n March 2003, GreenWorks presented "Beans of Change"
: a screening and discussion about energy and the environment
over coffee. We also distributed Renewable
Energy 101, a primer on energy information and resources.
GLOBAL WARMING: SCREENING AND DISCUSSION
Those looking to "get out" and "get involved" may have attended
GreenWorks' "Beans of Change" event in March 2003.
We showed the film Global Warming: Turning Up the Heat,
which furnished viewers with a comprehensive background on recent
climate change history. Then our speaker, UN Technical Advisor
on Energy and the Environment Roger
Raufer, brought us up to speed on the current state
of the globe, and fielded audience questions.
GLOBAL WARMING: FILM REVIEW
By Nathan Kuruna
Global Warming: Turning Up the Heat, asks what happened
to the supposedly heartfelt commitments we once made to clean
up our planet. It reminds us all that even though most of us
don't deal with its ramifications every day, the threat posed
by our slowly deteriorating environment is still very real.
Host David Suzuki gives us an overview of both the causes (burning
of fossil fuels) and effects (widespread climate change) of
our current situation and hears from a number of experts who
detail the current situation's urgency.
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In June of 1992, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
world leaders and experts all but unanimously agreed that we
were pumping entirely too much pollution into our air and water
and that we needed to start taking steps to curb this damage.
Unfortunately, since that time, we have done an excellent job
of ignoring our own advice. Suzuki reveals that no binding legislation
came out of the summit and since then it has been business as
usual as far as pollution is concerned. This has resulted in
what many of us call global warming. Global warming systematically
alters climate, which results in more extreme, more damaging
weather conditions such as longer dryer summers, longer hurricane
seasons, and increased flooding.
Part of the problem is that for many of us it is too easy to
overlook the ramifications of our actions, especially when it
may take decades for us to notice any significant results. Suzuki
visits locations around the world such as Bangladesh and New
Orleans that feel the effects of Global Warming right now and
on a regular basis, revealing these problems as both genuine
and significant.
While the program does not provide cutting edge information
(it was made back in 1995), there is a lot of useful background
here and nothing too confusingly technical. This makes Global
Warming an excellent primer or crash course in the subject
for new learners or a comprehensive refresher for anyone who
once learned about it and has since forgotten (much like humanity
has). The program does more problem identification than problem
solving. Suzuki sums it up best when he says, "We know that
life depends on our atmosphere. We know that we're changing
that atmosphere. So, what do we do with what we know?"
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