‘The Newsroom’ warns of climate disaster

By Dan Bloom

CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — Aaron Sorkin, the Hollywood ace scriptwriter for movies and television — “The West Wing,” “The Social Network” and the current HBO hit series “The Newsroom” — grew up in a Jewish family in Scarsdale, New York  and graduated from Syracuse University n 1983, Then, like many young actors and writers, he took on a variety of odd jobs to pay the rent while he dreamed of being a voice of some kind in American culture: He had a job delivering singing telegrams, drove a cab, did some bartending at Broadway theaters as well.

Now, with The Newsroom,” Sorkin’s popular and sometimes controversial HBO three-season series starring Jeff Daniels and Emily Mortimer, he’s giving lectures on climate change and global warming, with some powerful, enscorcelled writing embedded in three Season 3 episodes that aired this fall.  Sorkin’s not a climate activist and he’s not a scientist, but his recent scripts featuring a government Environmental Protection Agency spokesman played by actor Paul Lieberstein were major “cli fi” moments on American television.

In episode 3 of this season’s 6-part series, Sorkin and his team of writers set up an interview with a character named ”Richard  Westbrook” from the EPA. In the show, Westbrook is the deputy assistant administrator of the EPA in Washington. While being interviewed “live” on air in the ‘News Night’ studio that is part of “The Newsroom” set. Lieberstein starts off by telling news anchor Will McAvoy some devastating facts about the current CO2 levels in the Earth’s atmosphere. He says we’ve reached the 400 parts-per-million level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now and it looks bad for the future of humankind.

Westbrook goes on to shock everyone watching the show at home and in in the mock TV studio by basically saying that the levels current 400  ppm levels represent an insurmountable problem and that there is no way to reverse the effects of levels this high. Was Sorkin being edgy — or using over-the-top humor — with this bit of dialogue? Or did he insert this segment in the show in a wake-up call kind of way?

Bloggers and TV critics around the nation are debating these HBO ”cli fi” moments, and some are applauding Sorkin’s courage and others are criticizing him left and right. By having his character Westbrook say on a major American television show that basically it’s curtains for the human race and it’s too late to do anything about it, Sorkin has upped the ante.

Could this happen one day in real life, or is this just Aaron Sorkin ranting?

While Sorkin mentions in the show that few people in America are paying attention to global warming news, he also uses some humor and comic relief to make the dialogue less threatening to viewers watching at home. But at least he got the edgy conversation into the show, and the show has aired worldwide now.

Not everyone liked what they saw and heard. Said one pundit, a climate denialist on the right: “It appears that the creator of the HBO series, Aaron Sorkin not only wants to end the show with a bang but take down the entire world with it.”

Here are some snippets of the dialogue:

When the EPA’s Westerbook tells the news anchor during a live interview on the show that ”the latest measurements taken at Mauna Loa in Hawaii indicate a CO2 level of 400 parts per million,” the nchor asks: ”Just so we know what we’re talking about, if you were a doctor and we were the patient, what’s your prognosis? 1000 years? 2000 years?”

Westbrook, looking straight into the camera, replies: “A person has already been born who will die due to catastrophic failure of the planet.”

When the anchor asks him to expand on what he just said, Westbrook adds:  ”The last time there was this much CO2 in the air, the oceans were 80 feet higher than they are now. Two things you should know Half the world’s population lives within 120 miles of an ocean.”

“Humans can’t breathe under water,” Sorkin has his EPA character say.

“What might all this look like?” the anchor asks, looking shocked.

Westbrook, without missing a Sorkin-beat, says: “Well, mass migrations, food and water shortages, spread of deadly disease, endless wildfires. Way too many to keep under control. Storms that have the power to level cities, blacken out the sky, and create permanent darkness.”

”Americans are optimistic by nature,” Sorkin-Westbroook adds in the dialogue. “And if we face this problem head on, if we listen to our best scientists, and act decisively and passionately, I still don’t  see any way we can survive.”

Now American television shows are not supposed to go down this “doom  and gloom” road when talking about climate change and global warming, but Aaron Sorkin used his star power in Hollywood to make a difference in the way U.S. shows deal with vital issues. I loved it.

But not everyone is happy with what Aaron Sorkin has done. Some critics are calling for his head. I’m calling for an Emmy for his writing skills.

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Bloom, based in Taiwan, is a freelance writer, inveterate web surfer and a climate activist.  He may be contacted via dan.bloom@sdjewishworld.com