Sizzle: a global warming comedy

Two years ago Randy Olson brought us Flock of Dodos, which examined the debate between those who think intelligent design creationism should be included in school science curricula and those who don't.¹ The film makes a powerful case that we, i.e. evolutionists, are part of the reason that intelligent design creationism has been so successful. Proponents of ID connect with people in ways that we don't. Sizzle argues that scientists are part of the reason that that climate skeptics have been so successful.

Let me clear. By "successful" I don't mean "successful in raising challenges that affect the overwhelming scientific consensus." I mean "successful in raising challenges that allow non-scientists to think that there are credible reasons to doubt the consensus." Proponents of ID and climate skeptics seem like nice, ordinary people. They talk in language that other ordinary people can understand. We talk like scientists, because we are.

After a production meeting in which Randy proposes a PowerPoint presentation for the movie because his cameraman kept interrupting and ruining the interviews,¹ his mother (Muffy Moose) sneaks out of the meeting with his cameraman and soundman for a night on the town. They tell her that Randy's movie is in trouble, and she tells Randy that he needs to listen to them. Soon they're off to New Orleans and the lower 9th ward to see how the richest country in the world recovers from a disaster.

Randy has a Ph.D. in marine biology. He's smart enough to know that (a) the connection between any single weather event and climate change is very indirect and tenuous and (b) there is (so far as I can tell) still legitimate debate about the extent to which climate change will increase the frequency and severity of hurricanes.² But the visit to the lower 9th ward is the most powerful part of the movie. It brings home the impact that global climate change could have on us, particularly when I read on Sunday yet another sign of Katrina fatigue: a memorial planned for the victims of Katrina is stalled. Colorful maps like the one to the left persuade me that we have a problem, but even though I'm a science geek,³ I find film from the lower 9th ward more emotionally compelling.