The South Cariboo Sustainability Society showed a screening of the first of three documentaries on Jan. 16. All three films focus on sustainability, the first two focusing more on climate change while the third one follows seeds and the people protecting them from extinction.
“Our primary mission is to make people aware of sustainability issues. We’re a small organization and we’re on a very small area of the world so we can’t really push the rest of the world very hard but we can be aware of what’s going on,” said Peter Jarvis, a member of the society.
The first film, Decoding the Weather Machine, was about scientific data studying the increase of greenhouse gasses and how they have impacted weather patterns. The documentary also offers a better understanding of the workings of weather and climate change.
“Everybody thought it was a very good film,” said Jarvis, adding that there were about 20 people watching and most of them were in their 50s or over. “What happens in the world the next 20 years is not really going to affect us too much but we all got grandkids and one couple there just had a grandkid in the past couple of months. The grandchild is going to see all this stuff and it’s very important that we are all aware of what could happen. It doesn’t have to happen if we change our way of doing things, our way of life. The worst of this can be avoided.”
The second film will be The Age of Consequences and describes the social and political repercussions that could happen if increased greenhouse gasses and climate change remains unchecked, especially with the increase of temperature, extreme weather pattern changes and rises in sea levels.
“It’s trying to describe what the effects are going to be from when droughts occur and people move from one location to another and sea level rises and causes floods and again people move. Really that’s the political issue – people are going to migrate from one place to another, not necessarily staying in their own national boundaries. The other issue that comes out is many areas of the world, their governments are not very stable to start with so when all these global issues come on top of their present issues it’s going to cause even more instability,” said Jarvis. “This film is quite hard to see. Some of the implications are not very nice.”
The Age of Consequences will be shown at the Friendship Centre on Feb. 20.
The third film is called Seeds: The Untold Story, following people who keep seeds in storage facilities to stop them from going extinct. According to the film, around 94 per cent of the planets seed varieties have disappeared in the last century.
“The actual number of seeds presently in existence diminishes every year and there are various people trying to store the seeds and keep them available,” said Jarvis.
Jarvis also said the third film, which will be shown on March 20, will hold some appeal to local audiences due because it pertains to local food production.
More information can be found on their Facebook page or by phoning Hugh 250-395-4301 or Peter 250-791-7284.
