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Some pop culture context. In the hit TV series "Family Ties" episode "Rain Forests Keep Falling on My Head" from 1989, Jennifer becomes very concerned about the
by eesmith 3y ago
Some pop culture context. In the hit TV series "Family Ties" episode "Rain Forests Keep Falling on My Head" from 1989, Jennifer becomes very concerned about the environment, worried that if people don't act, the rain forests would be destroyed, the ozone layer destroyed, and we would live in a long hot endless summer.
Later, she's depressed since it's 1°F hotter than it was in 1956, and doesn't want to go to school, feeling like she's dealing with the end of the world.
The episode is available at https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8gyxf5 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8gyxf5 if you want to verify this yourself.
That was a fictional portrayal, certainly, but I doubt it was made up whole cloth. If so, the writers were extremely good at predicting how kids would react!
Things are significantly worse now than in 1989 - why wouldn't even more kids be worried?
- themoonisachees 3y agoRight? If I don't tell my hypothetical children that they are facing a significant climate crisis and that most of their lives is going to be governed by the consequences of that crisis, that we caused, should I simply lie to them? Why? Plugging your ears and singing "LALALA" isnt going to make climate change go away. If anything, we should teach them how oil companies were aware of impending doom and chose profit over the planet repeatedly, installing at least some class consciousness in them.
- otikik 3y ago“Dinosaurs” TV show. Last episode. I have never been able to watch it fully, only some parts.
- eesmith 3y agoOh.... my... I can see why! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaurs_(TV_series)#Series_finale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaurs_(TV_series)#Series_f...
- WorldMaker 3y agoRelatedly, I feel like "Soylent Green", "Logan's Run", and more in the 1970s all had climate change related concerns/worries and/or messages. A lot of it got lost in the action/thriller genres, especially in the film adaptations, and a lot of it still inherited mistakes and traps from the Malthusians of previous sci-fi generations (50s/60s sci-fi especially was prone to believing in the since-disproven Malthusian trap), but even in the 1970s you can read a lot of early climate change anxiety from the more intended-to-be empathetic parts of pop culture. (The 70s is where I generally draw the boundary line in sci-fi between Malthusianism and Climate Change concerns.) Climate change fears have been in the pop culture air for longer than a lot of people realize.