Is it that anthropogenic climate change is a fantasy, just like Pokemon? That it is not real? Fake? Meant for children who don’t know better?
What Pokémon can teach us about conservation and climate change
There’s a moment in the live-action movie Detective Pikachu when the ground beneath our heroes’ feet is crumbling. As they slip and slide, Pikachu, voiced by Ryan Reynolds, yells to no one in particular, “At this point, how can you not believe in climate change?†It’s a good quip — one of a million small jokes that’s easily missed. But it’s also one of the first times that Pokémon, the most lucrative media franchise of all time, addressed the climate crisis. It certainly won’t be the last.
Fans appreciate Pokémon for its camp humor, adorable monsters, and emphasis on the quest for excellence. But for more than two decades, Pokémon has also delivered a crash course in environmental science. Like a professor par excellence, it’s addressed ecological vulnerability and land management, extinction and de-extinction, the plight of endangered species and the dangers of invasive ones, and, most recently, the real costs of climate change. There’s a lot more to Pokémon than just catching ‘em all.
Pokémon was an eco-conscious project from its conception. Nineties kids know the origin story well. Satoshi Tajiri was born in Japan in 1965. He was an avid insect collector — the other kids called him “Dr. Bug.†At the time, Tajiri’s hometown still had rural pockets, but as the Tokyo metropolitan area subsumed outlying villages, plants and animals gave way to concrete and skyscrapers. Decades later, when he first played with a Game Boy, he saw an opportunity to ensure a new generation of urban kids could experience the simulated joys of taxonomy and tromping through the wilderness. In 1996, Tajiri’s company, Game Freak, released the first games in his fantastical universe of Pocket Monsters, better known as Pokémon.
Nothing wrong with real environmentalism, but, it is rather ironic that the same people who push the ‘climate change’ scam also want to force everyone to live in big, crowded, condensed cities like they do, eh, places with limited wilderness.
But for many of these species, time is running out. Recently, the 24-year-old Pokémon franchise has begun to grapple with the very real perils of climate change. In Detective Pikachu, it’s that one-liner from Pikachu. But in Sword and Shield, it’s much more serious. Corsola, a second-generation coral-like Pokémon, has been bleached by rising ocean temperatures. It’s been replaced by a ghost-type descendant, Cursola. Where the original reef was pink and smiling, the creature we have now is shock white with watery red eyes.
If Pokémon has taught us anything about the environment, then we know that the time for action is long overdue.
I always get my advice from cartoons and such. How about you?
