“Right now we are facing our greatest threat in thousands of years. Climate Change… The science is now clear that urgent action is needed.”
David Attenborough
With 11 years to radically alter the current course towards climate catastrophe, the BBC finally broke its subdued silence on climate change. These welcome yet warning words came from the beloved David Attenborough, as he introduced last month’s Climate Change: The Facts – the BBC’s first climate change documentary in over a decade. Capitalising on the “Attenborough effect” seen in tackling the plastic pollution problem, issues such as the fossil fuel, meat and plantation industries were at long last brought to the table for the British family to discuss. The climate conversation, it appeared, was finally being reignited.
However, before being tempted to jump upon Attenborough’s bandwagon, it became clear it was important to consider which direction it was headed. Despite presenting itself as ‘The Facts’, the documentary was in fact largely limited to a technological, scientific perspective. With issues presented solely in models and statistics, and solutions in impressive images of green technology and industry, the documentary sent a powerful yet subtle message. It was of an unspoken logic that solutions will be handed to us, rather than us having a hand in the solution. The tone and agenda for who and how we initiate change was being set and our sense of contribution and agency was being limited.
What if we see the world differently? Where was the space for engaging alternative perspectives? Where were the artistic, philosophical or spiritual responses, which people for millennia have turned to for understanding, meaning and value? These voices were not invited to the BBC’s conversation. These do not have to oppose the integral scientific and technological responses to climate change, but rather compliment and colour it with differing perspectives. We do not exist in a black and white, binary world that such material fixes to climate change, and the documentary’s narrative, presume. Attenborough and the BBC were presenting ‘Climate Change: Some of The Facts’. This may seem a somewhat pedantic assessment, but how you start a conversation has ramifications as to which direction our understanding takes. An ‘Attenborough effect’ within climate change therefore was risking closing the climate conversation.
This is important to recognise when considering what was not discussed. Throughout the documentary an elephant was in the room. It lurked in the background as Attenborough and others admirably introduced the impact of fossil fuels, greenhouse gases and mass consumption that have developed alongside the climate crisis and industrialisation. Professor Naomi Oreskes came within touching distance of it when mentioning the “current economic system”. Nevertheless, in the entire 58 minutes of the episode remarkably ‘capitalism’ was not uttered a single time. This seems absurd, considering the capitalistic system lies at the root of the phenomena that the documentary explored.
Consequently, the bigger questions surrounding the reasons why were not asked. Why do we overconsume the earth’s resources? Why have we allowed, and continue to allow, industries to exploit people and the earth in the name of perpetual growth? Why have we not truly faced up to the problems and questions posed by capitalism and climate change?
There is no denying capitalism is seductive. Through advertising, education, media and cultural conditioning, it offers a seemingly infinite number of ways to attain the ‘good life’. Yet have we stopped to ask if this life is experienced as good? It dangles happiness in the shape of wealth, status and consumption in front of our eyes, yet fulfilment remains fleetingly out of reach, satisfaction never quite secured. As research beings to echo what ancient wisdom has long said, fundamentally we know: acting upon desire for material gain and status does not create sustainable happiness, or a sustainable way of life. The Ancient Indian text, the Bhagavad Gita, written over 2000 years ago states: “Desire consumes and corrupts everything. It is humankind’s greatest enemy… it destroys wisdom”. Seemingly, it is also the planet’s greatest enemy… it destroys life. The current capitalist way of life is not only impacting the well-being of the planet we inhabit, but also the well-being of our individual lives. The unstable external climatic changes reflect the state of our own polluted inner climates that currently drowns out important conversations.
Despite what on the face of it appeared to be quite a challenging and thought-provoking documentary, the BBC and Attenborough failed to recognise these deeper facts of climate change. It chose a conversation that would not rock the boat too heavily. In the words of the Guardian’s George Monbiot:
“To say ‘capitalism is failing’ in the 21st century is like saying ‘God is dead’ in the 19th: it is secular blasphemy. It requires a degree of self-confidence.”
Yet the climate crisis that humanity faces, demands us to be braver in our conversations. It must be faced with sincerity, not a shying away from the fundamental problems at the heart of the crisis. To do otherwise, we risk falling into the same trap as the very politicians that the documentary appears to call out, who for 30 years have failed to appropriately deal and act on climate knowledge.
Climate change requires a more radical re-imagination of the what we value, and subsequently how we live; going far beyond how we currently perceive ourselves and the world around us. It calls for creativity that forms only through an open and interconnected conversation, drawing upon all our diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and values.
At this point, Attenborough and the BBC must be praised for helping contribute to this. In particular, the documentary’s inclusion of the rising voice of the youth climate movement – embodied and inspired by the great Greta Thunberg, who’s school climate strike has blossomed worldwide – rightly portrayed a new way in which we can join the conversation. However, this also highlights another curious admission in the documentary: the exclusion of the Extinction Rebellion (XR). Somewhat perfectly coinciding with the release of the documentary, the non-violent movement hit the streets of London in an unprecedented way in the last month. XR has however been an ever-growing presence in the climate conversation since last year, blocking five major London bridges in November 2018. Its aims: force the government to tell the truth, to act more urgently on climate change and bio-diversity loss, and to establish a citizen’s assembly to discuss all of this. It was the preliminary protests of this movement that in fact gave Greta (a passionate advocate of XR) her first stage in the UK.
Failing to make any reference of XR, the BBC subtly shapes which voices are deemed relevant to the climate conversation in the documentary. Of course XR’s tactics are deemed controversial, perhaps too controversial for the BBC it may be argued, but were they anymore than thousands of children going on strike from school? Whether the tactics are agreeable or not, the substantial impact cannot be denied. Widespread climate conversation has been sparked, MPs have met the movement’s representatives, and parliament last week declared a climate emergency.
The success lies in the new and imaginative ways in which they opened the climate conversation. The documentary’s narrative must therefore only constitute one aspect of such a conversation. Whilst remaining grateful for the passionate and dedicated contribution that David Attenborough has made over the year, it must be recognised that we cannot settle for a narrow discussion of climate change, limited within the status quo. We cannot overlook the opportunity to use climate change as a means of exploring the deeper, more meaningful questions and solutions that are bound up within it.
We must instead ensure we embrace a diverse and expansive network of conversation and understanding. We can then begin to answer the more challenging questions on what it means to be human within this crisis. It remains up to us to create this, to find our own individual ways to collectively connect and converse within the climate crisis.
Climate change touches the vast depths of our human experience; our responses should match this. We must therefore all be part of a climate conversation.
Jonathan Hyde, 25, MA Climate Change student and creator of ºclimo
ºclimo 