Art imitates the destruction of our planet’s capacity to sustain life

By James J. Devine

“Main Justice” is an episode of The Newsroom, a drama that aired on HBO on November 23, 2014, and included an interview with Deputy Assistant EPA Administrator Richard Westbrook, a climate scientist who shared a report about the latest carbon dioxide (CO2) measurements taken at Mauna Loa in Hawaii.

Those measures indicated a CO2 level of 400 parts per million (ppm), crossing a long feared line at which the potential to reverse the consequences of climate change would be greatly diminished or even made impossible, like a point of no return.

In real life, the first time in human history that the 400 ppm level of CO2 in the air was reached on May 9, 2013. This 400 ppm milestone meant that for every million air particles, 400 of them are carbon dioxide molecules.

The last time global carbon dioxide levels were consistently at or above 400 ppm was around four million years ago during the Pliocene Era. Until the 20th century, it hadn’t exceeded 300 ppm for at least 800,000 years.

The concentration of carbon in the atmosphere intensifies the greenhouse effect, which warms the climate. Scientists found the accumulation of greenhouse gases pushes global temperatures up and they estimate that at 450 ppm, 2°C, which represents 35.6 degrees Fahrenheit, warming will occur. 

Imagine living comfortably in a place that is normally 70°F and then making it 105.6°F

Temperatures are rising, snow and rainfall patterns are shifting, and more extreme climate events – like heavy rainstorms and record-high temperatures – are becoming more common. Many of these observed climate changes are linked to rising levels of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, caused by human activities.

“A person has already been born who will die due to catastrophic failure of the planet,” said the climate expert. “The last time there was this much CO2 in the air, the oceans were 80 feet higher than they are now. Two things you should know… Half the world’s population lives within 120 miles of an ocean,” and “Humans can’t breathe underwater.”

“Well, mass migrations, food and water shortages, spread of deadly disease, endless wildfires. Way too many to keep under control. Storms that have the power to level cities, blacken out the sky, and create permanent darkness,” said a fictional expert who described what 400PPM carbon dioxide measurements taken at Mauna Loa in Hawaii meant, based on real facts as they were known in 2012, the time frame depicted in the show, although the teleplay aired in 2014.

That dramatization was used to illustrate a point by Lisa McCormick, a liberal Democrat who challenged Bob Menendez in New Jersey’s 2018 Democratic primary election and surprised observers by winning four of ten votes cast in that election with the help of an army of progressive volunteers that came together during Bernie Sanders’ first presidential campaign plus the attention shined on the incumbent lawmaker’s lack of integrity raised by his 11-week criminal trial in late 2017 and GOP candidate Bob Hugin’s attack ads.

McCormick pointed out in a series of social media posts that the calamities predicted decades ago, by Professor Carl Sagan in testimony before Congress in 1985, in the 1995 film The American President, in by Al Gore in the Inconvenient Truth movie in 2005, and on an episode of Newsroom in 2014, and in many other venues, have all come to prove true.

In May 2023, the average CO2 measurement at Mauna Loa was 424 ppm, which is 3 ppm higher than the May 2022 average. In March 2024, the average was 425.38 ppm, more than 4 ppm higher than the March 2023 average of 420.99 ppm.

So things continue getting worse and the results are not dissimilar to those described in the fictional rendition.

We have mass migrations of refugees fleeing poverty, climate disasters and violence in Europe, the Middle East and South America.

We have food and water shortages in African deserts and United States neighborhoods where inflation and low wages conspired to wreck the American Dream.

We have deadly diseases spreading such as the novel coronavirus, ebola, and whatever devastating pathogen we are going to meet for the first time tomorrow or the next day.

We have too many wildfires to keep under control, like the one in Hawaii and 100 others on the North American continent. In 2023, there were a total of 6,551 fires, which burned 45.7 million acres of land, that is up from 4,883 wildfires which scorched 3.6 million acres in 2022.

We have had storms that have the power to level cities,

We are going to have storms and endless wildfires that blacken out the sky and create permanent darkness. This was told to us on November 23, 2014.

This is not a surprise. Greta Thunberg is not a joke. Humankind faces catastrophic changes in climate patterns, sea level, ocean acidity, public health, and ecosystems due to climate change but so far there seems to be virtually no real effort aimed at curbing this disaster.

In the 1995 movie The American President, a character said that “global warming is a calamity, the effects of which will be second only to nuclear war.”

With military conflicts raging in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, plus American politicians apparently picking a fight with China over the island of Taiwan, nuclear war might put the climate crisis to rest.

We could have done something—many things—to avert the catastrophic results of climate change but instead, we elected Senator Bob Menendez, Senator Cory Booker, President Joe Biden, and other people who said they cared about global warming but did nothing.

In March 2024, the Mauna Loa Observatory recorded an average carbon dioxide content of 425.38 parts per million, which is more than six percent higher than the presumed tipping point described in the Newsroom episode.