Before the Flood Documentary | My thoughts and takes on the climate change problem

Before the flood

I decided to do my second essay on the documentary, “Before the flood” that was narrated and led by Leonardo Dicaprio who, for this role, was playing himself, or as he puts it in the film, “not as an expert, but as merely a concerned citizen.” This is film was extremely well made and brought that leonardo movie style quality to a documentary with a message far more important than any fictitious movie. I was thoroughly impressed with the urgency and importance the film put on climate change. I personally think this movie, and films of this style are very effective. At first, I was a little worried about potential greenwashing or the idea of leonardo and directors just pulling a publicity stunt, utilizing the fact that discussion on climate change are relevant and pull viewers in. But honestly after the first 15 minutes i realized this is not the case. Granted leonardo is an incredible actor, the fear and urgency displayed is something that cannot be acted out.
As the United Nations messenger of Peace he travels across the world to various places to see; How far we have gone, how much damage we have done, and what we can do to stop it. These three thoughts or questions are essentially what the entire film is trying to answer and points that I found most important to this film. These are questions citizens would ask before, after, and during and is vital to action being taken. The film shows 100s of cubic kilometers of melting ice in Greenland going into the sea, sunny day flooding in miami, boreal forest destruction in canada from squeezing every drop of oil from the oil sands. It shows fires in indonesia that are started on purpose to clear rainforest for more palm oil plantations. While the palm oil plantations also greatly contribute to climate change this problem is even greater when you factor in the statistics of indonesian fires emitting more carbon everyday than the entire U.S economy. This is the last area on earth that has tigers, elephants, and rhinos all living together. When I saw this I immediately went back to being a child and watching the jungle book. As a child I was always in awe of these incredible creatures living together in the wild, discovering that there's only one location left on earth that depicts this disney story was both saddening and encouraging. We are living in a time where our actions have more impact to change the world than ever before, I do not want to live in a world where tigers and elephants living together is just a plot from a movie, or where generations of children never see snow.
One of the enlightening parts of the film and one that I had no idea of the scope of the problem is the segment on Michael Mann and James inhofe. James Inhofe is the single largest recipient of fossil fuel money while at the same time maintaining a position as chair of senate environment committee. How this is even possible is beyond me but I think this problem roots itself in lack of awareness. The fossil fuel industry has control over our senate and representatives. They are essentially paying off anyone with power that will turn their head for wealth and deny and vote against legislation that could conduce positive change.

As always, thank you for stopping by and checking out my article!

Jordan Palmer

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