Will the movie “Sully” help kill climate change mania?

Whether or not you’ve seen the movie Sully, you’re probably asking yourself what the heck a movie about the “Miracle on the Hudson” has to do with climate change mania. Good question. Before I answer, though, this post is probably one giant spoiler, so if you haven’t read https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061924695/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=bookwormroom-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0061924695&linkId=bc99de85539dae5478f4f7b8fda2d590 or seen the movie, you might want to stop reading about now.

If you’re wondering whether to see the movie, I thought it was pretty good, although I would have cut out all the close-ups of Tom Hanks’ emotion-bleeding eyes, and skipped all the useless parts with his wife. The good stuff came when Clint Eastwood, who directed, focused closely on the NTSB investigation to determine whether Sully made the right call in landing on the Hudson, rather than trying to reach one of the nearby airports.

[Last chance to skip spoilers.]

The movie’s tension came about because the NTSB’s computer simulations insisted that Sully could have landed safely at an airport rather than risked everyone’s life with a landing on the Hudson. This tension, by the way, is not just for dramatic effect. This was exactly what the NTSB claimed. In other words, the battle in this movie is reality versus a computer simulation.

As in real life, so it is in the movie: Sully proves that the computer simulations are wrong because they fail to factor in the precious seconds it took Sully and his co-pilot to realize that they had a huge problem and then to realize that the problem was one that emergency protocol couldn’t fix. Those seconds were the difference between safely reaching an airfield or landing on water.

Although I know it didn’t mean to be, for me the movie turned into a giant climate change analogy. The Left’s obsession with climate change didn’t arise from actual climate change. Instead, the genesis for the climate change apocalypse was computer generated simulations — simulations, moreover, that dealt with potential future facts infinitely more complex and variable than those applicable to an airplane accident that had already happened.

Just as the NTSB was loath to accept reality when it conflicted with its computer models, so too is the Left resolutely blind to the climate facts on the ground (and up in the sun) that conflict with computer models. To them, the models are the reality, and the endless evidence showing that real events do not support the models is a fantasy that they must deny.

As I said, despite his conservative bona fides, I don’t believe that Eastwood intended in any way to make a movie that is a metaphor for the climate wars. Still, that’s what he managed to do. So if you ever find yourself in an argument with a Lefty about those computer simulations, you might take the time to treat him to a showing of Sully. Maybe he’ll learn a good lesson from a decent movie.

Photo by davidwatts1978