By Michael Avila
Special to DNAinfo
“What does it mean to live off the land? To feed from its palm without biting its hand?”
That is the question at the heart of “Climate of Change,” an informed and empowering documentary that is a clarion call in the battle to save our environment. The message? Don’t wait for the government to take action. Do it yourself.
One of the high-profile documentaries screening at the Tribeca Film Festival, “Climate of Change” offers compelling proof that change can begin and happen with just one person. It manages to sidestep the heavy-handed, eco-apocalyptic tenor of such recent documentaries as “The 11th Hour” and “Flow: For Love of Water” while providing hope that eco-awareness is not a lost cause. As a result, it stands a good chance of being the latest documentary to use Tribeca as a launching pad to greater mainstream U.S. exposure.
Director Brian Hill went around the world to find several people of varying ages and ethnicity, who are taking small but extraordinary steps to preserve our planet. Like the handful of impossibly clear-headed 13-year-olds in India, who have formed a group to protest the country’s reliance on plastic. One child, who has trouble breathing from all the noxious fumes from nearby factories, talks about wanting to convince companies to use something called an electro-static precipitator to filter factory smoke.
Listening to the kids say “we are just the renters of this world, not its owners," it’s clear these children are much more aware of our planet’s environmental peril than many blissfully ignorant adults.
The hypnotic narration by Academy Award-winning actress Tilda Swinton – from British poet Simon Armitage’s writing – provides a sobering framework for the various storylines. A visit to the Global Seed Vault in Norway, basically a time-capsuled Garden of Eden, signals that the worst-case scenario for Earth may be inevitable.
“Climate of Change” puts a hyper-local perspective on the eco-crisis. But while Hill does illustrate how high the stakes are at this stage of the game, he wisely turns down the gloom and doom, and spotlights the progress being made.
In the small African nation of Togo, where trees are being chopped down and charcoal burned at alarming rates, one man is introducing the people of his native village to the benefits of solar powered cooking.
The working-class folks of the depressed coal-mining town of Whitesville, West Virginia, have banded together to take on the strip mining companies. The process of mountaintop removal, where explosives and heavy machines are used to level mountain ranges, has decimated the landscape of the Appalachian Mountains, led to thousands of lost jobs and resulted in a river of pollution some feel will linger for generations. One man, a self-described ‘hillbilly’ named Larry Gibson, had enough and stood his ground and refused to sell his 50 acres.
In Papua New Guinea, logging companies have decimated 60 percent of the world’s third-largest rain forest. Villagers there have begun practicing sustainable logging in an effort to preserve the land.
Each region’s problems are highlighted with stirring imagery and sparse but informative statistics. For example, did you know that in Mumbai, India, recycling is a billion-dollar industry? By forgoing the usual ‘talking heads’ with think-tankers and scientists, and talking instead to people living on the bulldozed lands and in the mangled forests, Hill provides a powerful firsthand perspective.
He also finds the added benefit of getting practical understanding of dire situations. The poverty is so bad in India, many people are forced to use a cheaper, low-grade fuel that is especially harmful to the atmosphere. Likewise, the villagers in New Guinea express regret at the fact they are devastating the rain forest. But when facing a choice between saving trees or earning money to feed one’s family, what else can you do?
“Climate of Change” offers evidence about the potential for environmental change — even if it’s in small steps — at the grassroots level. A London public relations expert turns her passion for recycling into an environmentally minded business. Not only does she show people how to be smarter about their resources, she proves the viability of recycling as a business model.
At another point in the film, the villagers in Togo are shown dancing and singing. It is their way, we are told, of communicating with God, and asking him to not abandon them. Their embrace of modern technology is not just an environmentally conscious act. It’s a cry for help.
That beautiful moment, along with the courage of the Appalachian residents and the wisdom of the kids in India, provides a hopeful sign that maybe our planet isn’t actually destined to end up as a toxic garbage dump, after all.
