‘Don’t Look Up’: Hollywood’s Primer on Climate Denial Illustrates 5 Myths That Fuel Rejection of Science

Two research psychologists analyze the all-too-familiar aspects of climate science denial found in the blockbuster new film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence.

By Gale Sinatra, University of Southern California and Barbara K. Hofer, Middlebury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Every disaster movie seems to open with a scientist being ignored. “Don’t Look Up” is no exception – in fact, people ignoring or flat out denying scientific evidence is the point.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence play astronomers who make a literally Earth-shattering discovery and then try to persuade the president to take action to save humanity. It’s a satire that explores how individuals, scientists, the media and politicians respond when faced with scientific facts that are uncomfortable, threatening and inconvenient.

The movie is an allegory for climate change, showing how those with the power to do something about global warming willfully avoid taking action and how those with vested interests can mislead the public. But it also reflects science denial more broadly, including what the world has been seeing with COVID-19.

Continued at source…