“Hello! Climate Change!”
Review of The People vs Climate Change ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Watch here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p097sbzc/the-people-vs-climate-change
When #ThePeopleVsClimateChange ended, I dried my eyes and started it all over again.
In the first minute, Rebecca Willis tells us that the government has climate change targets in place, but the reality is… “they don’t quite know how they’re going to get there.”
How should the UK tackle climate change? What is the reality of these targets? How do we take people on a positive journey to a secure and just future? Could one solution be to ask the public?
In 2020, the Climate Assembly invited 100 people from across the UK to take part four weekends of engagement, asking what the UK could do to address climate change.
“The members were selected from different walks of life, shades of opinion, and from throughout the UK to form a representative sample of the UK’s population.”
One selected member was Sue (age 56). Despite the hangover, Sue kindly shows us around her shed/bar (aptly named ‘Sueloon Bar’). She looks straight to camera: “What do I know about climate change? Not a lot.”
The real beauty of this documentary is that all the usual jargon associated with climate content is missing. This is a a story about people.
“I’m just like a normal person, I don’t know anything, you know what I mean?”
After the first day at the Climate Assembly, listening to climate experts describe the ecological breakdown facing our planet, Sue is asked the million dollar question: what is climate change? Her answer? “…in the layman’s terms, we’re warming up”.
In addition to a plethora of experts, the Climate Assembly brings out the UK’s ‘national treasure’, Mr Blue Planet himself. After hearing David Attenborough speak, Marc — a former “Green Beret” British Commando who served two tours in Afghanistan — struggles to hold back the tears: “… the way he describes things… just, em, sorry I’m getting all teary-up now… when he describes how fantastic the things are that he’s seen and how we’re ruining it… sorry”. Marc covers his face, the emotion is too much.
Personally, as someone who works day in, day out on environmental issues, watching an ex-Army man fighting tears when imagining a bleached coral reef was a powerful moment. I cried alongside Marc.
I cried for the time we have lost denying the problem. I cried for all the people already suffering as a result of our inaction. It is all to easy to dehumanise the climate debate. Sometime, I am aware of falling into a spiraling mindset of guilt, frustration and rage. I want a villain to blame. I want to pin the problem on humanity’s greed, selfishness and ignorance. But the reality is that most people on this planet are trying their best. They are working with the tools life has given them. But it’s all going too slowly.
In the environmental movement, many of us struggle with stories. We know the problem. We shout about injustice, emissions, pollution, rising sea levels, global warming. We point to the science. And in our rush for urgency, we forget to paint a picture. We don’t stop to pick a wild flower and put it in our hair. We don’t lay in the grass, fingers entwined in another's, and watch fluffy clouds.
This documentary showcases the power of good storytelling and how it can shape the climate journey we are all on. Beautiful stories will always take us somewhere else, so why can’t they take us to a better future?
“The question we’re facing is of utmost importance” David Attenborough
Aside for the great storytelling, what else makes this documentary different from other the climate content out there? The answer? Questions.
In the course of one hour, I counted 70 questions (!)
The majority of those questions — both direct and rhetorical — come from women. Overall, the women depicted in the documentary are open, questioning and ready to do some research.
The first words to camera we hear from Amy (age 27), a postal worker from Scarborough, are “When I first moved out here I was like, ‘Solid fuel, what’s solid fuel?’” She opens with a question. When talking about burning coal at home for fuel, she says, “I don’t know if this is good for your health as well? My son’s got asthma now, so is it this that’s caused it? Who knows?”
One young woman Charley (age 25) is very quick to question her own lifestyle, as she enjoys regular foreign holidays by plane. When chatting with her dad, bouncing her gorgeous baby side to side, she has a lovely way of framing the conversation through questions. “The perceptive on travel has changed though, hasn’t it?” she asks. “Growing up it would have been a luxury, wouldn’t it?” For Charley, she naturally opens up the discussion rather than shutting it down with accusations or guilt. She comes into the conversation without any judgement and moralistic judgement.
Although Folajumi (aged 43) is initially hesitant about lifestyle changes to lower emissions, he opens up a conversation about climate reparations and just transition. “How do you bring climate change to someone thinking of food?”, asks Folajumi. “Is it a Western problem? Yes.”
In a wonderful exchange between Sue and Richard (age 75) on the feasibility of a frequent flyer levy, Richard states that implementation would be “a nightmare”. “Why?” asks Sue. When Richard doesn’t know how to respond, Sue adds, “So what would your solution be then? You just think, ‘That’s not a good idea, that’s not a good idea’… you don’t like either of those”
Curiosity is the main character in this story. And on reflection, I realise that making yourself open and vulnerable, asking deep difficult questions, this skill is often missing from so-called “experts”. If you always want to be seen as knowledgeable, do the important questions get forgotten?
Without giving anything away, it is Richard’s journey that is most moving. Early in the documentary, he states:
“if you can’t persuade people on climate change then you won’t get it” (Richard Munday)
In this sentence, Richard gets to the core of our collective battle against climate breakdown. It can only happen with and for the people. It is a fight for our humanity and it requires all of us. So the question is, what are you going to do about it?
