If You Think "Don't Look Up" Is Just an Allegory About Climate Change, You're Missing Something

This story was originally published by Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. It also contains spoilers for the film Don't Look Up. Streaming just in time for Christmas, Adam McKay's decidedly uncheery Netflix comedy, Don't Look Up, finds Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio playing a pair of intrepid astronomers as they try (and mostly fail) to warn the world about a planet-killing comet that's hurtling toward Earth. From the beginning, the scientists' efforts are marked by futility, encapsulated in an early scene in which Kate Dibiasky (Lawrence) and Randall Mindy (DiCaprio) are brought to the White House to debrief President Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep) on the impending extinction-level event. Predictably, the meeting goes disastrously.