1963: Twilight Zone Episode Speaks to Our Moment
September 5, 2021
2 minute compressed #TwilightZone episode is prophetic. “Old Man in the Cave” keeps community safe with science, until gun toting “freedom” lovers show up.
Rod Serling’s opener below.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
September 6, 2021 at 5:34 am
Listen to the medical, nursing, and public health experts once again.
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“The editorial, published today in over 230 medical, nursing, and public health journals across the world, demands international coordinated action to limit global temperature increases, restore biodiversity, and protect health.
Authors from outlets including the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the National Medical Journal of India and the Chinese Science Bulletin draw attention to the disproportionate risks climate change poses to vulnerable populations, and demand wealthier nations increase their current targets of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.
A radical redesign of society is required, the authors say, arguing governments should “transform societies and economies” by helping redesign transport systems, cities, production and distribution of food, markets and financial investments.”
https://www.desmog.com/2021/09/05/climate-crisis-public-health-carbon-emissions/
September 6, 2021 at 6:57 am
I forgot about that one (I remember first seeing it as a kid of age 10 or 11). The meaning is now much more clearer. Or as redskylite has pointed out, “the meanings”. Of course, I probably do not need to mention that all the Americans who voted for Trump last November are already living in a metaphorical cave so wouldn’t understand this 1963 gem from Rod Sterling. And if they did it would be labelled fake news via a time machine 🙂
September 6, 2021 at 7:30 am
Here is a better example in a 1961 episode titled: “The Rip Van Winkle Caper”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rip_Van_Winkle_Caper
Summary: a man commits a crime in the past to steal something valuable (gold bars); jumps in a time machine to escape the law; wakes up then walks in the desert only to learn that water is more valuable than gold; then he learns that gold has no value in the future.
You can see the irony here if you replace “gold” with “liquid gold” which was once a metaphor for petroleum. It may have no value in the future (coal has little value now)
There is a second lesson here: The Twilight Zone episode is master-minded by a scientist. In the real world, some misguided scientists see the allure of “making money now” more important than “the future of humanity” so they sign up to be paid accomplices in the fossil fuel industry’s “crime of misinformation” and delay.
September 6, 2021 at 12:17 pm
You’ve got to admit, it’s a lot less work than doing actual science. Nothing will cramp your opportunity to make the big bucks like having a moral compass. Think of all the rubes you could sucker….
September 6, 2021 at 12:18 pm
We are the scorpion on the frog’s back.