Sometimes an issue’s best barometer is external to it. Such is the case for the climate-change agenda and the box-office bombing of Tom Cruise’s current movie, "Digger." Both agenda and movie are losing their audiences.
By now everyone has heard of the dual drubbing Tom Cruise’s "Digger" is receiving. First, it was panned by critics. Now, it is being ignored by audiences. Together, these have garnered the movie negative box-office headlines and put it well on its way to making the list of all-time money-losers.
Although the canary may not be dead in climate change’s coal mine, it is no longer singing.
Both outcomes are surprising. Critics have been very kind in the past to Tom Cruise and his projects. And the public has been kinder still, making him one of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars.
More surprising than either is the fact that one of the world’s biggest stars and one of the world’s most discussed issues would come together in such a pratfall.
Yes, there have been notable examples where the climate-change agenda seemed to show signs of wobbling. Bill Gates released a famous statement last year that said the “doomsday view of climate change” was “wrong.” Gates suggested acceptance and talked about working to address climate change’s impact (“to put human welfare at the center of our climate strategies”) rather than continue seeking to reverse it.
This June, Jamie Dimon issued a warning to Europe, home of climate change’s greatest adherents and policy implementers, that these countries were killing themselves economically. As Dimon noted that Europe’s GDP had fallen from 90% of the U.S.’ to just 70%, the connection was unmistakable.
Not long ago too, the U.N. dropped the severest estimate of climate change’s potential impact from its impact projections.
All were telltale signs of shift, but they were easy to miss or dismiss, especially considering the enormous coverage that the climate change agenda has received and the huge financial resources committed (an estimated $1 trillion in the U.S. alone) to it.
RELATED: Don’t let anyone spoil ‘Digger’ for you
Image courtesy of Warner Brothers
It is safe to say that climate change has been the most consistently uninterrupted major issue for policymakers and the public alike for decades now. Everyone knew which way the wind was blowing, and almost everyone sought to burnish their green bona fides accordingly.
Overlooked, though, was the shift that was occurring beneath the headlines. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and especially since the Iranian conflict began, the focus has been on the price of oil, not its usage. Lost in this contemporary focus was any serious mention of getting away from oil. Neither was mention made that, from a climate-change devotee’s perspective, higher oil prices are a good thing.
The focus has all been on the negative impact of higher oil prices, on the need for getting them lower, and on the need for making oil supply routes more secure.
As important as all these underground indicators of the climate-change agenda’s retrenchment are, "Digger" may be an even more important one. The combined failure of one of Hollywood’s biggest studios, one of the world’s biggest stars, and one of the world’s (until recently, at least) biggest issues may be a signal that the public no longer cares so much. It has moved on.
"Digger" and climate change: a related occurrence in an unrelated area. It calls to mind another familiar analogy of the canary in the coal mine. Although the canary may not be dead in climate change’s coal mine, it is no longer singing.