https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-72372-9_11

Geoengineering and the Evolution of Dueling Precautions

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   - Kalyani Robbins
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Abstract

2018 witnessed the release of a number of films depicting a new kind of
future dystopia. Instead of the usual portrayal of psychological,
technological, and political horrors of future dystopias, we have begun to
see an increasing emphasis on humans surviving in a world with no natural
ecosystems left intact. For example, the new *Blade Runner* film takes
place in a future with no remaining trees – not one – and artificial
sources of nutrition instead of agriculture. In the recent Spielberg
film *Ready
Player One*, people must escape into a virtual reality world because the
real world is unlivable, having been stripped of all natural resources and
devastated by climate change. This trend in depressing entertainment
reflects both an increased awareness of the extremely serious environmental
issues facing our planet (including biodiversity loss and climate change)
and a complete failure to appreciate our dependence on a functioning
planet, and its associated ecosystem services, in order to survive. Without
ecosystem services life doesn’t simply become unpleasant – it is over.
Seeing healthy surviving protagonists living in a future with a
completely-destroyed planet is perhaps the greatest fictional aspect of
these films, and yet it is the least noticed. Because of our dependence on
ecosystem services for survival, biodiversity is more than just our canary,
it is the entire coal mine around us. In other words, we will not be able
to save ourselves after failing to save everything else.

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