What if our most famous environmental dystopias reveal as much about fear and ideology as they do about the future?

In this episode of Reckoning with Jason Herbert, I sit down with film scholar Matthew Thompson, author of On Life Support, to unpack the haunting world of Soylent Green—and the larger tradition of eco-dystopian cinema that emerged in the 1970s.

We explore how films like Soylent Green, Planet of the Apes, and Silent Running channeled the anxieties of the early environmental movement, from overpopulation and pollution to resource scarcity and class inequality. Drawing on the influence of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, we examine how these films translated real-world fears into unforgettable cinematic visions.

But this conversation goes deeper. Thompson argues that beneath their ecological warnings, these films often carry troubling assumptions—about population control, class, and who gets to survive. From the legacy of The Population Bomb to the shocking logic behind Soylent Green’s infamous twist, we ask: what do these stories really say about environmental politics—then and now?

We also connect the 1970s to today’s resurgence of eco-dystopian storytelling, from Snowpiercer to Don’t Look Up, and consider what modern climate anxiety reveals about our own moment.

This is a conversation about film, history, and the uneasy truths lurking beneath our visions of the future.