Students, faculty, and community members met on Dec. 10 in the Little Theatre to discuss and learn more about what has become a controversial issue: climate change.
A climate change documentary titled “This Changes Everything” was created not only to raise more awareness about the issues caused by global warming, but to also convince audiences of how humanity is drastically affecting the environment. The film documented communities throughout the world, showing how they are affected by industrialization and a climate in flux.
The documentary starts off by exposing the struggles of the Beaver Lake Cree tribe of Northern Alberta, Canada, who were shown engaging in a legal battle against invading oil companies. Large patches of once pristine Canadian forests are now being stripped away to access saturated oil sands, a treasured natural resource. The documentary showcased how Native peoples can no longer access large sections of their reservation land because of the restrictions imposed by the oil refineries.
Indigenous communities in South Dakota were also portrayed in the film, experiencing similar problems with oil companies as they fight to obtain land. In an attempt to make a political statement, the South Dakotan tribe is seeking to establish energy independence. By installing solar panels and wind turbines wherever they can, these tribal communities are contributing less to the extraction of fossil fuels and the destruction of their territories.
The filmmakers then traveled to the Mediterranean, and documented Greek environmental activists protesting against a Canadian corporation called El Dorado, which is planning to mine for gold in one of Greece’s mountainsides. A Greek mayor was interviewed and explained how tempting it is to allow their resources to be exploited by foreign companies so that the government can benefit economically, as the country is recovering from its most recent debt crisis.
As the documentary moves on to cover calamities related to climate change in India, China, and the United States, a connection is highlighted between environmental degradation and social justice, as well as the economic systems of first-world nations.
Subsequently, capitalism is the scapegoat of both the global warming scare and the cause of stark socioeconomic inequality on a global scale. For this reason, disbelievers of climate change claim that the whole concept of global warming is being used as a sort of “Trojan Horse” to advance socialist and Marxist ideologies into governmental policies, justifying hindered industrialization and the redistribution of wealth.
The documentary films a convention of the Heartland Institute, where political members make these arguments against mainstream environmentalists.
Upon the conclusion of the documentary, Professors Tevita Kaili and Kali Fermantez invited the audience to ask questions about climate change and to comment on the film.
Joshua Noga, the Hawaii Conservation Program Coordinator for the Sierra Club, was also present to answer questions about environmentalism. Noga explained, “If you eat and you breathe, this involves you.”
When asked what we can do to reduce our environmental impact, Fermantez responded, “My goal is to eat kalo every day that I’ve grown myself. If the next generation grows all that they eat, that would make a big difference.”
Search for the trailer of “This Changes Everything” on YouTube to learn more about this documentary. To find information about the Sierra Club and how you can get involved with environmental protection here in Hawaii, visit www.sierraclub.org.