Not Our Project

 

On the Fourth of July weekend, we watched the hit movie Project Hail Mary on streaming.  Like the novel by Andy Weir, it was engaging and entertaining.  My impression is that his stories proceed in a long line of science fiction, back perhaps to Jules Verne but certainly to the first generations of American science fiction writers, many of them scientists or engineers, who built their stories around plausible technologies and current scientific theories or speculations: the so-called hard science fiction.  Others like early Stanislaw Lem also appear in this lineage.  

Weir also absorbs influences from science fiction movies and television, with references in this movie specifically to Star Trek, Star Wars, Superman and E.T., for example.  That lineage includes 1950s films that set the basic familiar framework of this story: a threat to life on earth is detected, governments of the Earth (perhaps after initial skepticism) or (in some cases) wealthy patrons find scientists to discover a solution and, with the help of the military or other action-oriented entity, go on a dangerous adventure to solve the problem, eliminate the danger and save the planet.

There is an additional lineage in science fiction in which the story is a metaphor for some current or just-identified social problem or danger from a technology itself.  This goes back to H.G. Wells and certainly includes the aforementioned Star Trek.  These stories may offer the same kind of adventure, but with perhaps more relevance to a current concern. 

So part of my response to the Hail Mary movie was the same as my response to the book when I read it five years ago or so.  Instead of constructing a story around the very real threat to the planet of climate distortion, Weir invented a kind of opposite danger: some kind of cosmic force was causing the sun to dim, so the planet would die from the cold.  

The movie is an even better illustration of why he did it than the novel.  It is dramatic--there is a visible antagonist (which in this case doesn't appear to be conscious or at least intentional), and solution requires very dramatic tech: a completely new and fabulously equipped spacecraft fueled by a new source (ironically by the very force that threatens the planet), on a space journey of unprecedented and otherwise impossible distance to another star, and eventually the cooperation of a previously unknown alien species, vaguely on the level of humans.  

To achieve this--to identify the problem, marshal the resources and expertise, a powerful organization created and supported by the world's governments is apparently given vast power and a blank check. This does not seem to be an irrational response to an imminent threat to all life on Earth.  

When watching the movie, however, and especially the portrayal of Eva Stratt, the head of this organization, as played by Sandra Huller, I could not help thinking of the organization created by the United Nations to confront climate distortion which came to be known as the Ministry for the Future in Kim Stanley Robinson's novel of that same title, and its chief, Mary Murphy.  It is also a fictional response to a threat to life on Earth, which in this case happens to be very, very real.

Although there is dramatic action in KSR's novel which spreads over decades, there is no shiny spaceship or life and death drama in space confronting a phenomenon that can be seen in real time.  KSR's novel may yet make a fine movie, but it will likely not be anything like Weir's.  

Still, the idea that the world would unite and offer unlimited resources to keep the sun from dimming and freezing the Earth is rational and reasonable.  Whether it is realistic is another question.  Perhaps an easily identified "enemy" or cause, in the present, would make a difference.  But that's clearly not happening anywhere near that extent in addressing climate distortion, and even the few commitments previously made--resulting from the Paris Accords, for example-- seem to be slowly but effectively fading.

Is there a Project Hail Mary applied to climate distortion possible in the real future?  The reference is to the Hail Mary pass in football, a desperate heave at the end of the game, often covering 50 yards or more, into the end zone to possibly--but not likely--win the game.  It's named after the Catholic prayer, and was first used in the 1930s to describe a play by the Catholic university of Notre Dame, at the time the most famous football team in America.  The problem applying it to climate distortion is that there appears to be no single solution once it has taken hold, and addressing the causes of future distortion must begin years earlier. That and other complexities are dealt with admirably in KSR's novel.  It requires focused and consistent commitment over time. 

But in addressing the very real and growing threats to life on Earth posed by human-caused greenhouse gas pollution and related ecological attacks like ocean acidification and various threats that together could lead to mass extinction, which certainly threaten human civilization and life as we know it, if not-- in the worst situations--humanity itself...such focused and comprehensive commitment is not happening, let alone a powerful organization working on it.  Even though this threat has been known for decades, and right now is as plain as the sunburn on your face.

We continue every day, even as the climate distortion underway becomes more obvious and obviously dangerous, to look away.  We assign confronting them to our nightmares and as expressed in the major themes of futuristic stories in our time: dystopias and zombie apocalypse.  

Take this Fourth of July.  Held during an intense heat wave, the official Washington celebration of the 250th anniversary was centered in a faux state fair grounds, with tents surrounding a vast central area without shade or shelter on the mall.  There was no apparent protection from the heat of even a normally hot Washington summer; apparently not even water.  (One woman reported that the only water she could find was a concession selling a bottle of it for $5.  But they'd actually run out of it--and still they refused to even refund her money.)  As a result, hundreds were treated or evaluated for heat-related illness at area hospitals, even though the events were badly attended. 

Officials were able to evacuate the grounds when the heat became too intense, and again when lightning and thunderstorms threatened, but when they tried again to cancel evening events on the mall because of an approaching lightning storm, they were countermanded by the White House so King Chaos could speak and the fireworks go off. 

The fireworks themselves, billed as the largest display in history, created such a toxic environment that immediately afterwards, D.C. experienced "Code Red" air pollution--the worst of any major city in the world.   The New York Times reported that the smoke from the fireworks was so thick during the last 30 minutes that the fireworks themselves were not visible in the sky.  But the nearby lightning was.  

It wasn't only Washington.  Los Angeles also reported intense pollution expected from their fireworks.  Moreover, the fireworks everywhere sent tons of CO2 and other greenhouse and noxious gases into the atmosphere, to otherwise harm the sustaining water and air as well as other animals and plants, as they attack the health of vulnerable humans.  This at a time when other equally impressive kinds of displays by laser and drone are available.

A society that is serious about a long-term commitment to addressing the causes and effects of climate distortion would behave differently.  We apparently are not such a society.  This may be a small example, but it is a telling one.  We're in a different movie altogether.