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Not sophisticated nor original but 2040 is a film that gives hope

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cmtoo 16-Jun-19, 17:21	Not sophisticated nor original but 2040 is a film that gives hope Our system, says Damon Gameau, forces you into hypocrisy. We’re in Gameau’s new film, 2040, and he speaks from inside a transatlantic jet, underlining his point that even if you want to avoid fossil fuels, you can’t. We know it, of course. The same hypocrisy inhabits every level of our lives, from each yoghurt-pot and milk-bottle to the stinking containers of Australian “recyclables” that Malaysia threatens to repatriate to our shores. We get the recycling feel-goods yet local people ending up burning our plastics, dumping the residue in their rivers and wrecking their children’s health. And theirs is not the only health at risk, given recent news that the world's citizens could be ingesting on average a credit-card worth of plastic a week. These issues are so immense and so implacably interconnected you have to wonder whether this forced hypocrisy isn’t a factor also in the current, climate-exacerbating global epidemics of obesity, narcissism and depression. 2040 is not a sophisticated film. Nor is it original, the ideas and arguments all having been developed by others. It’s not meant to be either of those things – being firmly targeted on the practicable solution and the popular middle-brow. Engaging, persuasive and urgent, it’s an exercise in what you might call muscular hope. Most current prophecies go straight to gloom; the sea-level rise, mass migration, global epidemic and war attending climate emergency. Gameau flips it around - asking, rather, what it would take to avoid this. Answer: not just “mitigation”, and not even just reduction or stabilisation of greenhouse emissions. Atmospheric greenhouse gases, having hovered between 80-280ppm for hundreds of millennia, are now 500ppm. This is uncharted territory. As one commentator notes, even if we reduce emissions enough to stabilise atmospheric GHGs at current levels, we’re still toast. You actually have to turn around. We need reversal. We need atmospheric GHGs to start dropping. How to achieve this by 2040 is the film’s guiding question. Things that are doable. The film documents Gameau’s global search for replicable answers that are already, in some way, at work. From The Age
cmtoo 03-Sep-19, 17:45	New life, new hope for a forest being killed by the climate crisis The grey and yellow box eucalypts of Nardoo Hills are going to die. They are already withering, leaves turning brown and falling off. Many are already dead. The trees are victims of the climate crisis. Within the past decade, the climate here, three hours' drive north of Melbourne, has become too hot and too dry for them. About 20 per cent of the trees in some parts of the region are already dead or dying. “Thousands have died. It’s a lot of trees. Tens of thousands are showing signs of decline. We’re talking saplings as well,” says ecologist Dr Matt Appleby. “Another hot summer might be the death knell for many more.” Across Australia trees and animals are dealing – or not dealing – with the consequences of human-induced climate change. But Nardoo Hills is unique, because it is the site of a bold new experiment. This week, scientists are on site planting a new woodland here, one that can hopefully resist heat and drought. If it works, it will be Australia’s first ''climate change woodland'' – and a precursor of the way we will need to adapt, or even replace, our environment in a warming world. Similar projects are planned around Australia. To save them, Bush Heritage this week will embark on a grand experiment. Its scientists have sourced seeds from Deniliquin, Fifield, Griffith and Narrandera, and grown them into 9000 saplings. These places have climates that are similar to that which Nardoo can expect in the next 50 years, Dr Appleby says. The hope is the eucalypts living in these areas have developed adaptions for surviving heat and drought. Those adaptions should be encoded in the trees' DNA. The new trees will hopefully thrive in Nardoo and share their adaptions with the local trees. “We hope they're going to grow and survive here. And more importantly, the locals and the old ones will mix, and produce even stronger better-adapted plants. “We’re not giving up on the local trees. But we have to increase their genetic diversity.” From The Age From another thread - cmtoo

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cmtoo
16-Jun-19, 17:21

Not sophisticated nor original but 2040 is a film that gives hope

Our system, says Damon Gameau, forces you into hypocrisy. We’re in Gameau’s new film, 2040, and he speaks from inside a transatlantic jet, underlining his point that even if you want to avoid fossil fuels, you can’t. We know it, of course. The same hypocrisy inhabits every level of our lives, from each yoghurt-pot and milk-bottle to the stinking containers of Australian “recyclables” that Malaysia threatens to repatriate to our shores. We get the recycling feel-goods yet local people ending up burning our plastics, dumping the residue in their rivers and wrecking their children’s health.

And theirs is not the only health at risk, given recent news that the world's citizens could be ingesting on average a credit-card worth of plastic a week. These issues are so immense and so implacably interconnected you have to wonder whether this forced hypocrisy isn’t a factor also in the current, climate-exacerbating global epidemics of obesity, narcissism and depression.

2040 is not a sophisticated film. Nor is it original, the ideas and arguments all having been developed by others. It’s not meant to be either of those things – being firmly targeted on the practicable solution and the popular middle-brow. Engaging, persuasive and urgent, it’s an exercise in what you might call muscular hope.

Most current prophecies go straight to gloom; the sea-level rise, mass migration, global epidemic and war attending climate emergency. Gameau flips it around - asking, rather, what it would take to avoid this.

Answer: not just “mitigation”, and not even just reduction or stabilisation of greenhouse emissions. Atmospheric greenhouse gases, having hovered between 80-280ppm for hundreds of millennia, are now 500ppm. This is uncharted territory. As one commentator notes, even if we reduce emissions enough to stabilise atmospheric GHGs at current levels, we’re still toast.

You actually have to turn around. We need reversal. We need atmospheric GHGs to start dropping.

How to achieve this by 2040 is the film’s guiding question. Things that are doable.

The film documents Gameau’s global search for replicable answers that are already, in some way, at work.

From The Age

cmtoo
03-Sep-19, 17:45

New life, new hope for a forest being killed by the climate crisis

The grey and yellow box eucalypts of Nardoo Hills are going to die.

They are already withering, leaves turning brown and falling off. Many are already dead.

The trees are victims of the climate crisis. Within the past decade, the climate here, three hours' drive north of Melbourne, has become too hot and too dry for them. About 20 per cent of the trees in some parts of the region are already dead or dying.

“Thousands have died. It’s a lot of trees. Tens of thousands are showing signs of decline. We’re talking saplings as well,” says ecologist Dr Matt Appleby. “Another hot summer might be the death knell for many more.”

Across Australia trees and animals are dealing – or not dealing – with the consequences of human-induced climate change.

But Nardoo Hills is unique, because it is the site of a bold new experiment. This week, scientists are on site planting a new woodland here, one that can hopefully resist heat and drought.

If it works, it will be Australia’s first ''climate change woodland'' – and a precursor of the way we will need to adapt, or even replace, our environment in a warming world. Similar projects are planned around Australia.

To save them, Bush Heritage this week will embark on a grand experiment.

Its scientists have sourced seeds from Deniliquin, Fifield, Griffith and Narrandera, and grown them into 9000 saplings. These places have climates that are similar to that which Nardoo can expect in the next 50 years, Dr Appleby says.

The hope is the eucalypts living in these areas have developed adaptions for surviving heat and drought. Those adaptions should be encoded in the trees' DNA. The new trees will hopefully thrive in Nardoo and share their adaptions with the local trees.

“We hope they're going to grow and survive here. And more importantly, the locals and the old ones will mix, and produce even stronger better-adapted plants.

“We’re not giving up on the local trees. But we have to increase their genetic diversity.”

From The Age

From another thread - cmtoo

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