Documentary Review: Before the Flood

“You are the last best hope of Earth. We ask you to protect it or we, and all living things we cherish, are history.”- Leonardo DiCaprio

Directed by Fisher Stevens and narrated by UN’s Messenger of Peace and acclaimed actor Leonardo DiCaprio, Before the Flood is about climate change and its manifestations in form of rising sea levels, extreme climatic conditions, dying coral reefs and extinction of species, observed around the world. It brings to light not only the drastic magnitude of climate change driven events, but also the political narrative of denial, backed by lobbying corporate network, influencing people’s opinions.

Science and research has been the backbone of the documentary. NASA’s Earth Sciences division’s model simulation of the changing components — C02 levels, clouds, sea surface temperature among others as tracked by the satellites is used to estimate the impact of climate change. One of the scientists interviewed in the film says that earlier mitigating climate change was just about switching your light bulb, but now, many structural and systemic issues need to be addressed and changes need to be made to save ourselves in the small window of opportunity that we have.

“We are on an average moving to a 4 degree warmer world by the end of this century. We haven’t been on such a warm world for the past four million years so its not a place that we know very well.” — Before the Flood

“Greenland for the first time is melting on its entire surface to a point that instead of being a white surface, it becomes a dark surface and suddenly instead of being a cooler, becomes a self heater because the ice cannot reflect back the heat.” — Before the Flood

“The Oceans are neither the republicans not the democrats. All that the oceans know is to rise” — Before the Flood

The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch

The documentary starts with the painting ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’. It has an eerie similarity to the modern day that seems to be headed to same fate as in the third panel of the painting. As a parallel to our own world from creation to the present, the first panel depicts the abundance and prosperity; second depicts the evils that we start to bring upon ourselves (read: pandemics, pollution and diseases, and destruction of biodiversity); the third is our doom, because of our uncorrected exploitative ways. Bosh calls the second panel that’s on the verge of impending doom as “Before the Flood”. We are living in that era.

DiCaprio, in his journeys across the world accounts for terrible climate change driven events:

1. In the US, in Miami and Florida, rising sea levels forced the city government to raise its roads to borrow time — another 50 years (or less) to not let the city drown in rising sea waters
2. The depletion of Boreal forests and its rich ecosystem, in Canada due to Tar sands oil extraction
3. High up the Arctic circle, how ice, otherwise deep blue and strong, has turned into ice-cream like, that melts alarmingly quickly. An estimate of 100s of cubic km of ice had melted at the time of shooting the documentary. The Arctic region acts as an Air Conditioner for the northern hemisphere and if no ice remains, then the world is prone to changing currents and weather patterns leading to floods and droughts more catastrophic.
4. Excessive coal consumption in China and its adverse effects on health which brought about a citizen driven movement against pollution. They use a live database of pollution map of various companies to get companies to follow standards
5. In India, how just one nonseasonal rain destroys lands and lands of crops leaving the poor more prone to adversities.

Is Climate Change a recent phenomenon?

The documentary shows past forecasts and patterns that scientists had predicted way back in the 1960s. The potential of non renewables like solar and wind energy to mitigate climate change was determined way back. At this point, they raise a pertinent question: was there enough economic interest to make the switch to greener energies even when climate change and its impact was ascertained? Why wasn’t anyone investing in it enough? Herein come the powerful network of fossil fuel based companies who continued the exploitation of ‘cheap’ sources of energy. In their pursuit of relentless progress, many big wigs from politics and industry were gotten to publicly deny climate change and even subjecting climate scientists to threats. Amidst the climate change debate, the public was divided enough for the coal and oil companies to continue unabated.

Carbon Footprint and Carbon Tax for Nudge

Leonardo DiCaprio visits one of the few survivor rain forests of the world — the South East Asian rain forest. Indonesia, that forms a part of this rain forest is labeled to one of the most corrupt in terms of unchecked, unabated rampant deforestation. Its lands regularly burned down for the planting Palm trees for palm oil, the extensively used oil in almost everything we buy — cosmetics, fast food, fried stuff like chips, nachos and the likes.

“A day’s forest fire in Indonesia contributes to the environment C02 that is equivalent to what the US economy produces in a day” — Before the Flood

In US, of the 47% of land used for food, of which around 70% is used for cattle feed. The cattle is used for beef, an average American’s favorite meat. And cows produce methane as they chew the feed. One molecule of methane is equivalent to 23 molecules of C02 in terms of greenhouse impact.

Nearly everything we do is destroying the earth’s delicate balance. How do we get companies to make a switch? We can learn something from the cigarette industry. Because of the negative health impact, more tax is levied on cigarettes making it expensive and creating a natural barrier to its excessive adoption. Likewise, carbon tax can be levied to incentivize companies to switch to green fuels. However the vicious net of corporate lobbying and political funds has made carbon tax limited in reality.

Paris Climate Summit

195 countries agree to keeping the climate warming well below 2 degree Celsius while there’s no mention of ensuring the implementation and nations’ accountability. In an interview, Obama optimistically lauds the summit and while he agrees that its not where we need to be, he remains hopeful of the first step that will lead to more.

Some good news:

1. Germany gets 30% of its electricity from Solar and wind
2. On some days Denmark produces 100% of its energy from wind and solar
3. Sweden is on to become the world’s first fossil fuel free nation

While some nations do well, the powerful wrong doers like the USA do not seem to be investing enough in the alternate sources.
As quoted by Obama, climate change is not just a climate issue but a national security issue because a vast majority of us live near the oceans and if they rise beyond control, then those people will migrate to safer lands, leading to competition for the scarce resources.

Conclusion

In addressing the political system as a way for stringent and urgent action for climate change, the documentary raises a point-
“The leaders are not elected representatives, but elected followers”
The leaders can be pressurized to act for urgent issues. Lets vote for policies that reject fossil fuel based economies, that tax carbon and that which invest in greener sources of fuel.

Lets consume responsible. Audit what we eat, what we buy and how we get our power from.

Let’s act.