Climate change is the ‘existential crisis of our time,’ say Inconvenient Truth sequel directors
In 2006, An Inconvenient Truth bought the subject of climate change crashing into our lives, making many of us sit up and realise exactly what was at stake thanks to Al Gore, his PowerPoint presentation and a ton of terrifying data.
Ten years on, shockingly, it seems that not much has been done around the world to even attempt to slow the ever rising sea temperatures, melting glaciers, or longer droughts – and with a sitting President of the United States who doesn’t believe in the words climate or change, one cannot help but wonder if the world may be in even more danger than before.
Not so, say directors Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, who have directed An Inconvenient Sequel, a convenient sequel that is more personal and more revealing that the first, and that finally reveals the man behind Al Gore.
‘I will chose to be optimistic in the face of a president who is single handily dismantling the EPA (Environment Protection Agency) as we know it and drilling in the Arctic, and you know, while simultaneously releasing a white house report that global warming is man made!’ says Cohen.
‘He can’t undo in four years what this movement has been building up for decades,’ she adds, ‘and there is so much he is not even capable of reversing, so we will have a setback but it won’t be as cataclysmic as people think.’
‘You can pessimistic, or think optimistically that there is a pendulum swing, or a reaction to this that could be quite stunning,’ adds Shenk, ‘so we encourage people, if they agree to get out there and use their votes, and tell their leaders.’
An Inconvenient Sequel asks exactly how close the world may finally be to a real energy revolution and Cohen and Shenk, life long environmentalists who clearly care deeply about the planet – their previous documentary The Island President followed the then-President of the Maldives as he tackled rising sea levels resulting from climate change – say that it was that film that bought them to Gore.
‘[That film] taught us a lot about climate space and we were intrigued ever since then of telling stories about the environment but through individuals, who work on solving the problems,’ Cohen admits.
‘From our perspective, to have this leading man in Al Gore who broke this wide open and gave us language to talk and think about the climate crisis… we were simply curious about what he was doing and who he had become ten years later,’ Shenk adds.
The film is deeply personal, and less data driven than the first film, and Cohen admits that Gore was definitely unsure about the cameras entering his life too closely.
‘He knew Godfather 2 was not going to be Godfather 1,’ laughs Cohen, ‘but sequels can often stray and he understood that, and he was excited about films and how we could bring those sensibilities to the film.’
‘He’s a climate and science nerd and he’s so passionate about the data, but getting him to understand he is as important did take some, it was a learning curve,’ adds Shenk.
‘The thing that we immediately realised, there is a side of him people didn’t know, and when we met him in July 2015 and started talking about what it may look like, the thing that struck was his warmth and passion and humanness – ironically he had a reputation for being a wooden figure, but we found the opposite, he was warm and passionate, and at a basic level if we can follow him around and show his vulnerability as a character, there would be natural drama.’
They shot the film throughout 2015 and 2016, and the production crew were in Paris in November 2015 when the world was left shocked by simultaneous attacks in the French capital by ISIS which left 130 people dead; it was the biggest attack on the people of France since World War Two.
That was the most ‘frightening moment’ for the pair during filming but they admit that ‘going to the Philippines and meeting the survivors of the hurricane, watching people who are actively suffering from climate change related events from hurricanes made worse by warmer ocean temps’ was the most shocking.
As for whether the 2016 US election changed the way they decided to shoot, they admit that it didn’t – although they later made an amendment to the end of the film after the inauguration of President Trump.
‘We filmed throughout the campaign and of course Al was carefully following the political campaign because he himself was in the game, and had a natural interest, and he also knows how crucial it is to have leaders in our country and all around the world that prioritise and maintain a balance in our climate system,’ says Shenk.
‘Trump has carried on, and maybe even in more exaggerated ways, what the Republican party has been doing, a road they’ve been going down, for a couple of decades to align themselves with fossil fuel interests,’ says Shenk.
‘The political system has been hacked by the money, by the energy industry so then we have leaders like Trump and Vice President Pence who don’t have the public interest at heart with climate policy, just the companies that help get them elected, so we felt we had to add them on to the film. We didn’t change it but after Trump was elected we did have to add the ending as it was part and parcel of the story we were telling.’
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
Climate change is no longer a topic debated philosophically in class rooms and universities; the dangers are real and the threats become worse daily.
But do Cohen and Shenk believe that climate change can continue to be what may be the greatest 21st century social movement despite Trump and the Republican party policies?
‘I think it depends on the time frame but absolutely,’ says Cohen emphatically.
‘As Al says, who would have thought today that the gay marriage struggle would have been solved, with so much legality for gay marriage in so many places around the world, the progress was unthinkable a few decades ago.’
‘The climate crisis is the existential crisis of our time, it has become a human rights crisis, it’s real and proven. It’s not something to philosophically talk about, it’s the real deal so change is going to happen.
‘We do believe it will be looked back upon as one of the most, if not the most important movement of all time.’
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power – See It on Digital and DVD 11 December.
MORE: Activists leave huge ‘crack’ in floor of British Museum to protest climate change
MORE: Trump ‘melted by polar bears’ in attempt to raise money to save them
MORE: Video of starving polar bear is a reminder we need to stop global warming
[contf] [contfnew] 
METRO
[contfnewc] [contfnewc]
The post Climate change is the ‘existential crisis of our time,’ say Inconvenient Truth sequel directors appeared first on News Wire Now.
