Fallout: A Nuclear Romance (Part 1)

By Cailin Reedy

A male hero and his companion Dogmeat set out for the Commonwealth's wasteland in Bethesda's "Fallout 4."

The "Fallout" series is perhaps one of the most expansive open-world video game franchises in existence. Its virtual maps span more than half of the United States, allowing players to explore vast expanses of the irradiated American wilderness and the settlements that have sprung from broken 1960s cityscapes.

As I’ve noted before, our culture has a weird fascination with the apocalypse, especially the apocalypse as a leveling factor that facilitates adventure and heroism. But the environmental impact isn’t something that’s often readily discussed among such fan bases, especially in a video game series such as "Fallout" where radiation damage can be easily mitigated through medicine. Disturbingly mutated humans and animals are a common occurrence in the Wasteland.

The newest game in the franchise, "Fallout 4," is no exception.  It takes place in an area called the Commonwealth, or what used to be the cities of Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. "Fallout 3" included the nearby Capital Wasteland, the irradiated remains of Washington D.C. and its surrounding territories. Like the other games, "Fallout 4" contains a huge variety of Atomic Age science fiction tropes as well as postmodern takes on such ideas.

But the idea that nuclear warfare is cool endures. The apocalypse is not something to prevent in such games, unless it suits the player’s whims to keep the Wasteland from becoming any worse over the course of the game. The natural environment is already ruined, and though at key points in the game the player may be given some sway over whether general living conditions become worse in the area, the damage is already done. In some cases, such as in a recent update, players can even further destroy the environment.

With the endurance of a franchise built on the smoldering ruins of a postmodern nuclear wasteland, it’s doubtful that environmentalism will enter into "Fallout" any time soon.

Back to the Earth with WALL-E

By Cailin Reedy

Many environmental films take the form of documentaries on the given subject. They usually run between one and three hours in length. They feature a single problem or group of people to focus in-depth on a single scenario. And they tend to follow similar patterns: here is a problem, here is how we fix it and here is what happens if we’re too late. Viewers who aren’t interested in hearing such dire prognoses for the planet might not be interested in watching them.

But alternatives to such depressing environmental documentaries do exist, and according to technology magazine Wired, one of the “most powerful” environmental films of the 2000s is a Disney animated movie.

The film is "WALL-E," and it is anything but depressing. The plot centers around a steward robot, named WALL-E (or Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class), left behind on a post-apocalyptic Earth to collect trash and junk. After he meets another robot, EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), the two discover a seedling growing on the barren planet. Eventually, because they believe the planet has healed itself after extensive pollution and warfare, humans return to Earth and find it still largely barren.

“It looks like Earth. But where’s the blue sky? Where’s the grass?” one character, the human captain of the spaceship, remarks when the crew makes landfall. That question encompasses the theme of the film: people have an “ideal” vision of what Earth and nature should be, but many are still unmotivated when it comes to keeping Earth in such a state, especially if it takes more than a bit of easy work.

It’s not only Wired that believes "WALL-E" to be effective on the environmental front. TIME Magazine named "WALL-E" the “Best Movie of the Decade,” though Disney and Pixar continue to disavow the film’s environmental implications. But even if Disney doesn’t want to officially step on any toes, the film's message continues to speak for itself. And it may be the hopeful message people need to start changing for the better.

The Environment After Tomorrow

By Cailin Reedy

Buildings collapse in 2012 as a result of global natural disaster.

America loves the apocalypse. Movies like "The Day After Tomorrow" and "2012" describe the potential consequences of environmental disaster: volcanoes erupt, ice storms cover New York, and half of California falls into the ocean. But these consequences might not be as far-fetched as we think.

According to research conducted by the University of Southampton, global warming could actually cause a period of falling temperatures if it occurs in tandem with a collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. The AMOC is the ocean current that forces cold water southward and warm water to the north. The research used the state-of-the-art climate model ECHAM at the Max-Planck Institute in Hamburg, Germany.

In "The Day After Tomorrow," global warming and the AMOC collapse kick off intense and immediate global change, including a violent freeze-over of the entire northern hemisphere. In "2012," the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts and begins a chain of freak natural accidents: super tidal waves overturn cruise liners out at sea, earthquakes destroy the west coast, mountains shift and billions of people die.

But the realistic predictions are much less dramatic. Research found that if such a collapse occurred in tandem with global warming, the Earth would cool for 20 years. Global warming would continue as normal, but with an offset of -33.44 degrees Fahrenheit. The Earth would return to normal temperatures within 40 years, the research predicted, but the area near the eastern boundary of the North Atlantic would take up to a century to return to normal.

Although the real changes might not be as dramatic as the movies would have us believe, these cinematic predictions aren’t as wild as we think. Even the most far-fetched environmental action flick has its basis in science. And unless people around the world change what we can for the better, someday we’ll be faced with the reality of the day after tomorrow.