The sequel to the 1982 science-fiction classic “Blade Runner,” which opens nationwide Friday, looks to give climate change a starring role, according to official summaries and timelines released by the film’s production house.
Set 30 years in the future from the original film’s 2019 setting, “Blade Runner 2049” shows an Earth devastated by the ravages of climatic shifts in temperature and sea-level rise, which has plunged large chunks of Los Angeles into the Pacific Ocean.
The film’s website says L.A. has been forced to erect a colossal sea wall around the remaining parts of the city. By the looks of it, the wall also generates electricity through a complex hydropower conduit and wave-power system.
Los Angeles is also 30 or more degrees cooler and subject to sub-arctic blasts. The area outside the city has hundreds of solar thermal power plants similar to the current Ivanpah facility in California. But they all appear to be dormant. It looks like war may be behind that.
The film’s official timeline talks about the detonation of a nuclear weapon over the U.S. that created an intense electromagnetic pulse that fried all electronics and crippled the U.S. for months.
The EMP could have killed off the solar power plants, leaving millions of acres of solar junkyard behind.
The film also looks at contemporary ideas of replacing cattle and sheep farming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by limiting industrial-scale animal processing. It’s an idea that has grown in popularity in Europe, where restaurants offer insect protein as a substitute to beef, lamb, and chicken.
But in “Blade Runner 2049,” the idea of surviving on worms and insect larvae doesn’t look that appealing. The film suggests humans eating insects as their sole source of protein is a harsh proposition at best. Reports from two years ago suggest they don’t offer enough protein to make eating them worthwhile.
In the film, genetic engineers scrape out a living trying to craft new strains of worms and what appears to be leeches for humanity to survive on, while mega-corporations create monopolies by keeping people from starving.
As far as the film’s politics, “Blade Runner 2049” does not appear to be trying to make a statement on climate change. Like the first film, it offers only enough explanation to drive the story. The rest is left to the viewer to interpret.
