Mark Evanier points out an article written by Elliot S! Maggin in the LA Times called Look! Up in the sky … It’s Al Gore! and I’m kicking myself for not making the connection earlier.
He writes about Jor-El, Superman’s Kryptonian father– you know, Marlon Brando–
…who was an eminent scientist whom the ruling “Science Council” of his world laughed out of the room when he told them that they were facing a planetary crisis: “Gentlemen, Krypton is doomed.”
But on Krypton, either the essential nature of scientists diverged from that of the open-minded and collaborative types with whom we are familiar here on Earth, or generations of “scientific” rule had befouled the Kryptonian leaders to the degree that they became as shortsighted and starchy as those who traditionally administer our own public affairs.
Like the Science Council, our leaders reacted with guffaws when one of our own rose to sound an earthshaking alarm.
Elliot’s absolutely right. (Al doesn’t thinks the planet will explode– but I do think he’s right that life is going to be damn uncomfortable for those who do make it through the impending mess.)
I’ve been wondering for a long time how people can be so shortsighted about the threat that global warming poses, particularly when it’s not all that hard to do things about it. At least I can console myself with literary precedent.
All I can say is that I hope somebody’s thinking about it, because I don’t think that anybody on this planet can build an interstellar rocket that can send a baby across light years– and you know what, to heck with the baby, I want to get off the planet.