cheshirekatus

I remember watching this and recording it when I was 14. It was the first real hint of "global warming" in mainstream media that I remember. I now work in the climate change field, and every time we see a new natural disaster I am brought back to this movie. The one thing we all need to remember is that even though the press has dubbed the current climate change event "global warming", the climate will become cooler and wetter in some parts of the US, drier and hotter and others, and warmer and wetter in still others. Seasonal information doesn't give us any more information than the obvious, its really cold or really hot, or damn its dry this year. What gives us information is to look at the trends over the last 20, 100, 1000, 10000, and even million years.

This movie is fair in acting and plot, but for 1993 it did take some good thinking to predict what natural disasters would be hitting the US in the next 20 years. I enjoy watching my old tape because of this, even if the movie is mediocre. Here are some of the more interesting plot lines: The year is 2005, and the plot follows a family on the gulf coast, before and after the aftermath of a category 5 hurricane. Previous to the hurricane, it is evident that there is a gas crisis, and fuel prices are so high that rationing has become the norm. There is some very interesting dialog between townsfolk and officials that claim the levees are up to par when the townsfolk know they are not. Needless to say the hurricane devastates the region. The family is forced to migrate north, and in the midst of this the father has to travel to California to find his son who is staying with the uncle. In California, water shortages are everywhere, and over 300 hundred fires are ravaging the state (which is happening now in northern Ca and last year happened with less fires in the southern Ca). The boy and his father have a falling out which leads the boy out to the southwest into water feuds and the immigration problems from Mexico. The mighty Colorado has dried up to a stream because of the over-contracting of water supplies to southern California. The plot then changes to more socio-political aspects of a non growth "green" town in New York state, and how the family will get across the border to Canada because the problems of the US has led them to close the borders much as we have between the US and Mexico.