The Weather Diaries - "Why Should I Try To Have A Future?"

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There had been previous obsessions; with eagles, with kangaroos. But when Imogen Jones first saw Princess Mononoke, a 1997 Japanese anime film that was made about the same time she was born, her alignment with the girl raised by wolves would be so profound that she would dress up as the character for years of her childhood. Later she would name her electro-pop alter ego, Lupa J, in honour of the character. “The fact that she was so fiercely passionate about the animals in the wilderness resonated with me,” Jones tells Guardian Australia. “She was the first female character that I’d seen that was wild.”

If Princess Mononoke is a guiding force for Jones, Jones herself becomes such a force for her mother’s beautifully bleak documentary, The Weather Diaries, which premieres online this week as part of the 2020 Sydney film festival. Originally, the focus of the film was on climate change and the flying foxes that were being evicted from Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens. But then Jones, who attended the Conservatorium high school that’s situated in the gardens, herself became the central motif in a film that Kathy Drayton now describes as a meditation on her daughter’s future.

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In parallel to her daughter’s story, Drayton shadows rescuers working with the megabats, and researchers who are subjecting the Parramatta red gum to the conditions of a 3C hotter climate (predicted by 2070). During the course of filming, temperatures reach 47C and the flying foxes start dying in droves. The final scenes, shot in December 2019, show the devastation of the bushfires.

As one of the researchers, Mike Aspinwall, from the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, comments: “Changes aren’t likely to happen until people really start to hurt.” But by the time people hurt, he concedes, it’s too late. In turn, Drayton reflects on Aspinwall’s data collection, as he weighs and measures our descent into disaster: “Perhaps we’ll be the first species to record its own extinction,” she says in the voiceover. “And that will be our most remarkable achievement.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jun/09/why-should-i-try-to-have-a-future-at-all-film-captures-hopelessness-amid-climate-crisis

[FM123]

1. Very good article about the documentary in the Guardian!

As a parent of three kids in their twenties, this line really resonated with me:

While perhaps older generations have watched and intellectualised the incremental deterioration of the environment, some of Jones’s generation is growing up with hopelessness ingrained in their psyche.

[Kaleva]

2. Humans will adapt and survive

Climate change will not be uniform around the world. Some areas will actually become better suited for human habitation . Those who can't see the big picture may well believe the future looks hopeless.

[NickB79]

3. The vast majority of humans won't reach those refuges

The habitable areas in northern Europe, northern Asia and North America won't be accepting billions of southeast Asian, African and Central American immigrants. The carrying capacity is too low, and the costs too high.

For most people on this planet, especially the poor, their future really is hopeless.

It's like trying to take comfort in the fact that the President and a portion of the military are safe in bunkers as the nukes drop on your town. Cold comfort.

[Kaleva]

4. "The carrying capacity is too low, and the costs too high." is based on what studies?

My post was addressing the statement in the OP that says: “Perhaps we’ll be the first species to record its own extinction,” .

We both seem to agree that the human race will not go extinct because of climate change.

I find it quite interesting that while many here talk about the effects climate change is expected to bring, very few seem to be doing anything in preparation for it. This comment in the OP I agree with:

“Changes aren’t likely to happen until people really start to hurt.”

I spend time most every day, ranging from a few minutes to several hours, preparing for what experts predict will take place in the area I live in. Trying to stop climate change, IMO, won't work as the window to do that ended some years ago. People need to start preparing for what's coming and I see little evidence of that. Even here.