Age of Stupid

Age of Stupid

Indian Youth Climate Network, Shillong Chapter hosted a humble screening of the movie Age of Stupid at Shillong Meghalaya. In 2009, the movie was launched in the UK to a green-carpet, solar-powered cinema tent in Leicester Square beamed live by satellite to 61 cinemas round the UK, whilst producing just 1% of the emissions of a normal premiere. It broke the Guinness World Record for biggest simultaneous film screening. To date it has been able to have 61,946,703 views.

It was a pioneer in “crowd funding” model to finance a film, and it spent four years following seven real people’s stories to be interweaved with Pete Postlethwaite’s fictional character. The five people featured in interwoven threads in the documentary live in India, France, Nigeria, the US, and England.

Jeh Wadia an Indian entrepreneur struggling to start a new low-cost airline, a Shell employee in New Orleans who rescued more than 100 people during Hurricane Katrina, an 82-year-old French mountain guide watching his beloved glaciers melt, two Iraqi refugee children searching for their elder brother, a young woman living in desperate poverty in Nigeria’s richest oil area and a windfarm developer in England battling the NIMBYs who don’t want his turbines to spoil their view.

The Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite (In The Name of the Father, The Usual Suspects, Brassed Off) stars as a man living in the devastated future world of 2055, looking back at old footage from our time and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?

It is still stimulating and relevant of how little has changed since the release of the movie. The issues of climate change is still relevant and the slow pace of growth with renewable energy is a question. In Shillong, there are different aspects of climate change that needs to be address and how to change the attitudes in Shillong and Meghalaya to adapting to climate change since we are restrict to only 100m to 1961 meters. We retrospect and ask the young interns of IYCN their thoughts of how relevant is it in our contemporary times where the Age of Stupid does look at consumerism and energy use.

What is the convenient truth in Shillong?

It takes more than just planting trees. I find the term Climate Change has become a fashion accessory, I have come [read more=”Read More” less=”Read Less”]

across some international documents where I notice to get funding for their programs, in the reports they include these two words. If there is a change in temperature or there is drastic rainfall. In Shillong, we have not really given a serious thought on climate change and the youth they are reading about it but they are not getting involve or thinking about their lifestyle choices. From what we saw today, the scientist believe only 1% do not believe climate change is happening and 60% of the population believe we need to be concerned. It shows the ignorance. In which the narrator of the movie says why we have not started to save it at that time. I believe we should show its vulnerable stage of climate change.

How do we show it?

It’s like when we strip the body and show the bare flesh. If we show the gruesome truth it might make them to rethink about their lives. In schools here, there are a few who are not highlighting the importance of the environment and the impacts of climate change to the youth in the classrooms.

Do we need to stop our consumption patterns then?Biodiversity International talks about agriculture in a sustainable way. I do not think we need to stop and go back to the Stone Age. But it is to rethink how we consume and use things, to be smart consumers. Once we get a mobile, it moves us, it becomes a part of our life. However its small steps that we need to take and realize how we evolve our use of the mobile, where it has become a necessity.

So how do we move on, it is usually the students through history who have shown their influence with policy makers? What is needed here in Shillong to spread the message and make the impacts on shops, and to the corporations with the current economies of scale?

There is a lot of disconnect with the youth in Shillong. We do need to find ways to make it a more personal matter where it effects are shown within the comforts in their house. To show them what would happen in 5 to 10 years from now with the lifestyle choices they are currently making.

I think it might work, from the last couple of workshop we have been attending there is a lot of good feedback. When we went around town to promote these programs, we found only the invitees came and certain college’s students attended the workshop but the youth was questionable. So if we work with those participants who came, it will be very slow and we still need to find new ways of promoting the awareness of the environment. It is trying to understand on how to connect with the remaining population on a daily basis and take it gradually from there.

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