Guest essay by David Archibald –

They used to be against us, but now Hollywood is on the side of the angels in mocking global warming

The science of climate has had intense scrutiny for the last ten years and more with the result that we now know why the planet warmed in the second half of the 20th century and why it is going to cool instead from here. Yet the meme of global warming continues, seemingly unstoppable and immune to facts.

Politically, global warming peaked out at COP 15 in Copenhagen in December 2009 when heads of state of countries accounting for the bulk of the world’s GDP were in attendance. They don’t bother to attend now – it is mainly time-servers who turn up. But global warming’s momentum is still resulting in destructive and pointless legislation and regulation in the English-speaking parts of the planet.

Commercial storytelling in the form of movies has reinforced the global warming meme. As a plot device, global warming itself isn’t scary enough as the result of global warming would simply be warmer rain. So, for the movie world, global warming was somehow the cause of intense cooling. This was the plot device of the film The Day After Tomorrow in which the protagonist battles wolves in a frozen New York.

A movie just out, Kingsmen: The Secret Service, indicates that the cultural tipping point has been reached. It is now safe and commercially profitable for moviemakers

to mock belief in global warming. The plot is that an evil billionaire by the name of Richard Valentine believes that humans, who cause global warming, are a virus killing the planet. To stop global warming, he sets out to kill a large proportion of humanity. His evil plan, which is much the same as the dreams of the green movement, is thwarted by people who dress well and have impeccable manners.

Instead of working against truth and beauty, Hollywood is now on the side of the justly righteous. The next stage will be when, to indicate a character’s gullibility, insanity or mental instability, it is mentioned that he once believed in global warming. Of course Hollywood does not have any moral scruples and mocking global warming is only a business decision. But mocking something is the first stage of destroying it and we should be duly thankful.

David Archibald is a visiting fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington.

His most recent book is Twilight of Abundance (Regnery, 2014).

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