Come rain, hail or shine
We are all under the weather - in one way or another
I don’t know if anyone else noticed but we pretty much avoided the usual April showers all last month. In fact, as of this week, it’s been the driest start to the year for nearly a century and the Environment Agency warned this week of an impending drought. The European Union’s impressively-named Copernicus climate service said the same for Ireland - which led to a ban on water for outdoor non-essential activities. Further evidence of the climate crisis we are facing.
And many people have told, and are continuing to tell, incredible stories related to the climate. Many of you might switch off at what can be considered too dry (forgive the pun) or too terrifying a topic - but don’t! From the tongue-in-cheek and animated to the factual and fictional and funny, what follows has it all.
TL;DR
Watch Don’t Look Up & Princess Mononoke; listen to Drilled; read The Drowned World and Flight Behaviour; and watch Big Oil v The World & Years and Years.
WATCH
Don’t Look Up was released by Netflix in 2021, the latest project from the brain of Adam McKay - the brain that brought us Step Brothers, Vice & The Big Short, a varied oeuvre I think you’ll agree.
Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo di Caprio, Meryl Streep, Mark Rylance and Cate Blanchett, this is a satire where a couple of scientists try desperately the warn the world of its imminent end due to a comet hurtling towards Earth. The irony that can’t be ignored is that this film & its warning (in case you don’t get: The Comet = The Climate Crisis) wound up being just as ignored as the scientists in the story themselves.
Given its release during the dying days of the pandemic, it’s hardly surprising that we weren’t massively geared up to watch yet another story about the impending end of the world. But it’s definitely funny and well made, as well as well-meaning, so it’s well worth your time.
It’s likely that if you’ve heard of Princess Mononoke, you’ve already watched it and know of its brilliance.
If you haven’t heard of it, get involved. The film’s creator Hayao Miyazaki had made a name for himself as a co-founder of Studio Ghibli in the 1980s which was famous for, amongst others, the monumental My Neighbour Totoro.
The film marked a deliberate departure from the company’s usually softer style of storytelling. Instead Miyazaki opted to tell a darker tale which reflected his despair at the state of world and its environment. It tells the story of Prince Ashitaka who, in searching for the cure to a curse placed on him by a boar-god (this is Japanese story-telling, keep up), gets dragged into a conflict between Eboshi, the leader of Irontown, and the gods of the forest. It’s violent, visually-stunning and bloody brilliant.
The film was a huge hit in Japan but a slower performer outside of its home territory. It’s well worth reading about the failed attempt to Americanise by two men that you’d probably prefer not to be connected to: Harvey Weinstein and Neil Gaiman. Thankfully the Americanised version didn’t really take off (though it did get made) - so stick with the original and you’ll do just fine.
LISTEN
Drilled is a fairly recent find for me though its website there have now been eleven seasons.
The first season starts off with the origins of climate denial, others focus on the struggle of specific countries as they tackle Big Oil. The third series explains how greenwashing got going thanks to savvy deployment of public relations - including a deep dive into the father of spin Ivy Lee.
Fun fact: not only did Lee transform Rockefeller’s image from that of big bad bazillionaire into kindly philanthropist; he also advised Adolf Hitler & Josef Goebbels on how to make Nazi-ism more appealing to foreign journalists. So, that’s nice.
The show is a fascinating exploration of just how hard Big Oil works at manipulating us all in order to keep doing what they’re doing - which is enlightening, frustrating and depressing in equal measure.
READ
I have a real tendency to read one book by an author, love it and then proceed to inhale a lot, if not all, of their back catalogue. About twenty years ago, I did exactly that with the late, great J.G. Ballard. I read an odd hotch-potch of Ballard’s nineteen novels.
Some contemporary at the time: Super-Cannes & Cocaine Nights and some older like High-Rise and The Drowned World. I’ve yet to delve into his most famous titles: Empire of the Sun (which features the first ever on-screen appearance for then-child actor, Christian Bale) and Crash, though I have seen the film adaptations both of which I recommend.
The Drowned World was Ballard’s second novel, published in 1962. It is set in the mid-22nd century where solar radiation has caused such a rise in sea levels that the few human beings left on the planet only inhabit the North & South Poles. It’s an adventure story wrapped up in a post-apocalyptic waterworld. There are marauding pirates seeking treasures to plunder as well as heroes who wind up captured and freed. It’s a book to read in search of escape and otherworldliness and, I guess, to remind ourselves: things could be a hell of a lot worse.
Barbara Kingsolver has long been celebrated - particularly since the 1998 publication of The Poisonwood Bible and the more recent Demon Copperhead further cemented her star in the literary firmament.
Flight Behaviour was well received when it came out thirteen years ago, but it didn’t reach the heights of Bible or Demon.
That said, it is still very much worth your time as Kingsolver’s writing is rich and simultaneously real and soulful. She works hard to craft vivid worlds that draw you in, envelope you in their lyricism and yet still yield angry, funny, smart, stupid & hopeful characters. Her language is just so. damn. good.
In Flight Behaviour, bored Appalachian housewife Dellarobia Turnbow starts out all set to simply have an affair. But on her way to her would-be lover she discovers a colony of rare butterflies - usually found in Mexico - which her neighbours say is a sign from God. An entomologist, Ovid Byron, arrives to study the phenomenon and clarifies that God had little to do with it, instead this is due to climate change. Dellarobia winds up working with Byron, acting as a guide to the area and a link with the community as he conducts his studies, and doing so broadens her horizons. There are small but welcome plot twists towards the end that add to the gratification you will feel from reading a book about such a worthwhile theme - but overall it is Kingsolver’s writing alone that should make you pick this one up, as well as all her other books.
WATCH
If you’re in the mood for being astonished and getting pretty damn angry then Big Oil v The World is for you.
It makes me really angry to report that this one - which I saw when it was broadcast on BBC in 2022 - is only available to view on YouTube. But I highly recommend you watch it.
There are three episodes in total: episode one looks at the 1970s & ‘80s, the second at the ‘90s & ‘00s and the third at the 2010s. In the first episode, we learn of how Big Oil was so involved in research into climate change and the impact of oil production on it…and their inevitable change of heart when it came to funding said research. Let’s just say: it gets more infuriating from there. But do watch it. We need to know this stuff.
And finally, Years and Years. There were rave reviews all over the shop for this when it came out on BBC One in 2019 and rightly so.
It’s written by Russell T Davies, for God’s sake. As with how we should all read everything Barbara Kingsolver has ever written, we should all watch everything Russell T Davies has ever written. The man brought us Queer As Folk and It’s a Sin and I understand from those of you Who do, his revival of Doctor Who is also excellent. And for non-UK readers, it’s now on Netflix.
Years and Years is set in yet another new-future where children wear filters over our faces and Emma Thompson is a Nigel Farage/Katie Hopkins hybrid. This sounds dark, depressing and too dystopian for words: but that’s the beauty of Davies’ writing, it’s never all those things, all the time. Instead it’s funny and real and unflinchingly honest about people’s quirks and habits. And the cast alone is stellar: Thompson (as mentioned), Rory Kinnear, Jessica Hynes, Russell Tovey and Anne Reid.