Mother Jones
Snowpiercer, directed by Bong Joon-ho and starring Chris Evans, is an ambitious, critically acclaimed new thriller. “While Transformers mucks up cineplexes with its ugly bombast, here, as an alternative, is something truly special, a unique and bracing science-fiction film that stirs both heart and mind,” raves Vanity Fair.
Like so many action films that came before it (both the smart and the monumentally silly), Snowpiercer has political relevance pumping through its veins. In the future, a corporate attempt to reverse the devastating effects of global warming goes horrifically wrong: The experiment ends up murdering most of the planet. Survivors live aboard the Snowpiercer, a train—equipped with a perpetual-motion engine—where the rich and pampered live at the front and the poor and unwashed at the rear. Bloody class warfare ensues.
You get the message.
Here’s Bong discussing the corporate critique and climate-change angle of his film, in an interview with CraveOnline:
In Snowpiercer, it’s more about how big business tries to both use and control nature. And how it backfires on them. Nature takes its revenge and sends them back to the ice age. This is an aspect that is different from the graphic novel source material (by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette). I wanted to make a story change because I felt that climate change is more current of an issue and will continue to be, because it’s not in the interest of big business to change, but to control.
Basically, it’s an action movie in which corporate power takes extreme measures to attack the climate, instead of overhauling the way they do business for the sake of the world. They screw over human civilization, and the rest of the film goes the class-division route. “The poor are in the back and the rich are in the front,” Bong told CraveOnline. “So this created an opportunity to talk about the political ideas involved and really examine human nature and why those systems exist. What would we actually discover if they were taken on? We don’t know because it’s so large and affects billions of people. Having a few survivors is a sci-fi element that makes it easier to explore these ideas.”
On that note, here’s a trailer for Snowpiercer:
This article is from:
“Snowpiercer”: The Best Post-Apocalyptic Film About Class Warfare You’ll See All Summer
As the largest living penguin species, the emperor penguin reaches four feet in height and 100 pounds in weight. In some ways, this iconic bird could be considered one of the most successful bird species in the world. While most birds spend half their lives flying south, emperors got as far south as you can get, put on a nice tuxedo, and then gave up flying all together.
Now the dapper dressers are in trouble — these emperors may have no clothes, but that doesn’t mean they’re looking forward to a warming world, according to a new study in Nature Climate Change:
The researchers’ analysis of the global, continent-wide Emperor penguin population incorporates current and projected future [sea ice concentration] declines, and determined that all of the colonies would be in decline — many by more than 50 percent — by the end of the century, due to future climate change.
“If sea ice declines at the rates projected by the IPCC climate models, and continues to influence Emperor penguins as it did in the second half of the 20th century in Terre Adélie, at least two-thirds of the colonies are projected to have declined by greater than 50 percent from their current size by 2100,” said Jenouvrier. “None of the colonies, even the southern-most locations in the Ross Sea, will provide a viable refuge by the end of 21st century.”
The authors of the study recommend not only adding emperor penguins to the endangered species list, but beginning the search now for possible refuges.
These estimates only go out to the end of the century. Perhaps climate change will be mindful of our Gregorian calendars, but if the world continues to warm past Dec. 31, 2100, the loss of sea ice will be even worse. In addition to the loss of ice, the penguins are up against declining food supplies. Antarctic krill, tiny shrimp-like animals, form the pillar of the Antarctic food chain. Climate change could reduce their range 20 percent over the coming century and in some areas their biomass could take a staggering 68 percent hit, affecting birds, fish, and whales that depend on them. Combined with the loss of sea ice, the loss of the krill would make for a devastating one-two punch to the emperor penguin.
The danger faced by emperor penguins is poignant. No animal stands as a greater symbol of the icy Antarctic than the emperors, and sadly, just as the equally imperiled polar bears, the face of climate change in the Arctic, they share the same fate as their increasingly less frozen home.
Jim Meyer is a Baltimore-based stand-up comedian, actor, retired roller derby announcer, and freelance writer. Follow his exploits at his website and on Twitter.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy
Continued here:
Climate change making emperor penguins’ feet a lot less happy
Continue reading:
Link to original:
Today’s DDT? Scientists Declare Bee-Killing Pesticides Must Be Banned
Double-decker invasive species illustrate the extent of the disruption of river ecosystems from human activities. This article is from: Ecology in the Age of Us – Double-Decker River Invaders Related ArticlesCelebrating a Reviving River Through Sail and SongTwo Climate Analysts Weigh the Notion of a ‘Good’ Path in the AnthropoceneIndian Point’s Tritium Problem and the N.R.C.’s Regulatory Problem
View article:
See original article –
See the article here:
Libros
