In 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit Southern regions of United States, and caused 46.6 billion dollars of economic losses and 1833 people of casualties, which is regarded as one of the largest damages that United States has ever got. In 2010, Russia had hottest summer throughout its history, recording 38.2 degree Celsius, which led 56 thousands of people to lose their lives. All of these continual major environmental problems, which are even getting worse these days, are neither due to coincidence nor temporary misfortune. Rather, they are the signs of significant changes in climate.
‘The Age of Stupid’, directed by Franny Armstrong, is a film
in which Peter Postlethwaite, one of the last humans left on the Earth in 2055,
looks back history of human being and throw a question, ‘Why did not humans stop climate change
when they had the chance?’ Answering to this question, the film
reveals several perspectives of people toward the environmental problems by
telling stories of six main characters, those who all underwent different
experiences, and in distinct situations. Through them, the film alerts us the
severity of current status quo regarding the environmental issues, emphasizes
how stupid we are being right now, and proposes the necessity of changing our
attitudes.
Looking into several
scenes and data presented in the film, I was able to readily recognize how
climate change became so severe and problematic these days. In the film, Jamila
and Adnan seemed to lose everything: both their father and their humanity, because
of Iraq War. Their hobby is pretending to shoot and kill others, and their thoughts
are completely filled with extreme anti-Americanism. What we have to
concentrate on this is that these socially detrimental aspects that two Iraqi
children show are due to conflicts dealing with the possession of the resources.
This made me to think of the butterfly effect, a theory that a small change at
one place can result in large differences to a later state. From this viewpoint,
even trivial human behaviors that artificially expand the greenhouse effect,
such as overusing air conditioner, or taking cars in spite of close proximity, can
ultimately cause second-hand and third-hand negative effects to human society not
only in the environmental aspect, but also in various ways either socially or
economically.
Then what is a conducive
factor for this butterfly effect related to the environmental issues? Excessive
and unlimited greed of mankind is the answer. Since the Industrial Revolution,
humans have become highly contingent to fossil fuels, in order to maximize
productivity and achieve rapid development. Thanks to advent of these new resources,
lives of people became much more affluent and convenient. On the other hand,
simultaneously, as the amount of greenhouse gases emission skyrocketed, climate
changed dramatically, which led lots of natural disasters occur in much more
significant scale. To deal with these problems, in 1997, 39 countries
passed Kyoto Protocol to obligate developed countries to subside their carbon
dioxide emission to 5.2% lower than the amount they produced in 1990 until
2020. At first, the effect of the Protocol seemed to be auspicious.
Unfortunately however, President George W. Bush of the United States asserted
that "It exempts 80% of the world, including major population centers
such as China and India, from compliance, and would cause serious harm to the
US economy," and did not ratify the Protocol. Moreover, in 2011,
Canada, Japan, and Russia stated that they would withdraw from the Protocol,
which made the prospect of it much darker. Due to many countries' greedy
attitude that only cares about their further development, natural disasters
harmed human society much more frequently, global temperature increased a lot,
and sea level rose constantly, causing lots of countries lose their
territories. Tuvalu, the most serious case among them, even declared territory
abandonment declaration in 2001, and is seeking for the alternative place for
their people to live in.
In this current world, a lot
of countries are keep looking for ways to fulfill their unlimited desire to
develop, and ever-lasting avarice, while others are putting full of their
effort on maintaining their existence and survival. Like this, if human beings
do not stray away from selfishness, and let this equity issue become more
serious, it would ultimately end up in deterioration of the whole world, as it
is shown in year 2055 of the film. Rather than showing stupidity to our
decedents and making them blame us for not protecting the environment and
demolishing ourselves, would it be much better to keep balance between
development and conservation? Now, it is time for humans to adapt new
development model.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
http://www.ted.com/talks/johan_rockstrom_let_the_environment_guide_our_development.html
Dessai, S. (December 2001), Tyndall Centre Working Paper 12: The climate regime from The Hague to Marrakech: Saving or sinking the Kyoto Protocol?, Norwich, UK: Tyndall Centre, p. 5
Dessai, S. (December 2001), Tyndall Centre Working Paper 12: The climate regime from The Hague to Marrakech: Saving or sinking the Kyoto Protocol?, Norwich, UK: Tyndall Centre, p. 5
.jpg)
