Use Case
I’ve been reading “A Vertical Empire” by C. N. Hill. It’s a rather interesting account of the British Rocketry programme from the 1950s until the cancellation of the satellite launch vehicle Black Arrow in 1971. The rocketry programme was technically excellent. There was an agreement between the UK and the US to share information on rocketry and they did. For the UK part, there was innovative work of interest to the US in silo research, solid rocket development, and research into re-entry. The last one was of such interest that US got involved with the experiments and worked on the Dazzle project using the Black Knight launch vehicles.
 |
| Black Arrow |
 |
| Blue Streak |
However, the programme was plagued by internal fighting within the government and between the RAF and the Royal Navy, bureaucrats with little understanding of the technical aspects and business opportunities, and politicians that waxed and waned in their support that led to sabotaging the programme and its eventual cancellation, although some rocketry did continue with Skylark until 2005 but that was a shadow of what was dome before Black Arrow was cancelled.
 |
| Black Knight |
In amongst all the internal fighting and irrational arguments against the programme there were some good objections; after the ballistic missile project using Blue Streak was cancelled there was no real use case for the rocketry programme. But what interested me about why the programme was cancelled was the point that the book made about the Zeitgeist of the time. There just was no popular support for the project at a time when the UK was facing severe financial and economic problems and the empire was in decline. The media mocked the programme and even the government ministries that did support the programme eventually gave up with it.
But there was an interest in space exploration. As has been pointed out in "A Vertical Empire", the Dan Dare stories in the Eagle comic "gave a whole generation of British boys... a totally false impression that Britain was going to dominate the space race". Doctor Who began in 1961, Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet come out in the 1960s, all popular shows. Maybe this interest was not enough to boost national interest in a real British space programme but I do wonder; could the UK have entertained itself into inaction? People who were interested in space and space exploration where too busy with watching fantasy on TV to actually be active in supporting a real space programme?
Global Warming
When I first moved to the north of Europe the typical January and February temperature was about -10o C during the day. Temperatures would, however, go down to -20o C quite often and there would be a handful of days where the temperature would drop to -30o C during the day. We haven't had a day time temperature of -30o C for years now. Seldom does the temperature go down -20o C and this year we have had quite a few days where the temperature oscillates around freezing. We have even had rain. Although weather is not climate and one year’s weather is not a good indicator of climate change there is a large body of evidence to say the planet we inhabit and keeps us alive is getting warmer due to human activity and the temperature patten I observe would fit into the idea of global warming.
Global warming is something we have known about for over a century but it was in the 1980s that it became more well established with scientific evidence. So, we can say that we have had since the 1980s to do something about it? And have we? Well, yes we have. Nothing effective as the planet is still warming. Basically we painted the façade green of a rotting house. The house is still rotting but it looks pretty and at least we did something.
One thing we have done is made the climate crisis in to entertainment. From “Soylent Green” in 1973, to “Don’t LookUp” in 2021. There’s “Day After Tomorrow”, “The Day The Earth Stood Still”, and “Avatar” to name but a few. We could even throw in “An Inconvenient Truth”. As for TV, I remember the climate crisis coming up in the first Doctor Who programme I watched; “Robot”. But there were other shows that the climate crisis came up in. I remember Tomorrow People but in more recent times we have shows like “Cowspiracy”. But even so, films and TV shows that includes global warming or climate change are still a very small part of an industry that has increased exponentially since the 1980s.
TV and films are not the only form of entertainment that has consumed more of our time since the 1980s. We have computer games taking off in the 1980s and today we can spend nearly eight hours a day engrossed in some form of digital entertainment whether it be games, TV, or on line content such a social media platforms. All this reminds me of “Tomorrowland” and a quote from Hugh Laurie’s character, Nix;
“To save civilization, I would show its collapse. But, how do you think this vision was received? How do you think people responded to the prospect of imminent doom? They gobbled it up like a chocolate éclair! They didn't fear their demise, they re-packaged it. It could be enjoyed as video-games, as TV shows, books, movies, the entire world wholeheartedly embraced the apocalypse and sprinted towards it with gleeful abandon.”
Question
We never had so much entertainment available to us in the history of out little planet. Yet, access to such entertainment has come at a time when we face potentially the most serious threat to our survival. One we are failing to deal with. So, are we entertaining ourselves into inaction?
Again from Hugh Laurie’s character in Tomorrowland;
“In every moment there's the possibility of a better future, but you people won't believe it. And because you won't believe it you won't do what is necessary to make it a reality.”
