Showing the impact of runaway climate change

Age of Stupid.

Age of Stupid, Exeter Picture House

Cert 12A, 90 minutes

By David Knox

“We could have saved ourselves, but we didn’t. It’s amazing. What state of mind were we in, to face extinction and simply shrug it off?”

Everything about this film by from McLibel director Franny Armstrong is different to your normal film.

From the London premiere being held on a green carpet in a solar powered cinema in Leicester Square, to guests arriving in solar powered vehicles and bicycles, to the way that the film was financed – by hundreds of different groups and individuals in a crowd-funding model, it’s a maverick undertaking.

The star of the film, Pete Postlethwaite, signed a pledge card at the London premier that said:

"Dear Ed Miliband, if you commission a new dirty coal power station at Kingsnorth - thereby increasing our emissions when we should be massively decreasing them - then you are clearly unfit to represent the people of Britain at the Copenhagen climate change summit." He then pledged that he would give back his OBE, which he was awarded in 2004. "I can’t be an officer of the realm if Kingsnorth goes ahead," he said.

The film has already gained the greatest ‘site average’ (which takes into account the number of screens a film plays on) trumping the Lesbians, the Slumdogs, the Watchmen, the Labrador and Ali G’s wife.

The national media coverage has been staggering and enviable. It has ranged from ‘deniers’ to the mundane, to completely missing the point.

The Daily Mail dropped the fear for the day and focused on Will Young’s glasses and everyone’s outfits on the green carpet and fierce debate is still raging after a Guardian blogger laid into the film; http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/mar/23/the-age-of-stupid

After all the hype, I’ve really been looking forward to seeing the Age of Stupid for myself and narrowly missed being involved in the film premiere.

I arrive at the Picture House (having walked to the cinema - obviously), which I much prefer to the large chain cinemas. The outside of mainstream programming always feels a little subversive, and as I arrive a little hot and bothered, I am immediately given flyers by Brian Clarke of Exeter Friends of the Earth www.eclipse.co.uk/exeter/foe which is the first early indication that this is not pure entertainment.

In the film, Pete Postlethwaite is the last man left alive on earth in 2055 after runaway climate change has decimated the earth. He is in an archive centre in the now melted Arctic, having at his fingertips every TV broadcast, piece of print and other media ever made. The film centres on Postlethwaite compiling a broadcast in which he ponders why humankind chose not to save itself from a preventable extinction and which he hopes will help whoever finds it make sense of the end of humankind.

The film starts with a number of evocative post apocalyptic images featuring wonders of the modern world images including Sydney Opera House in flames, Westminster under water, the welcome sign to Las Vegas almost obscured by sand and the Alps without snow.

The story is told through the stories of witnesses, which shows the impact of runaway climate change already being realised. They include;

1.The founder of India’s first budget airline who’s mission is to give the people of India access to cheap air travel to ‘get them out of poverty’ without having seemed to think what the impact may be on one of the countries which currently has the lowest level of emissions.
2.A couple of orphaned Iraqi children who’s father was killed by American troops and who have escaped to Jordan but who’s brother has not managed to escape. They now repair and sell perfectly wearable shoes sent to them from America and wonder: "The Americans are not like us. We wear our shoes till they fall apart. But if any little thing is wrong with theirs, they throw them away".
3.Layefa, a young Nigerian woman who’s community has been decimated by the oil industry, gaining nothing from the industry it creates other than health problems. Burning excess gas from the oil refineries is done through open flares above ground, as it is cheaper than the infrastructure to transport it. The local pollution from the fumes has been linked to a range of health problems including cancer and respiratory illnesses to the communities they border. After the pollution has taken fishing away from her, she is forced to sell diesel to survive.
4.Alvin, a scientist from Shell who rescued hundreds during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina and lost everything himself. He wonders why there was no immediate help from his government and we see his despair as he copes with putting his life back together.
5.Femand, a French mountaineer who has seen the retreat of glaciers in the French alps to the extent that he has to climb down metres of ladders to walk on the glacier, where he could step right onto it 40 years ago.
6.Peris, a wind farm developer who is facing huge local protest from local ‘NIMBY’ protestors. The potential to create green energy seems lost on communities more concerned with looks and who cite noise as another issue when a massively noisy karting track goes by unnoticed.

The individual stories link back into the rampant increase in our use of fossil fuels, fuelled by our increased desire to consume. Oil is used in our children’s medicines, cleaning products, our in our food, packaging, clothes, cosmetics, plastic bags – you name it. It’s almost chilling to consider that Oil Barons are not just influencing government, but ARE the government –money truly is the root of all evil.

Climate breakdown (which it should be called rather than change which seems to infer that it’s as simple as changing clothes) is already here and is already making things happen. The Tsunami in Thailand, Hurricane Katrina, the melting Polar Ice Caps, some species to start to disappear altogether and a range of other happenings globally that means ‘climate change deniers’ are running out of logic.

The result is that just a 2oC increase in global temperatures (which is now inevitable) WILL happen and cause far larger-scale climate breakdown than we can conceive. Large parts of the world WILL be left under water, food and energy shortages ARE inevitable and we do have to fundamentally change the way we do things NOW.

The film manages to avoid being too preachy and I hope it will make people (and the government) think and be more conscious in their choices. With any luck Kingsnorth Coal fired power station (and all the others) will not go ahead, neither will the third runway at Heathrow, £14billion Cardiff-Weston barrage (which will generate huge amounts of Co2 during build and take years to have any impact) and that emissions from Aviation Fuel will remain part of our Co2 emission reduction targets.

I hope that the new Department of Energy and Climate Change will ensure that renewable and alternative energy is better managed to cut down on the distances (and therefore the carbon generated) it is transported and that investment can be used to force the price down, stimulate take up and reduce our Co2 emissions.

I hope that sense prevails and that air travel is only ever used as an absolute necessity, given the impact that altitude and sheer bulk have. I hope that the way we heat ourselves and generate our power changes and that the momentum that this film has already generated will act as the powerful catalyst it has the potential to be – turning 250 million viewers into activists.

I also hope that lessons have been learned from overburdening ourselves with credit and that the government wakes up to simple things that are available now, don’t cost the earth, lofty long term investment and can make a difference. Rather than focus simply on either/or technologies, why we don’t think INSIDE the box for a change and use a mixture of several that are available now, depending on our needs, to cut down on our use of fossil fuels?

Minimise your use of fuel, pump up your tyres, only half fill your car’s petrol tank, insulate your house, use modern and efficient heating products so your fuel goes further, read anything you can by the Guardian’s George Monbiot, buy locally, walk more, grow your own, get an egglu, keep chooks, put on a jumper or make love to keep warm instead of turning up the heating, get a solar panel or get a wind turbine.

There is a huge campaign about to get underway – called Not Stupid which aims to put pressure on the decision makers at September’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, who are deciding on the next step from the Kyoto Treaty (which neither America or Australia signed).

We need more commitment from our governments, who will only give it if we make them. So I urge everyone to see this film and our government to keep it simple - stupid!

www.ageofstupid.net/notstupid
www.monbiot.com