Going Green: Movies help us learn about climate change

As is the way when anything happens on a national or global scale, there are artists that use what’s happening for their creativity. History has shown some of the best art in terms of film, books, and music come from times when people are under duress whether that’s through conflict, famine or disaster.

Climate change isn’t going anywhere. It’s been something people have been aware of and worried about for decades. As a consequence – there’s plenty of art that’s been created around it.

Climate movies are no bad thing at all especially as star power adds them to chat shows and billboards, which we can use as a springboard to have discussions with friends and family about what they’ve seen.

Many are utterly dramatized and no forecasting predicts a global freeze and end of life event overnight but they’re a great way to start talking about the impact of pollution on the planet.

End of the world movies like The Day After Tomorrow and Geostorm are sensationalised creations of big freezes or seismic overnight global changes that are end of life human events.

They’re meant to be stories and dramas and big plot changes but at their core, their messages are about climate change and the global effect it could have unless we take urgent action and stop burning oil and gas. Don’t Look Up staring Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo Di Caprio, Meryl Streep and Timothee Chalamet was about ‘a meteor crashing to earth’ but was actually depicting how the media often make light about climate change warnings from scientists.

There’s a new film called The End We Start From which stars Jodie Comer. It’s a climate change survival film based on a new mother who is trying to survive after a flood comes to London. What’s interesting in the film is that none of the characters are given names. The director suggests this is because climate change is a very real threat that could happen to any of us. Ironically, there was a drought on whilst they were on location filming too.

It’s definitely worth seeking out if you want to watch a non sensationalist, non Hollywood take on a climate change film about human survival.

One of the biggest areas of publishing that’s growing at the moment is called ‘cli – fi’. It’s climate change fiction.

There’s something for everyone too regardless of what type of books you like reading from futuristic dystopian ones to beautiful arching narratives: https://www.waterstones.com/booklist/1629776/environmental-fiction-our-best-cli-fi-books.

So, whatever you like in terms of books or movies, it’s worth finding something you or your friends might enjoy. Climate change can be such a huge subject to understand and there can be a lot of things that are difficult to process.

If you want to immerse yourself in stories that give hopeful messages or something to think about as you look at your own behaviours, cli-fi is a great place to start.