Global Warming Brings Us a 1950s Sci-Fi World

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time watching old science fiction movies on TV. The plots varied some, but the movies always had a reasonable scientist who properly performed his research and warned of coming disaster, lest the world continue in its foolhardy practices. The movies always had beautiful and vulnerable young women. And, of course, there were always the world-threatening cataclysms—like giant grasshoppers or giant bunny rabbits that killed, destroyed, and threatened all of civilization—that came to fruition because the world did not heed the warnings of the reasonable scientist. And there was always the brave hero who, on the advice of the reasonable scientist, took some bold action to kill off the giant critters and ensure civilization its survival while the beautiful and vulnerable young woman fell in love with him.

            Maybe all that time in front of the television wasn’t wasted, and it actually prepared me for life in the twenty-first century and the science fiction headlines that are becoming common due to climate change.

            In the Guardian today, two stories tell us about the science fiction world we now live in. We learn that the folks in the Marshall Islands, a country comprising a group of Pacific atolls between Hawaii and Australia, are seriously concerned that their entire nation could become uninhabitable in the next 30 to 60 years. The islands are only an average of about six feet above sea level, and the rising ocean threatens increased occurances of flooding as well as increasing the salinity of their groundwater supplies.

            Even for places that are high and dry global warming threatens crops, health, and living standards. Hundreds of agricultural pests that have been confined to the warmer parts of the world are moving north and south at a rate of almost two miles per year. That is the conclusion drawn by British scientists who studied data that has been collected for the last 50 years on over 500 tropical pests. As these pests advance into temperate climates, it could increase the costs of food or even lead to serious shortages.

            Reasonable scientists have been warning us about these kinds of climate change scenarios, but I’m afraid that there won’t be any brave heroes to save the world this time.

Nobody listens to the reasonable scientist and the giant grasshoppers attack the Wrigley Building in Chicago. Maybe the sugar in the gum attracts them.  From  Beginning of the End, AB-PT Pictures Corp. 1957