Whatever you think about climate change, the issue of whether or not to preserve the last great forests is beyond doubt. What is still fought over is how to reconcile the different political, social and economic interests that hold us back. The wealth of resources and ecosystem services that the forests give us is far greater than any short term benefit from their destruction. Services that we cannot do without: carbon sequestration; erosion control; flood mitigation; climate modification: rainfall and reflectance; local economics – harvesting and tourism; genetic resources and food for our spirit and soul.
While the political issues of carbon generation, economic development and science have brought the UN negotiations to a standstill, the opportunity to move forward to keep the forests through actions at every level of society is still open to us.
From 2007 to 2009 there was increasing acceptance in most countries of the developed world that climate change was indeed real and needed immediate action. Climate change became an election issue, in Australia helping the Rudd Government get elected, and elsewhere the public demanded that governments take concrete steps to address it.
After Copenhagen, December 2009, where world leaders showed unwillingness to implement immediate action, the voice of climate change deniers has been given prominence by many major media outlets. Their unsubstantiated smoke screens are feeding the public’s hope that climate change is not actually occurring, and drastic changes to our lifestyles will not be necessary after all.
Our film, Two Degrees, will counter this wave of mis-information and reassert the urgency of immediate action by both the public and governments. It will highlight the value of protecting the tropical forests, a relatively easy way to reduce 20-30% of global carbon emissions, at the same time protecting their important biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Polar Bear at UN Climate Negotaitions, Bonn, Germany 2009
Copenhagen showed that most of the world’s heads of state are afraid of being ahead of public opinion. For this reason we are aiming this film at the general public, to educate and motivate people to demand more of their governments. Little will change until the public realize the need for change in their own lives and demand corresponding change from their governments.
Inducing guilt does not foster change. Raising awareness and consciousness does. By making people aware of the cumulative nature of CO2 emissions and the need to reduce our emissions NOW and not by 2050, they will become more aware of their own personal carbon footprint. Our characters will both educate and inspire carbon reduction choices.
This will not be conveyed in a heavy-handed lecture. The inspiration will come from glimpsing our characters’ daily lives, witnessing their dedication to finding solutions and achieving change, their unwavering commitment and the personal costs involved. The film and website will provide direction to those wondering about what comes next and where their actions can be most effective.
Too often, films of this genre are only seen by the “converted”. We aim to ensure this does not happen. The film will have a variety of distribution outlets: cinema, TV, DVD, educational outlets, and most importantly, an innovative viral marketing campaign on the internet with direct download facility.
Our crew was privileged to spend most of 2009 traveling globally to capture the fascinating view of this important historical evolution, as the developing world increasingly voiced its need to be compensated for forest conservation. Most people hear about climate change filtered through the interests of the government and media they are dependent upon, but we pursued the global story directly on the ground. It would be impossible for an audience to access this kind of awareness any other way. This is what makes Two Degrees so unique.
In the Spring 2010 issue of Earth Island Journal, in an article titled Forward from Copenhagen, Tom Athanasiou of EcoEquity wrote,
“In order to halt catastrophic climate change, the major emitters must act decisively. All of them, at once. But this will be only fair, and indeed it can only happen, if the wealthiest among us pay for most of the action. That however is politically impossible… And it is impossible, in part, because the debate about “fair burden sharing” that has raged among climate negotiators during the last few years has not reached public consciousness. We do not know our duties. The Northern climate movement has quite failed to explain the structure of the global problem to its home constituencies. The term “climate justice” might well be understood by green NGO-istas, and say, Bolivian President Evo Morales, but that doesn’t mean most people get it.”
This is why our film matters!