by Jessica Mosby
– USA –
The world’s weather is changing and millions of people will be displaced. This tragic reality is captured in the new documentary film, Climate Refugees. Without engaging in the divisive global warming debate, director and producer Michael Nash asserts that the world’s weather is becoming more extreme – be it the result of environmental destruction by people, or naturally occurring changes in climate.
Nash traveled the world filming the effects of climate change. The footage is startling as a human face is put on the world’s worst natural disasters. The heart of the film is Nash’s interviews with victims of natural disasters. In Bangladesh, “ground zero” for climate change, Nash interviews victims of 2007’s Cyclone Sidr, which killed over 10,000 people and cost $450 million in damages. The victims’ testimony is heart-breaking as they describe losing their families and homes.
Climate Refugees drives home the devastating reality that future natural disasters are going to be more severe and kill or displace greater numbers of people. While the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia killed over 150,000 people and displaced over 500,000, close to 300 million people, who live near Indonesia’s coastline, are endangered as ocean levels rise and weather patterns become more severe.
Most startling after a natural disaster are the displaced populations, many of whom never return to their homes. The film asks if you can move an entire country after a natural disaster. Aside from the obvious emotional toll of leaving one’s home, the practical aspects of relocating entire populations is daunting.
The documentary is an engaging call to action as it links political and economic consequences with climate change. As countries are destroyed and populations are forced to relocate, the film predicts that the world will experience increased conflicts over limited natural resources. Droughts, food shortages, and land disputes seem unavoidable.
Most worthwhile is Climate Refugees’ concrete ideas to curb the impending crisis. The film presents real solutions that could feasibly be instituted worldwide.
During the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, I sat down with Nash and producer Justin Hogan to discuss the film and the environmental solutions they endorse.
What inspired you to travel around the world documenting the effects of climate change?
Nash: Several things, actually. One of them was in 2004. I went home for Christmas in Florida and my town that I grew up in had been wiped out by two hurricanes in September, just after Katrina devastated Louisiana. It was still like a war zone four months later. This is kind of where I live and so it kind of resonated. So, I started looking into that…There is so much spin and this topic is so polarizing, that I just thought it would be important to go out and actually find out what’s really happening.
The documentary is apolitical in that it doesn’t have an overt political agenda. You interview Republicans and Democrats, everyone sounds very reasonable, and you carefully balance theories that global warming is the result of human actions (pollution, for instance) with the idea that the world is entering an extreme weather pattern for inexplicable reasons. How did you balance these conflicting political positions and ideologies?
Hogan: As you are obviously commenting on, we start the movie out with Newt Gingrich. There are people out there on both sides that are fighting this fight. They may have different philosophies, in terms of exactly how to go about doing it. But it is one hundred percent unarguable that climate change is occurring. If man is causing it, maybe we can fix it. If nature is, we’re in a lot of trouble. So what we really need to do – like Newt Gingrich says – it’s not really a red versus blue issue, it’s a red, white, and blue issue. And it really is. We have to put aside our differences and come together and fight this fight together. Otherwise, we’re going to be in a lot of trouble.
Nash: It was one of the biggest challenges as far as filmmaking is concerned trying to stay bipartisan throughout this. I have a lot of friends who are as far right as you can get who won’t even look at An Inconvenient Truth or read an article on [climate change]. It is just amazing how polarizing this whole issue is. The extreme left is just as bad – in regards to taking all the information, putting it on a table, and really looking at the logistics of this and figuring what makes sense.
Our goal was always to make a bipartisan film about climate change. And really just go out there and find the facts. We really had no agenda about how the story was going to end. It was a challenge.
The living conditions you capture in Bangladesh are already very difficult. What surprised and affected you most during filming?
Hogan: We were in some pretty rough terrain. We were in some places where a lot of these people had never seen white people before, certainly not Americans. In the film there is a woman who talks about losing her child when Cyclone Sidr came in. She was this beautiful spirit, this amazing woman. After she told us the story, Mike and I – we’re pretty hardcore guys – we really had to take a moment, go outside, and recuperate because you’re there and you’re documenting it and you want to catch it. But you naturally get caught up in the emotion of what you’re hearing, what you’re seeing, and what you’re experiencing. We saw dead children at times. It was an incredible, emotional, and life-changing journey. I think I can say that for both of us, most importantly it changed the way we’re living our lives now.
Nash: When we started this film, this journey, I actually thought climate change was 50 years away and was going to be polar bears in Greenland. To go out and actually see tens of millions of people being affected by this – their entire life, their entire culture, [and] their entire ancestry being completely in shambles. And having to relocate to somewhere else, and not only start their lives over, but their whole culture. It was shocking – and probably more shocking than the devastation was the ability and spirit of these people to continue through.
When you were traveling the world, did you feel a sense of hope that people can restart their lives somewhere else? What about the woman in Tuvalu who was over the age of 45 and could therefore not migrate to New Zealand?
Nash: Australia has basically said “we don’t want these people.” New Zealand is getting a lot of wonderful press saying “we’ll take these people.” But when you dig into the issue, it’s a work program. So, if you’re over 45-years-old or if you don’t speak English…what they’re basically doing is taking the people from Tuvalu who can create revenue, and leaving the elderly people behind to fend for their lives. It’s unbelievable.
At the end of the film your interviewees put forth a number of very reasonable solutions – wind power and solar power. Do you see these technologies becoming a reality?
Nash: I hope so! There is collateral damage that is already going to take place – the question is how much. Every year that we wait, the damage will be increased, the number of refugees will go up, [and] more people will be moving to Europe and North America. What’s really interesting about the technology is that the technology is there to fix this problem. We have the ingredients to make this cake. It’s just a question of do we want to bake it? Do we have the will to have a paradigm shift in the way we power the world? But it’s all there.
Hogan: And there are countries that are so much farther ahead of the United States in terms of green thinking – in terms of how they use their energy, in terms of how they live their lives, in terms of how they reuse and recycle. And we’re so far behind. Yet, so many countries look to this country to be the leader in certain areas. And we’re not.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jessica Mosby is a writer and critic living in Oakland, California. In the rare moments when she’s not traveling across the United States for work, Jessica enjoys listening to public radio, buying organic food at local farmers markets, trolling junk stores, and collecting owl-themed tchotchke.
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