climate activists, I am a newbie.

If you want to witness the frustration of science-based people via a comedy, look no further than “Don’t Look Up” starring Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and host of other talented actors. The movie’s plot starts with Michigan State graduate student of astronomy, Kate Dibiasky, who has discovered a planet killer comet heading for earth.  The comedy is a not-so-subtle stand-in for the earth’s unfolding climate disaster.

If you can handle scathing satire focusing on our science ignorance, our cultural indifference to reality, the perverse role of money in government and the manipulation of the masses via social media, you are in for some laughs.

Being released during the pandemic gives the satire additional relevance as the plight of our collective health has been put at risk by the vaccine science ignorant.

I have to say, the release of the show now was a bit much for me to handle. It appears the climate saving provisions of the Build Back Better legislation will not be enacted.  

While Republican obstructionism to climate saving legislation is a given because the oil money pipeline runs to the Republican party, it is demoralizing to have a Democratic Senator sabotage the efforts of so many scientists, economists, and young climate activists. We should have known better. It is well known the coal money train tracks run through that coal businessman and senator’s office.

To my friends who have worked so hard, we have a right to be disappointed but do not be critical of your work. It has not failed. Your work reminds me of Franz Schubert’s Symphony #8, called the “Unfinished Symphony”. A music critic referred to Schubert’s Symphony #8 as perfect in its incompleteness. And so too, your work is in no way diminished.  It is simply unfinished.

Movie recommendation: “Don’t Look Up” on Netflix.

Book recommendation by Meryl Streep: “Speed and Scale” by venture capitalist John Doerr.  A definitive action plan to avoid climate disaster.

Website: speedandscale.com  

Note: 33 years ago, climate scientist James Hansen, then head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, testified to the US Congress that if we continued to burn fossil fuels, planet earth was on a collision course with climate obliteration.

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