It
is a hard and, at the moment, acutely painful task to try and picture the
future of our race and our planet. It would be bad enough if the harms
inflicted by the current wave of reactionary conservatism sweeping the West
were just limited to the domestic affairs of individual countries. Sadly, that will almost certainly not be the
case. At this crucial point in human
history, a true internal breaking in either the United States or Europe would
not only spell tragedy for people living in those respective countries, it
could all too easily spell catastrophe for the entire human race and, by
extension, most life on the planet Earth.
The
crux around which the development (or destruction) of our species and life in
general is, of course, global climate change, and all its strange,
unpredictable, and increasingly violent effects. Everyone- EVERYONE- alive now
will be judged by future generations according to one, overriding question;
when all the evidence lay on the table, the immense scope of the challenge made
clear, and the time came to decisively act, what did humanity do? Who had ears and heard, had eyes and saw, and
who fought with every fiber of their being to prevent disaster? And who turned away, and stuck their heads in
the ground? Who, at the critical
juncture, willingly accepted the suffering of their children and grandchildren as
the price to keep their comfortable ignorance?
The announcement by Trump that the US will
formally leave the Paris Climate Agreement (as well as his abandonment of the
TPP), while most likely the death knell of American’s status as a relevant
global player, also carries the potential of unraveling much of the positive
environmental momentum that been building over the past few years. A true collapse has not happened yet- internationally
the agreement is still holding (thanks in no small part to China’s continued support),
and several of the largest and richest states within the US have committed to
sticking with and expanding the goals and targets laid out in the agreement,
which in the long run could make formal involvement by the federal government a
moot point.
Despite
that bit of good news, we can’t afford to let up, not for a second. For all the good that has happened over the
past decade, we are still far behind where we need to be, and much of that
hinges on continued ignorance of either the very existence of global warming or
of just how far-reaching, intricate, and advanced its effects already are.
While
most of us are not in positions of political or economic power, and thus can
only indirectly influence overarching government policy (like refusing to
support candidates and parties that ignore the existence of the problem), what
we all CAN do is continue to educate ourselves and each other, using every
opportunity to spread good, reliable information and raise awareness, and film
is a crucial part of that effort.
There
are a LOT of great documentaries out there stretching back over a decade that
explore climate change and possible solutions, but for this post, there are two
in particular I want to recommend- the Netflix-produced documentaries Chasing Ice (2012) and Chasing Coral (2017), both directed by
Jeff Orlowski.
The
first of these films to come out was Chasing
Ice, where the director follows and documents the remarkable efforts of
James Balog and his crew, dubbed the Extreme Ice Survey (or EIS), to regularly photograph
the retreat of glaciers across the Northern Hemisphere over a
three-year-period. Despite a number of
technical and weather-related hiccups, they were able to succeed in this
staggeringly large and complicated task, and the end result is a series of
videos that allow you to literally watch massive, ancient ice structures wilt
and melt away before your very eyes. It
is some of the starkest and most viscerally powerful visual proofs of climate
change yet produced, and although many of their videos are being widely shared
online, there are still far too many people who haven’t seen this film.
One
person who did watch and paid attention was a former business marketing manager
turned coral activist, who immediately saw how the same technique of
long-running photography could be used to document another depressingly visible
from of climate change- the slow bleaching and dying of vast stretches of the
world’s coral reefs, some of the most biodiverse places on the planet and the
foundation for entire ecosystems, economies, and cultures on the lands
surrounding them. He contacted Jeff, and
mapped out a similar project to photograph several reef stretches expected to
be hit hard by a new wave of bleaching.
The result was this year’s Chasing
Coral, which packs every bit as much of a visual gut punch in its
presentation as its predecessor.
While
these are both excellent films on their own, they work best as a double-feature,
allowing one to get a sense of scope of the problems we face by going from the
coldest reaches of the North to the depths of the seas, and seeing how a common
thread of slow-burning degradation connects both. They are hard movies to watch- how can they
not be- but that makes them all the more necessary if we are to ignite a large
enough fire within ourselves to spur proper action.
Knowledge
and facts are our greatest weapons in this fight, and ignorance our greatest
enemy. Watch these movies, share them,
spread the word, and never stop thinking about what steps you can take next,
because the work doesn’t end. We will
not abandon this planet to Trump and his ilk.
We can’t.
-Noah Franc
Previously on Films for the Trump Years:
Part 1- Selma
Part 2- Good Night and Good Luck
Part 3- 13th
Part 4- Get Out
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