"This movie doesn't have a storyline except constant alarm, which cannot be sustained."
Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke at his Austrian World Summit about why we must rethink our messaging on climate change...
Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke at his Austrian World Summit about why we must rethink our messaging on climate change...
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00:00If pollution created by humans,
00:03then we can solve it, humans can solve it,
00:05we can kill it, we can terminate it.
00:08You know, people think of the Terminator movies
00:10that they were just action movies,
00:13but there's actually a lot of philosophy in them.
00:17Take this movie, The Terminator,
00:20it's a movie about the Terminator.
00:23It's a movie about the Terminator,
00:25it's a movie about the Terminator,
00:26it's a movie about the Terminator,
00:29take that line, there is no fate,
00:32but what we make for ourselves.
00:35The Terminator movies portrayed the apocalypse of machines
00:38trying to control our lives.
00:40It was a frightening dystopian world,
00:44but there's one thing, and that is the Terminator movies
00:47did not dwell on hopelessness of a solution.
00:52No, they focused on human will and on human hope.
00:56Yet frequently, I hear environmentalists
00:59talking about the existential threat of climate change.
01:05The existential threat, we are going to be eliminated.
01:12And what does the public hear?
01:14The icebergs are melting, the rainforests are burning,
01:20the coral reefs are dying, the polar bears are starving,
01:24and our cities will be flooded,
01:25and our farms will dry up,
01:27and our coastlines will be wiped out,
01:30and there will be famine and starvation,
01:32and people will be fleeing the heat and the rising water,
01:35and there will be wars.
01:39And by the way, don't use fossil fuels,
01:45don't use plastic, don't eat meat.
01:49Is it any wonder that people are confused and tuned out?
01:55This movie doesn't have a storyline
01:56except constant alarm, which cannot be sustained.
02:01The problem is not that we are wearing ourselves out here,
02:13but we are wearing the public out.
02:15To change the metaphor,
02:19our shotgun approach is not working.
02:23We are trying to hit all of those targets at once.
02:26We need to have one target.
02:29I say focus on pollution.
02:32Focus on one thing.
02:34Everyone gets what pollution is,
02:36it is simple to identify and to understand
02:38because you can see it coming out of the smokestacks.
02:42If pollution created by humans, then we can solve it,
02:46humans can solve it, we can kill it, we can terminate it.
02:50You see, there's so many great things,
02:52as a matter of fact, going on in the world,
02:54that I only always hear everyone talking about the negative.
02:58The world is coming to an end.
02:59Why aren't we conveying some sense of encouragement
03:02and hope to the people?
03:03That's my question.
03:05I mean, if we are in a crisis,
03:07isn't it better to encourage people
03:10rather than to beat up on them?
03:12People need encouragement, not just threat and despair.
03:16See, my concern is that the constant trumpet
03:18of telling people how huge the obstacles are,
03:21at some point undermines their will to accept and to act.
03:27It can defeat the morale of one person or millions.
03:32We must not let our communication
03:34convince the general public that it is time to surrender
03:37when it comes to climate change
03:40because we need the people and we will never surrender.
03:45We will never give up.