Lessons to fight climate change from “The Terminator”

Brut America

"This movie doesn't have a storyline except constant alarm, which cannot be sustained."  Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke at his Austrian World Summit about why we must rethink our messaging on climate change...

Transcript

00:00If pollution created by humans,

00:03then we can solve it, humans can solve it,

00:05we can kill it, we can terminate it.

00:08You know, people think of the Terminator movies

00:10that they were just action movies,

00:13but there's actually a lot of philosophy in them.

00:17Take this movie, The Terminator,

00:20it's a movie about the Terminator.

00:23It's a movie about the Terminator,

00:25it's a movie about the Terminator,

00:26it's a movie about the Terminator,

00:29take that line, there is no fate,

00:32but what we make for ourselves.

00:35The Terminator movies portrayed the apocalypse of machines

00:38trying to control our lives.

00:40It was a frightening dystopian world,

00:44but there's one thing, and that is the Terminator movies

00:47did not dwell on hopelessness of a solution.

00:52No, they focused on human will and on human hope.

00:56Yet frequently, I hear environmentalists

00:59talking about the existential threat of climate change.

01:05The existential threat, we are going to be eliminated.

01:12And what does the public hear?

01:14The icebergs are melting, the rainforests are burning,

01:20the coral reefs are dying, the polar bears are starving,

01:24and our cities will be flooded,

01:25and our farms will dry up,

01:27and our coastlines will be wiped out,

01:30and there will be famine and starvation,

01:32and people will be fleeing the heat and the rising water,

01:35and there will be wars.

01:39And by the way, don't use fossil fuels,

01:45don't use plastic, don't eat meat.

01:49Is it any wonder that people are confused and tuned out?

01:55This movie doesn't have a storyline

01:56except constant alarm, which cannot be sustained.

02:01The problem is not that we are wearing ourselves out here,

02:13but we are wearing the public out.

02:15To change the metaphor,

02:19our shotgun approach is not working.

02:23We are trying to hit all of those targets at once.

02:26We need to have one target.

02:29I say focus on pollution.

02:32Focus on one thing.

02:34Everyone gets what pollution is,

02:36it is simple to identify and to understand

02:38because you can see it coming out of the smokestacks.

02:42If pollution created by humans, then we can solve it,

02:46humans can solve it, we can kill it, we can terminate it.

02:50You see, there's so many great things,

02:52as a matter of fact, going on in the world,

02:54that I only always hear everyone talking about the negative.

02:58The world is coming to an end.

02:59Why aren't we conveying some sense of encouragement

03:02and hope to the people?

03:03That's my question.

03:05I mean, if we are in a crisis,

03:07isn't it better to encourage people

03:10rather than to beat up on them?

03:12People need encouragement, not just threat and despair.

03:16See, my concern is that the constant trumpet

03:18of telling people how huge the obstacles are,

03:21at some point undermines their will to accept and to act.

03:27It can defeat the morale of one person or millions.

03:32We must not let our communication

03:34convince the general public that it is time to surrender

03:37when it comes to climate change

03:40because we need the people and we will never surrender.

03:45We will never give up.

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