Included are clips from both pieces of media that assist to demonstrate my point.

Climate Media can appear in many forms with varying degrees of impactfulness on an audience. Some can have a significant effect on a viewer, others not so much. Many types of media, primarily films, fictional books, or video games, can use climate change in various ways, such as the instigator to a scenario, an event in the background occurring or the setting for the story. Both forms of climate media I have chosen use climate media as the event that has led to the story. For example, a dystopian future as the result of climate change. The idea that the Anthropocene has continued to the point of humanity’s destruction.

An example of climate media that uses this premise well is the Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar animated film Wall-e (2008) directed by Andrew Stanton. A film about two robots that fall in love and attempt to bring humanity back to earth after climate change left the planet uninhabitable. I saw this film when it was first released in cinemas when I was nine years old, and I found it was a movie that I both loved, but also didn’t sit well with me. I was bothered by the idea that the earth could ever reach such a point, and if it did, what would happen then? While this film was released over a decade ago, its themes of climate change and the dystopic earth humanity is slowly heading towards has become more poignant than ever. The dystopian future earth has come to in the film is the result of a lack of action from humanity and a desire to distance themselves from the hyperobject that they have caused. A future that is scarily beginning to mirror our reality.

The film itself doesn’t depict climate change happening; it depicts the result of climate change if nothing is done. A toxic world of garbage that cannot break down for centuries and nearly all life on the planet either extinct. A massive problem with many climate media that take this route is that this result is not addressed, only used as the setting. However, the romance story is paired with the dystopian subplot well; it has a story to appeal to all ages on a base level while enforcing a direct and straightforward message in regards to climate change. A lack of action will do nothing to prevent the climate from causing near irreversible damage to the entire planet. Yet the story is not left on the sad fact as it continually enforces that things can change and eventually get better if people are willing to act. When a hopeless situation like this is pushed too hard, it can lead to many people feeling apathy to the situation and a desire to distance themselves from it. But by implying there is a chance for things to change and get better, it is more inspiring, direct, and if anything, a little less overwhelming.

I think the only disadvantage of the film is the time of release. While climate change was undoubtedly an issue in 2008, it was not nearly as big of a dire issue as it is in 2020 with society on the brink of setting off irreversible damage to the planet. Of course, this is something that could not have been predicted and changed, but the film would undoubtedly have had a more significant impact on viewers during these times. It was a highly successful and influential film that I believe had a substantial effect on the viewers and on what can be done to better the world as a whole in the face of this looming threat.

Conversely, another piece of media that uses a similar concept is the 2017 Action video game, Horizon Zero Dawn, developed by Guerrilla Games. The game is set in fictional future earth where humanity has been wiped out by a plague of machines but reborn and now living alongside these machines in this newly reborn earth. I played this game in mid-2018 and thoroughly enjoyed it. It can be viewed as a form of climate media though the metaphor of the machines. An hyperobject of humankind’s own doing that steadily wiped out all life on the planet by consuming biofuel on mass, leaving nothing to be salvaged in its wake. This serves as a nice connection to climate change as a similar force facing our world. The story itself is as if the planet entered a new geological after the Anthropocene, into an age of machines.

However, I do not consider this an effective form of climate media. Speaking from my perspective, I did not make the connection between the machines and climate change until long after playing the game. I instead saw it as a typical, ‘technology will be our doom’ metaphor if anything else. While the connection is certainly there, it isn’t impactful by any means. With action, adventure game such as this, there is a heavy focus on story and combat and thus cannot focus on these issues. It is relegated to a backdrop if anything, a way to set the stage for the story being played. Additionally, it is not a game easily accessible as it is a Playstation exclusive. Unless you have an invested interest in video games, it is unlikely this game will ever come to certain audiences’ attention, such as the elderly or young children, thus alienating them and targeting only a particular audience.

With the reveal of the machines destroying the earth not occurring until the latter half of the game, it cannot develop the metaphor of climate change through the machines far enough to establish this connection. And with humanity fighting back only for it to be a pointless struggle they must accept, it ultimately leaves a nihilistic message on the futility of climate change however true that may or may not be. However, I will grant the rebirth of the earth is a more positive note on showing humanity adapting and ensuring life will go on to not repeat their mistakes.

I believe a better way this could have been portrayed would be further through the machines. The destruction caused by the machines is only ever told or shown through stills and recordings. With better visuals either through cutscene or gameplay to show machines stripping the planet or various regions of biofuel and showing the destruction in its wake, it could have better portrayed the metaphor. Perhaps such areas could have highly dangerous conditions similar to the effects of climate change on our world. None of these are perfect solutions, but they could potentially help to enforce the metaphor of climate change better.
Overall, however, while the game was undoubtedly successful and portrayed many of its themes of technology and humanity as a whole well, it did not deliver as well as a form of impactful climate media.

Video

Quote
“[T]he evidence is mounting that the impacts will be catastrophic to our livelihoods and the societies that we live within. Our norms of behavior, that we call our “civilization,” may also degrade. When we contemplate this possibility, it can seem abstract. The words I ended the previous paragraph with may seem, subconsciously at least, to be describing a situation to feel sorry about as we witness scenes on TV or online. But when I say starvation, destruction, migration, disease, and war, I mean in your own life. With the power down, soon you wouldn’t have water coming out of your tap. You will depend on your neighbors for food and some warmth. You will become malnourished. You won’t know whether to stay or go. You will fear being violently killed before starving to death.” (Bendell 2018, 13)

I was caught in the dilemma of how I wanted to respond to the quote from Jem Bendell’s paper ‘Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy’. The nihilistic perspective that the lack of response to climate change will be the end of humanity with no possibility to make a change, while potentially true, is a far too depressive and sensationalized tactic to convince others to change their perspective on climate change. I wanted to capture the direness of the situation through the video I made, but leave it with a direct and positive message that to avoid this future, action must be taken.

To capture the tone of the quote from the perspective of our reality, I used audio taken from various climate activist speeches and TED talks such as Greta Thunberg, Luisa Neubauer, and Per Espen Stokes. The lectures discussed issues of why others fail to care/act on climate change, the harm this is doing to the planet, and what/why action must be taken, that while situations are dire, hope is not lost yet. By cutting the audios together, they form a new speech addressing the viewer on the situation of climate change and ideally addressing the viewer on a more personal matter. I find strength in using music and visuals together with timing to ensure visuals have the most significant impact on the viewer.

All footage that was used was royalty-free stock footage; however, I did have trouble finding the visuals I needed to portray what I wanted. Ideally, with more time, I would have been able to have found more precise visuals to demonstrate my point. I had to try and balance the quality of visuals too. Many of the clips were high quality, should I pick any that, while portraying the point, were of a lower quality, they would stand out and lower the overall quality of the production. I frequently cut visuals above one another with the opacity changed to show both visuals on screen at once. This juxtaposition helps to emphasize various points. For instance, the visuals of a sundial and clock on-screen overlapping emphasizes how the issue of climate change has been passing us by for a long time and little has been done to change it. I wanted to highlight how just because you cannot see what is being done to the planet, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

A weakness I found was time. While I am content in the material used, I think the video could have benefited from an extended length, using more quotes and visuals to create a more concise speech. As it stands, while the point is made, I find it appears to end rather abruptly. It was a struggle of balancing the content to use as since I was using many various speeches, they all had interesting points I wanted to convey in the piece, but there wasn’t the room too. I didn’t want the video to be too bloated with information and thus lose the point and engagement with the audience.

Overall I am satisfied with what I have created within the constraints of the prompt and believe it successfully responds to Bendell’s quote.

Climate Changing Media was the studio I chose to complete for this semester, and I am looking forward to it after the first week, which was spent discussing our own experiences and creating a mindmap to flesh out these ideas further.

Climate change itself has always been a difficult subject for me to talk about with certain people, primarily my family. They are aware of the issues of climate change and consider it a problem, but would rather hold out on it and only begin to turn to greener energies slowly to save money when in reality the time for such solutions is long past us. From this, I felt mostly apathetic to the changing climate, wanting to make a change but continually feeling like it was impossible, and my actions had little effect. However, in the most recent years, I have become more passionate and steadfast in my beliefs. I don’t want to become too forceful to make others ignore it. But the need to make people listen and take action to the increasing danger is becoming essential now more than ever.

When seeing the information and topics that would be discussed in this course interested me, much of the statistical and relevant information on climate change is unknown to me. The opportunity to expand my knowledge and apply it to my work is an opportunity I’m excited to learn about. I want to be able to broaden my horizons and have the ability to use my work to expand the horizons of others in an informative and open-minded format. I want to develop further my understanding of the climate crisis from others that may hold different opinions to myself. It’s all about being respectful, but firm in your views and allowing them to grow and change the more you learn.

I am currently a third-year Communications (Media) student with this being my final studio before Media 6. I primarily focus my skills on Filmmaking, editing, and screenwriting. These are all skills I want to further develop over the year and develop with the focus of the course. Climate change media can be both political and poetic through how it’s presented. In these times, climate change alone is a political topic as governments need to take the climate crisis more seriously as many people either do not believe in the issue or do not want to take action if this means changing their lifestyles. However like all topics, media has the power to inform and change the minds of many, it is a powerful tool that society uses and when conveying the right message, it can make a difference to many. Our position allows us to reach others with a message that can make a difference that that is something I hope to convey.