James Cameron says "people need to wake the fuck up" about climate change

By Sam Barsanti  |  September 10, 2019 | 8:13pm
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James Cameron says "people need to wake the fuck up" about climate change
Photo: Lintao Zhang

Everyone thought it was ridiculous to make a bunch of Avatar sequels when very few people have fond memories of the original, but maybe the reason James Cameron was so desperate to make these movies happen is that he realized nobody actually paid attention to the first one. See, the military people were bad guys, because they wanted the Unobtanium at any cost—even if it meant destroying a planet with their big machines. Meanwhile, the cat people were good guys because they wanted to protect their environment. Got it? Protecting the environment is good, and military jerks who want to destroy the environment are bad.

It seems pretty easy, and yet our planet is still on the verge of destruction, evidently necessitating the creation of a lot more Avatar movies. Now, though, Cameron is no longer content to hit just hit us over the head with allegories about climate change, taking a more direct approach in a recent chat with Variety by saying, “people need to wake the fuck up” about climate change. “We’re going the wrong direction as fast as possible,” he adds, saying humanity is like “Thelma and Louise…driving straight toward the canyon at 90 miles per hour with the radio cranked up and the top down.”

That sounds fun, but it probably won’t be fun when the planet is on fire and we’re waging wars for clean water. Anyway, Cameron and his wife, Suzy Amis Cameron, are doing what they can to fend off climate change, like investing in plant-based food company Verdient Foods and working to try and change the enormous carbon footprint of the beef industry. We would also like to suggest that Cameron try looking at the bottom of the oceans for a magical new sci-fi element that the can call Cameronium, but then we’ll still have to worry about the Biotic Wars happening someday. Hulu’s Future Man is a documentary, right?

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