Doomsday movies

Avatar is the latest among a number of movies that seek to bring attention to the effect of human actions on the environment, climate and general hospitability of earth. Based on a fictional planet, the story nevertheless has many parallels on earth: over-industrialisation and unsustainable growth by humans, as opposed to environment friendly and harmonious existence of the indigenous race. It may be a coincidence that the movie came out during the much hyped, but disappointing Copenhagen Summit, but it has nevertheless boosted interest about the conference among the public. Recently, there has been a spate of such movies that predict and show various doomsday eventualities due to the unchecked ravaging of our planet by humans. The 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow was about the devastating effect of global warming, which brought about catastrophic weather patterns across the world. Even the endearing animated movie by Pixar, Wall-E, a love story between two robots, is based in the future where humans have polluted earth so much that all that is left are piles of rubbish all across the world. Humans live on a spaceship waiting for earth to be cleaned. Technology has advanced so much that they do not move at all to get anything, rendering them unhealthy, fat blobs. In 2005, the movie Waterworld depicted a scenario where all the major landmasses are submerged under water, and the surviving human population, pushed back to a near primitive level, live on boats and floating structures. Such movies work well to grab the attention of viewers and direct it towards environment conservation. Many scenarios depicted in movies may not be possible, but, nevertheless, the fact that human actions are harmful to the environment cannot be denied. Public action and imagination must be harnessed to arrest this impact. Such movies go a long way in helping us achieve that goal.