“Don’t Look Up” and Climate Change

Netflix's newest hit movie "Don’t Look up" has got four nominations in the Academy awards. "Don’t look up" starring huge Hollywood stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, and Jonah Hill. The movie was started by Kate Dibiasky, a Michigan State University astronomy Ph.D. candidate who found out an unknown comet will collide with earth and large enough to cause a planet extension. The researchers are trying to warn the president and public about this comet, but they desire to exploit the comet since it contains rare elements. The comet is an analogy to the climate change issues, which as the film depicted, is not taken seriously by many people and people care more about money rather than earth’s future (Netflix, 2021).

What is climate change exactly? climate change is a long-term change in weather patterns regionally or globally. Many people have misconceptions about climate change and global warming. Meanwhile, global warming is the unusual abrupt increase of Earth's surface temperature because of the greenhouse effect caused by  human activities. Actually, climate change has already happened since the ice age, but since the high amount of greenhouse gases caused by human activity, nature can’t keep up with that. This is why climate change started to give us negative impacts (Adedeji et al., 2014; NASA, 2010).

The Earth’s temperature has increased at an average 0.13 degrees Fahrenheit (0.08 degrees Celsius) per decade since 1880. This rise in global temperature would eventually lead to many problems. One of the biggest problems is natural disasters, the number of natural disasters is growing throughout the years, which also affects the economic and health sector (NOAA National Centers, 2020). Based on the United Nations, in the Asia region from 1970-2019 the natural disasters had caused 975,622 deaths and $2 trillion economic damages. Almost one third of the disasters are water related disasters; 45% of those were floods and 36% were storms. Storms caused 72% of deaths and floods caused 57% of economic losses. These events proved that global warming and climate change is one of the top contributors of natural disasters(Matawal & Maton, 2013). Since the rapid increase of temperature will also affect extreme weather events like hurricanes and melting the ice which will lead to the increase of sea level and floods (Ghazali et al., 2018)(Alina Bradford, 2022; United Nations, 2021).

Most concerned greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O). Scientists estimated in the mid-18th century, the concentration of carbon has increased by about 33% by the end of 2021. If the fossil fuels keep being burned, at this rate the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will reach 550 ppm (+~24% from 2021) and expected to double within the next 300 years. This greenhouse gas traps the heat from solar radiation during the day. Thus, the earth’s temperature is also increasing because of heat (Kweku et al., 2018)(Michael E. Mann, 2022). Many actions are taken to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Scientists have developed Negative emission technologies (NETs) such as bioenergy with carbon dioxide capture and storage (BECCS), direct air capture (DAC), and biochar application to soil (Tan, 2016). Besides, there are many simple things that we could do to minimise carbon emissions such as using public transportation, minimising energy uses, using renewable energy, use solar cell (nps.gov, 2021)

By: Shafira Nur Adiningsih

Further reading: 

Ghazali, D., Guericolas, M., Thys, F., Sarasin, F., Arcos González, P., & Casalino, E. (2018). Climate Change Impacts on Disaster and Emergency Medicine Focusing on Mitigation Disruptive Effects: an International Perspective. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15(7), 1379. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15071379

Kweku, D., Bismark, O., Maxwell, A., Desmond, K., Danso, K., Oti-Mensah, E., Quachie, A., & Adormaa, B. (2018). Greenhouse Effect: Greenhouse Gases and Their Impact on Global Warming. Journal of Scientific Research and Reports, 17(6), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.9734/jsrr/2017/39630

Matawal, D. S., & Maton, D. J. (2013). Climate Change and Global Warming: Signs, Impact and Solutions. International Journal of Environmental Science and Development, 62–66. https://doi.org/10.7763/ijesd.2013.v4.305

References:

Adedeji, O., Reuben, O., & Olatoye, O. (2014). Global Climate Change. Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection, 02(02), 114–122. https://doi.org/10.4236/gep.2014.22016

Alina Bradford, S. P. (2022). What are the effects of global warming? https://www.livescience.com/37057-global-warming-effects.html 

Michael E. Mann. (2022). global warming. https://www.britannica.com/science/global-warming NASA. (2010). Global Warming. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/GlobalWarming/page2.php#:~:text=The%20atmosphere%20today%20contains%20more,surface%2C%20Earth’s%20surface%20temperature%20rises. 

Netflix. (2021). Don’t Look Up. Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/id-en/title/81252357 NOAA National Centers. (2020). Global Climate Report - Annual 2020.

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/202013#gtemp

nps.gov. (2021). How You Can Help Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions at Home. https://www.nps.gov/pore/learn/nature/climatechange_action_home.htm

Tan, R. R. (2016). A multi-period source–sink mixed integer linear programming model for biochar-based carbon sequestration systems. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 8, 57–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2016.08.001

United Nations. (2021). Climate and weather related disasters surge five-fold over 50 years, but early warnings save lives - WMO report. https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/09/1098662