Together with about about 75 other people, Tom Bray went along to a film screening of the People’s Emergency Briefing to see what’s on offer.
The film currently available at a variety of venues around the country is a distilled version of a set of talks given to political and industry leaders in Westminster last autumn. Eight talks about a range of issues linked to climate change and nature loss, have now been edited together with some googlebox style reactions from members of the public and a few recognisable celebrity faces too.
The conversation around climate change, or that phrase Net Zero, seems to have gotten confused over the last few years. From the heights of 2018/19 where many of us were moved by School Strikes for Climate and the Fridays for Future movement. Or maybe shocked by the campaigns from Extinction Rebellion, and then supportive of political leaders setting Net Zero targets, declaring climate emergencies, committing to transitioning away from polluting technology. In recent years, our conversation has moved to uncertainty, doubt, even misinformation about how we should, or whether we should respond to climate change.
Communicating about climate change is difficult, and using language like emergency can feel bewildering. If it is really an emergency, why aren’t things changing much more quickly? Over the last few years we might have seen incremental change – maybe we spot more EVs on the road, maybe a neighbour has got solar panels – but not much radical change that would seem to suggest we are responding to an emergency. I think the lack of change makes us question how quickly we need to respond. If Government, or other political leaders, or people around us, leaders in our communities seem happy with the status quo, maybe we all could be.
Still an emergency
What this film does is set out why that word ‘Emergency’ could still be appropriate, communicating where we are up to in the story of climate change and environmental damage, touching on topics including extremes in weather, ‘tipping points’, national security and food security, with input from a range of academic and other senior leaders. Setting out clearly what is happening, as well as the risks of sticking to business as usual. 35-40minutes into the film, I felt pretty despondent – ‘We know this’ I thought to myself, ‘none of this is new’ – it is helpful to be reminded of the latest thinking of climate change and nature loss, even if it is disheartening.
But the final 10-15 minutes of the film turns to what we are already doing and what we might do in response to the information that has been set out. Both the economics of climate action, and the reality of an energy transition. And the tone turns hopeful.
It is in these topics that I spend my time working. How do we reduce reliance on fossil fuels to reduce risk of climate change, improve energy security, improve air quality, and reduce costs? I think we have many of the answers to those questions, it might mean electrifying our heating systems or our transport, it might mean giving back some of our land to nature, it might mean a view of solar panels or wind turbines in the distance. Simply, responding to climate change means burning less stuff and improving the quality of our lives in the meantime.
I found the People’s Emergency Briefing frustrating in telling the same story we have heard for the last decade or so, but inspiring, a shot in the arm, a reminder that we can and should do more to respond to climate change.
Find and book into a screening near you via this map: https://www.nebriefing.org/screening-map
A guest post by Tom Bray was first published at www.thenortherneco.com.
Tom is an engineer and environmentalist, working with individuals and organisations on responding to climate change at sb-energy.co.uk, and communicating about the energy transition on Youtube with a channel called ‘Low Carbon Lifestyle’
Tom Bray
South West Durham News covering news across County Durham.
