How Boring is Weather?

The Weather Channel adds content like ROCKY MOUNTAIN WRECKERS to attract viewers. After all, who’s excited about the weather unless the prediction is for flooding or a blizzard or tornadoes? We want to know if our outdoor activities will be pleasant or if we’ll have to bring a poncho or parka, but we seek that kind of information on our cell phones. It’s all about our needs or the conditions around our loved ones. Highs and lows and barometric pressure sound foreign and uninteresting until they’re explained well. Enter the engaging film THE AERONAUTS.

Granted the film is a reimagining of true events—meaning the creators pulled together near disasters from many early balloon flights for drama and topped them off with an attractive, resourceful female lead who was a composite of many real-life female balloonists of the time. James Glaisher (depicted in the film by Eddie Redmayne) represents the historic part. In 1862, he actually did risk his life exploring the levels of atmosphere via balloon to determine how weather forms. His partner in the daring feat was Henry Coxwell—not as appealing as actor Felicity Jones demonstrating incredible courage and resilience, apparently. However, the life-threatening lack of oxygen and freezing cold that could immobilize instruments as well as the control mechanisms of a balloon made the real ascent to 37,000 feet (higher than Mount Everest) into a dramatic feat. No one had ever gone so high. The two men had no extra oxygen or even heaters. No one was certain if the attempt would be survivable. In fact, before the balloon experiments brought back real insights, most influencers thought attempting to predict weather was a fool’s errand.

Science, which many people treat as a waste of time, reacting to it as they probably did long ago in middle school when they weren’t really paying attention, lies behind many of our indispensable accomplishments. For example, another popular fictional film that has already been remade is TWISTER in which the discoveries of the scientists are meant to provide adequate early warnings to people whose homes lie in the path of destructive tornadoes. The goal is all too real and timely. Do people actually depend on warnings to save lives? Yes. Do they thank science for figuring out how to predict and follow dangerous conditions? Maybe. Do they have a clue about the number of painstaking discoveries that had to happen before warning systems could be reliable? Not often. Or CONTAGION about trying to contain a pandemic—more science. We had a chance to experience the kinds of casualties inadequate science can’t prevent. (The novel ANDROMEDA STRAIN introduced me to the possibilities when I was still in school. Perhaps if more people had read that book or seen that film we might have been better prepared for COVID.)

Well researched science fiction presents questions that require creative thinking for the characters to survive—such as how do you evade a zombie invasion or hostile aliens? Books abound on real-life inventions and discoveries that resulted from thoughtful science fiction in books or on TV. Believable science fiction relies on science that has to change as learning evolves. Sloppy science looks just plain stupid on screen to those who know what we’ve figured out so far about the universe.

Someone who’s threatened by knowledge defaced an old “SUPPORT SCIENCE” sticker on my car’s rear bumper. Why? That consumers could embrace science fiction—even sloppy science fiction featuring monsters and magic—without realizing how much we depend on good research and honest, dedicated, intelligent scientists to live comfortable, safe lives is astounding. Good research depends on good observation of what is and what might be. Ignorance is dangerous.