Are you starting to create a movie list or documentaries to watch in 2018? If you’re either curious about the topic of climate change, an activist like I am, or even skeptical about the whole idea.
Here’re 5 climate-change documentaries that might be interesting for you to watch.
- An inconvenient truth (2006)
I strongly don’t support politicizing the topic of climate change, but this documentary should take credit of opening the door for content creators and media producers to invest more effort and money in the topic.
An inconvenient truth is a TED-talk type of a documentary. Al Gore is an excellent presenter; he knows how to tell a shocking story, after the movie I got the feeling that there’s absolutely no hope, everything is going to vanish, and the documentary is definitely not giving answers, it’s an awareness documentary.
The movie is about the hysteria that blocks clear thinking. The beginning staring children drawing sad scared faces and expressing what’s going to happen; according to what they hear in schools/media, reflects the fear tone that the movie try to reflect. It’s a rebellious talk about how money is put in wrong solutions, and the great green lie.
They thought the movie was successful, that they made a sequel, and who knows maybe we see a prequel after a couple of years.
I’ll leave you with the trailer:
- Planetary (2015)
Do you want to go on a journey full of Carl-Sagan type of quotes? Then voila! here’s a documentary for you. This is a breath-taking type of movie. Planetary is a provocative wake-up call, a cross continental, cinematic journey, that explores our cosmic origins and our future as a species.
Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv-cMV0XzH0
- Disruption (2014)
Slow, strong, and emotional. Disruption begins by taking you on a space journey while hearing quotes from Apollo 8 – “God bless all of you on the good old earth” followed by hectic, catastrophic pictures supported by strong messages of highest political representatives. The movie creators introduce “people climate march” and support it by all the big climate movements in history. Going back to history of the discovery of greenhouse effect and the first scientists finding out about the potential of global warming. The documentary also explains the gap between what countries say they want to do and what they are actually are on track to do.
It introduces issues like having a mortgage to pay, a job to do, kids to take care of, as issues that seem a lot more immediate than some particles floating around in the air. It introduces the idea that climate change plays out over this really long time, it’s hard to perceive it as a very urgent threat.
It highlights the idea of how can we tweak something so science-based to make us feel something?
Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWpK7XLqxw4
- How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change (2016)
I personally liked this movie. It’s a reflection on life in general; what can we change and how. The protagonist of the story is the director, who loses hope in finding a reason behind talking about this topic without measurable actions. It gives examples of people who took a changing action and saved their lands, homes and families. My favorite quote is “What are the things climate change can’t destroy? What are the parts of us that are so deep that no storm can take them away.”
Here’s the trailer:
5. Cool it (2010)
The movie highlights the life of Bjørn Lomborg, and how some people saw him as the enemy, he was featured as the rebellious skeptical environmental professor, who is going to expose the governments and the institutions and the public figures using climate change as a cover to collect money.
I got the feeling that children were the ones telling me the story, I felt that the director did that to reflect both the ignorance/honest look and the fear; the ignorance of us talking about the crises without data and the fear that spread through the catastrophic view of the problem. I loved the school/education kind of comparison between Africa and the west, how the children in Kenya cared about different needs, of course this proved his point of view about verifying our targeted audience and to who are we talking about climate change.
The movie rebuttals on ideas as cap and trade, that was the best solution proposed back then, and how setting a price for companies to buy it from the government opened the door for corruption, as they trade other stocks from green companies and that the government often give permits away for political reasons. One of the most catchy quotes was “When are we going to stop spending money on the people who shout the loudest?”.
Here’s the trailer: