For my final project I decided to create a video diary written from the perspective of a man living in the year 2115. The video features footage of the Earth’s climate changing, accompanied by a voice over of the diary entry. The man comments on how our current society dealt with climate change, and how our lack of action lead to the restructuring of the entire world’s climate and the displacement of the human race. The format of Diary of an Interesting Year was my inspiration for this project, but I wanted to add a layer of video to create, what I believe, is a more impactful piece of Cli-Fi.
I call my project The World Now. Here’s an excerpt:
I had a very interesting conversation about climate change with my two friends yesterday while we rode our bikes throughout Eugene. It all started when my friend Andrew remarked, “Wow. I can’t believe it’s March and it’s this beautiful outside. Maybe global warming isn’t so bad?” The three of us let out a chuckle as we pedaled along the Willamette river.
That comment sparked an hour long discussion about pollution, global economics, rising sea levels, and the agriculture industry, and how they all pertain to global warming. I told them about a video I saw recently from the documentary Chasing Ice that captured the largest glacier calving ever filmed. Over the course of a 77 minute time-lapse, a Manhattan-sized glacier calves and rushes into the sea. The video left me breathless because it truly captured the awesome power and scale of mother nature. I used this video to explain the potential impacts that global warming could have on glaciers worldwide, and how a rising sea-level would be catastrophic to most of the world’s population.
My friend Damon interrupted and asked, “Isn’t the sea-level only going to rise like 2 meters? That doesn’t see like that much.” I told him about a recent Vice HBO episode that chronicled global warming’s effects on the glaciers of Antartica, specifically the Thwaites glacier located on the West coast of the continent. Scientists have concluded that the Thwaites glacier is melting at an extremely fast rate and will detach from the continent, raising the global sea level by 1 meter. This single glacier, with a diameter of around 21km, has the power to remap the entire planet. According to VICE, a 1 meter sea-level rise will put around 17% of Bangladesh and most of the southern tip of Florida underwater. To put that into more understandable terms, a scientist remarks, “Sea-level rise will create over 300 million climate change refugees, that will need to be taken care of somehow.”
Damon’s eyes widened when I told him that last fact. He remarked, “There is no way that the world could support 300 million refugees without a drastic lifestyle change of every person on the planet.” He went on to talk about how we, especially Americans, have not been living within our means. He talked about how society has created an unsustainable demand for food and fossil fuels, which in turn has spearheaded pollution and climate change. It was interesting to discuss how our own lifestyles have propelled climate change, and the only way to change thins was to look no further than ourselves.
We tried to end the conversation by trying to find any positives around climate change. It was Andrew who said, “Global warming is going to define our generation, and how we react to it will determine the fate of the entire human race. It is scary, but I find that we constantly underestimate the vigor and adaptability of the human race. We’ll give it our best shot. I know we will.”
Professor Siperstein said we could write about our idea for the Final Project and ask for feedback from you guys. It took me a while to figure out what aspects of climate change I wanted to tackle, but over the course of the last few days, I kept coming back to the question: Why does no one seem to care about climate change?
Over the course of the term, I’ve noticed that the biggest reason for “not caring” is linked to the fact that people do not understand how climate change will affect their lives–even though climate change has already started to. The Global Weirding website definitely struck a chord with me because it transformed the information in the IPCC Climate Report into something tangible and easy to understand. So my question is: What is the most effective way to get people to start caring about climate change? Should we play on people’s fears like Mitchell does? Or is it better to just stick to the facts and let people interpret them for themselves?
I pose those questions because I want to create a video that helps educate people on climate change and ultimately acts as a call-to-action for people to write their congressman about increasing federal funding towards climate change solution research. The video will be a catalyst for a larger climate change public service announcement-esque campaign. I want to touch on the information within IPCC Report, but frame it in a way that resonates with every day people. People need to understand that impacts that our generation will have on future generations. And with that understanding and awareness in mind, I truly believe people will start to act.
That being said, I haven’t figured out the fictional narrative element of the project. I could somehow incorporate a fictional family or person who is living in a “climate changed” world. It would help build empathy for the cause because people will see themselves as that fictional character or family.
I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on which approach would work best with getting people to care about climate change. Is it simply that they do not understand the facts and how the effects will change their lives? Or is there something else I’m missing that is more important?
“Which is worse: if we all die, or if only some of us die?” – Kish
Many of the stories we have read over the past couple weeks have dealt with humanity living in a post-climate change world and depict how that world changes them. One of the most compelling aspects of these stories is how the characters deal with ethics and morals. I think The Weatherman by Holly Howitt is a perfect depiction of how humanity will be forced to make very tough and seemingly unethical decisions in order to keep the population alive. One of my favorite quotes that deals with this dilemma is said by Kish, the narrator’s boss, when he explains, “You know that we control the weather here because if we didn’t, we would starve…we control the weather because we have to, else we’d have no food, no chance of survival…Which is worse: if we all die, or if only some of us die?
I’ve been following climate change and its effects for years now through various news publications and documentaries. It seems that every year, scientists from around the world, release more and more evidence supporting the fact that ‘global weirding’ will not only happen, but is happening as we speak. After these reports trickle out, get passed around the Internet bloggersphere, and garner a few precious minutes on various network news segments, I watch eagerly in anticipation of some sort of social uprising or massive political and economic shift towards saving the planet. Yet, year after year, society sees the evidence, panics for a second, and then moves on as if forgetting about the research will somehow make it untrue. I always ask myself “Why does no one seem to care? This is THE most important issue in the entire world. If we don’t address it, there won’t even BE a world.”
I’ve asked a few of my close friends about this and I mostly get the same answer: “Dude, there’s nothing I (as in individuals) can do to really change things. It’s a lost cause.” That passive type of thinking is not only a massive cop-out, but also the reason why no one tries to change anything. If everyone thinks they won’t have an effect, then no one will actually try to change the way things are.
