Climate change – has been happening for quiet a while now. This film encapsulates the history of it in terms of activism. It walks you through the political happenings connected with it. That brings me to some statistics – starting with the ‘popclock’. World Population is moving past this number at this moment : 7,191,777,149. That’s more than 7000 million. The largest cities in the world are:
- Shanghai, China 13.3 million
- Mumbai (Bombay), India 12.6 million
- Buenos Aires, Argentina 11.92 million
- Moscow, Russia 11.3 million
- Karachi, Pakistan 10.9 million
- Delhi, India 10.4 million
- Manila, Philippines 10.3 million
- Sao Paulo, Brazil 10.26 million
- Seoul, South Korea 10.2 million
- Istanbul, Turkey 9.6 million
- Jakarta, Indonesia 9.0 million
- Mexico City, Mexico 8.7 million
- Lagos, Nigeria 8.68 million
- Lima, Peru 8.38 million
- Tokyo, Japan 8.3 million
- New York City, USA 8.09 million
- Cairo, Egypt 7.6 million
- London, UK 7.59 million
- Teheran, Iran 7.3 million
- Beijing, China 7.2 million
The ones in red are the cities that are near the coastline. Why? Because it is near water that a civilization flourishes – history says it all. The list doesn’t have Los Angeles, USA and Calcutta, India, that too are near the coastline. Imagine what rising sea levels due to climate change would do to these cities and the people in it. Then there are islands, peninsulas and isthmuses – surrounded by water.
Can the corporate people in these cities envision this scenario? Isn’t this enough for them to shift to alternative technologies – green technologies? If that wasn’t enough, will a number help? Sea level is rising 0.12 inches per year, that’s 0.6 inches in 5 years, 1.2 in 10 years.
Is it a one way street? No. The supply goes hand in hand with demand. Demand is what we people want. What we want is what the industries produce. If we want something better, we can demand for it. It’s not easy, but that is how it works. The above film starts with what Frederick Douglass once said,
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
Rising sea levels is just one aspect of climate change, the film offers a much broader perspective. It is also available for you to watch on Vimeo as well.
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