Disney/Pixar’s new hit Wall-E is easily one of the best movie dystopias ever. It ranks with Blade Runner, Brazil, A Clockwork Orange, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, the Matrix, Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, and the first two Terminator movies.

Yes, Hollywood loves dystopias. Perhaps because it is one (okay, technically it is an anti-utopia).

I have a couple of reasons for writing about the movie. One is that we can expect to see more environmental dystopias as the painful reality of global warming becomes more and more obvious to all. Wall-E makes clear that even the most brutal satire of our self-inflicted environmental predicament can be a box office success, if it is well done. The second reason is the incredible irony of Disney making this movie.

As a film it is superb, a must see for children and adults. Critically acclaimed, it received a rare 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. The New Yorker‘s tough-to-please David Denby writes:

Watching Pixar’s animated film “WALL-E” must be a humbling experience for other filmmakers, because it demonstrates not just the number but the variety of ideas you need to make a terrific movie.

This may be the only major movie ever made that is both a dystopia and anti-utopia. In the dystopic first half, we see a lifeless post-eco-apocalyptic Earth overrun by toxic garbage, which is collected and compacted by our robotic hero, WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth-Class). WALL-E has become sentient by collecting and studying the waste of humanity, including an old tape of the movie Hello Dolly he plays over and over again.

In the anti-utopic second half, the megacorporation Buy ‘N Large had created a seeming paradise for humans on board “Executive Starliners” where every task has become automated. But hundreds of years after what was supposed to be a brief exodus while Earth was cleaned up, humans have become “a flabby mass of peabrained idiots who are literally too fat to walk.” These lazy, overweight video-addicts — whoever could the moviemakers be talking about? — are less human than WALL-E.

Though criticized by some conservatives as anti-capitalist, WALL-E is perhaps best described as one of the most anti-consumption movies ever made. That’s why even Michael Gerson, a Former Bush speechwriter known for his evangelical moralism, loved the movie and saw it as a daring attack on “a culture of consumption.”

As much as I loved the movie, I did find an odd disjunction….

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Gingrich is — and always has been — pro-pollution. His 527 is bought and paid for by the oil companies, so it’s no surprise he is touting the cruel offshore drilling hoax.

Notwithstanding Andy Revkin’s claim that Gingrich is part of a “move to the pragmatic center on climate and energy” or the We campaign’s Gingrich-Pelosi couch-fest on climate, Gingrich is pushing hard for standard conservative screw-the-climate solutions (see Eco-Gingrich says, “Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay More.”).

Now the Alaska Wilderness League has looked at the money funding his 527, “American Solutions for Winning the Future” in a report titled, “Follow the Money.” I know that you’ll be shocked to learn

The major donor list for Gingrich’s 527 reads like a “who’s who” of Big Oil’s backers. Robert Johnson IV, of the Johnson Company, Inc. and assistant chief attorney for the Exxon Mobil Production Company, contributed $50,000, while Dan W. Evins, an oil jobber for Shell who started the Cracker Barrel chain of restaurants, contributed $100,000.

None of this should be the least bit surprising to the media or anyone else, except of course those who have ignored Gingrich’s entire history and naively believed his new claim to be an environmentalist.

What is typically particularly lame about Ginigrich’s efforts is that the poll his 527 did to justify his drilling hoax plan doesn’t even trust the American people with honest choices. The front page of his website blares:

New Research on Energy Security
81% of Americans Support Greater Use of Domestic Energy Resources. MORE>>

Here was the question posed:

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It seems that Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) is crafting a plan that could lead to the inundation of Hawaii’s beaches, the extinction of its species, and the destruction of its water supply. Abercrombie and John Peterson (R-PA) are creating a “working group” to establish a “comprehensive, environmentally responsible energy plan,” whose members will be announced today. The centerpiece of this plan is opening protected coasts to drilling for more oil, as Abercrombie told the Hill:

Simply standing up and saying, you can’t drill your way out of this doesn’t work. The people are standing up and saying, “Yes, we can.”

The unique beaches, coral reefs, and oceanic ecosystems of Hawaii won’t be directly threatened by expanded offshore drilling, as the ocean that surrounds it doesn’t have fossil reserves. An oil spill or two could get tourists to flee the beaches of California, Florida, and the states of the eastern seaboard in favor of the Aloha State.

But in reality, Abercrombie’s advocacy of increasing fossil fuel production as a climate crisis looms will have deeper repercussions for this necklace of islands than perhaps any other state in the nation. Big Oil wants the world to keep burning fossil fuels at a rate that would increase global temperatures by five to seven times more than we’ve already experienced. Even more modest increases would spell catastrophe for islands like the Hawai’ian chain:

Rising Sea Levels Submerging Islands. In 2006, President Bush declared the 1200-mile chain of Northwestern Hawaiian Islands part of the largest marine sanctuary in the United States. But U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers found that “by 2100 up to 65 percent of some islands would be lost if the sea level rose 18.9 inches (48 centimeters), which is the average IPCC projection.” A 34.6 inch rise “could result in up to 75 percent of NWHI wildlife habitat disappearing.” Whale Skate Island, home to seals, turtles, and seabirds, has already disappeared under the waves. [Endangered Species Research, 2006]

Coral Reefs Dying. “The combined stress of global warming and ocean acidification” due to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases is already causing coral bleaching. “Especially in the state of Hawaii, we depend on the reefs for tourism as well as our economy. Also, recreational and commercial fisheries,” said Coral Reef Ecologist Ku’ulei Rodgers to NBC affiliate KHNL. “The coral reefs are the basis for all of the foundations and key species and if we lose the reefs we also will lose the fish and other organisms that are involved.” [KHNL, 7/2007]

Water, Wildlife, Economy Under Threat. In the 2007 legislation to cut Hawaii’s greenhouse gas emissions, the state legislature found, “The potential adverse effects of global warming include a rise in sea levels resulting in the displacement of businesses and residences and the inundation of Hawaii’s freshwater aquifers, damage to marine ecosystems and the natural environment, extended drought and loss of soil moisture, an increase in the spread of infectious diseases, and an increase in the severity of storms and extreme weather events.” Further, “Climate change will have detrimental effects on some of Hawaii’s largest industries, including tourism, agriculture, recreational, commercial fishing, and forestry.” [H.B. 226, 2007]

It is difficult to encapsulate the threat of global warming to these jewels of biodiversity. Everything from the unique snow-dependent wekiu bug on Mauna Kea to the Hawaiian monk seals are under threat. The destruction of Hawaii’s unique habitat is not just devastating to its wildlife. As the National Wildlife Federation notes, “At Honolulu, Nawiliwili and Hilo, sea level is already rising 6-14 inches per century, and the EPA estimates it is likely to rise another 17-25 inches by 2100. Sand replenishment to protect the coasts from a 20-inch sea level rise could cost $340 million to $6 billion.”

Abercrombie has criticized the Bush administration for its “obstruct, confuse and delay” strategy on global warming. His “drill, drill, drill” advocacy is no better.

*Assuming you mostly want to know about the nuclear licensing and relicensing process.

I will be testifying in front of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee this Wednesday at 10 am EST. It will be webcast. I’ll provide the link later.

First up are all of the commissioners of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I’m last on the second panel, most certainly after 11 a.m. EST, probably with just one Senator left, chairman Carper. Still, I’ll get my remarks and written testimony on the record. Excellent….

Here is an E&E Daily article, “Senate panel examines progress of new license review” on the subject:

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A major new study by the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) finds

Closing coal-fired power plants can have a direct, positive impact on children’s cognitive development and health….

[P]renatal exposure to coal-burning emissions was associated with significantly lower average developmental scores and reduced motor development at age two. In the second unexposed group, these adverse effects were no longer observed; and the frequency of delayed motor developmental was significantly reduced.

The full study in the July 14th Environmental Health Perspectives is available online: “Benefits of Reducing Prenatal Exposure to Coal Burning Pollutants to Children’s Neurodevelopment in China.” The study provides yet more evidence — if any were needed — to ban traditional coal plants: “elimination of prenatal exposure to coalburning emissions resulted in measurable benefits to children’s development.” This is a very sophisticated study, which used molecular markers to directly track exposure to coal plant emissions:

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Let’s face it: The Bush Administration has made a mess of things, as noted in Part 1. It is now clear, if it hasn’t been all along, that by the time George Bush leaves office, the White House will have wasted eight years of leadership on the Mother of All Issues.

If those eight years are a profound disappointment looking backward, then they are a profound tragedy looking forward. The head of the IPCC is spreading the message that the world community has seven short years to act decisively to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Dr. John Holdren is among the prestigious U.S. scientists who now say more openly that the affects of climate change already are upon us. Dr. Jim Hansen now estimates that atmospheric concentrations of carbon must level off at 350 ppm, nearly 30 percent lower than everyone thought was needed to keep climate change at “safe” levels. Anyone who’s paying attention sees that the impacts of global warming are occurring much faster than predicted.

If this year’s weather extremes are a sample of climate change, how much worse will they be 10 years, 20 years or 30 years from now, as today’s rising and accumulating emissions take their toll?

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