ART VANDELAY
Associate News Editor

Students had the chance to watch a poignant documentary on climate change on Nov. 23 at the Neatby-Timlin Theatre.

University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union vice-president student affairs Ben Fawcett introduced the 2008 movie The Age of Stupid, and informed attendees that the USSU was not alone in bringing the film to campus.

“The Facilities Management Division and the Sustainability Office (of the university) put up $350 for students to be able to watch this movie,” Fawcett said.

The USSU worked with the university to bring the film to campus after a student approached Fawcett about it. Fawcett had not seen the movie prior to its showing here.

“Under my portfolio and the subcategory of sustainability I consider it my job to provide educational outlets for students,” Fawcett said of the film. “From what I heard, this movie was good at bringing several issues together that are inter-related, like the economy, the environment and social interdependence.”

He also said the reason he had worked to bring this movie to campus was to bring students’ attention to the issues it raises before the upcoming Copenhagen climate change talks.

World leaders will meet with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Dec. 7 to 18 to discuss a workable approach for addressing climate change.

Fawcett declined to comment on what he thinks Canada’s role is likely to be at the Copenhagen talks. He did say that while he remains skeptical about any “binding, legal action” being taken, he thinks it will have some positive results.

“It’s always a positive thing to bring the countries of the world together to discuss an issue that affects the global community,” he said.

The Age of Stupid looks at the issue of global warming from a unique perspective — a man in 2055 watches clips of film from the early 21st century, most of them news clips and interviews pertaining to climate change.

From a “national archive” tower that stores artifacts and information above a ravaged wasteland, the man sits down at a terminal to watch footage from 2008 to ponder why people refused to act on climate change when it was still possible to do so.

The movie also follows several people whose lives have been immediately affected by climate change.

Layefa Malemi is a 23-year-old woman from the Niger Delta trying to raise money for medical school by fishing despite the fact that Shell Oil tankers have spilled so much oil in the water that the few remaining fish are often covered in oil after Malemi gets them. Eventually she gives up on fishing and begins selling diesel on the black market, a far more lucrative job.

Alvin DuVernay is originally portrayed as a hero, rescuing over 100 people from their homes in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina with his boat. Later in the film it is revealed that he also works for an oil company and finds no contradiction in identifying as an environmentalist while working in the oil industry.

Fernand Pareau lives near and guides tours of the glaciers of the Chamonix Valley in France, and claims that the glaciers have receded over 150 metres since 1945. The camera pans back at one point to reveal a wall of rock with a ladder extending down toward the glaciers.

“We used to just step onto the glaciers,” Pareau says sadly.

When the Guy family of England attempts to account for all the carbon they use, Lisa Guy is prompted to say, “Apparently, other than setting fire to a forest, flying is the single most destructive thing an individual can do (to the environment).” In trying to reduce their emissions to one tonne per person per year, they realize one return flight from London to New York would take up three and a half years’ carbon emissions.

Mark Lynas, the author of Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, is interviewed in the movie. Lynas says global greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut by 80 per cent before 2050 and stabilized by 2015 if the worst effects of climate change are to be avoided. But instead of decreasing or stabilizing emissions, they are going up each year. And while politicians often claim climate change as one of their top priorities, few effective counter-measures are actually being put into place to curb greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption.

The Age of Stupid takes all these things into account and paints a grim portrait of the world people are likely to see emerge in the next several decades. A quick flip through hypothetical future newscasts shows London flooding, Las Vegas being abandoned due to water shortages and Australia lighting up in a blaze of fires. The grim message is undeniably one of urgency — that unless action is taken now, which is not being done, humanity and Earth are doomed, and in extraordinarily short order.

After watching the movie, Fawcett was reluctant to discuss how the film had impacted him personally.

“I’ve been aware of these issues for some time now,” he said in explanation, “and I think this movie was more directed to people who maybe haven’t thought of the inter-connectedness of these issues before.”

Still, Fawcett feels the movie is a valuable starting point for people to become aware of important issues.

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photo: Flickr / Wstera2