Protecting the Climate (documentary film review)

We have tagged this article as propaganda as it imposes a serious spin on the topic.
If not more explanation provided, this article is included as propaganda because it shows clear manufacture from a government controlled dialectic, where a topic is misdirected by some actors in order to mislead people during early stages of a narrative.

Written and directed by Tom Ockers; camera by Martin Kaeswurm and Tom Ockers; video editing and graphics by Marcel Martens; music and mixing by Daniel Vernunft. English version released in Aug. 2024 by Deutsche Welle. Running time: 42 minutes. Rated NR

I feel misled by the marketing for this documentary. Given the video’s thumbnail—featuring a brain scan and the provocative question “Are we too stupid to save the climate?”—along with its headline, “Protecting the climate – How the human brain prevents us from saving the world,” I was expecting a deep dive into the role of the human brain in our failure to address climate change. Instead, the film consists mostly of a meandering examination of various other climate change-related topics, with only a small amount of surface-level discussion of human neurology and psychology.

Our first clues about the mismatch between the film’s marketing and its actual content come in its opening moments, when the narrator poses a series of startlingly broad questions with no direct connection to human cognition: “Why have climate researchers been unable to halt global warming? […] Why doesn’t scientific data about climate change lead to action? […] Coal, oil and gas continue to be used as fuel. Why? […] Why is it taking the world so long to act? […] How can we still save the planet?” Then comes the film’s irritatingly vague title, which offers little hope that the content to follow will meaningfully explore how the human brain or mind influences our response to climate change: Protecting the Climate: Why Science and Protests Are Failing.

Much of the film consists of randomly arranged segments lacking any clear relationship to one another beyond their shared connection to climate change. After the title card, we spend six minutes on Germany’s Last Generation climate activist movement and the controversy surrounding its extreme, attention-grabbing tactics—such as blocking busy streets and throwing paint and food at iconic works of art. This is followed by a seemingly arbitrary five-minute survey of the growing political momentum for climate action following James Hansen’s famous testimony to the U.S. Senate in 1988, the rise of public awareness about the issue, and the emergence of lobbying groups waging disinformation campaigns to block action on it.

To its credit, this last segment does manage to tie things back to the human brain and psychology. It does so through a conversation with climatologist Stefan Rahmstorf, who describes how lobbying groups exploit the human tendency to deny things that require behavioral change. Neuroscientist Henning Beck then explains the neurological structures and processes that make it difficult to break old habits and form new ones.

But then the film reverts to its earlier pattern of presenting seemingly random topics—in this case, political obstacles to renewable energy expansion, tactics of fossil fuel lobbyists, climate-related disasters, corporate greenwashing and lessons from past environmental movements—and making only the briefest, most superficial gestures toward connecting them with psychology or neurology.

Somehow we end up on a minute-long tangent about the dangers of SUV blind spots for children’s safety. This part manages the impressive feat of not only having nothing to do with the cognitive and neurological aspects of climate change inaction, but barely relating to climate change at all—aside from the fact that people are buying these SUVs under the misguided belief that they’re more climate-friendly than other vehicles.

All this is apart from the documentary’s flawed assumption that a change in consciousness is all that is needed to significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. The film makes no mention of the considerable technical challenges involved in transitioning an entire civilization from highly energy-dense fossil fuels to diffuse, climate-friendly alternatives, regardless of how aware one is of the need to do so. Additionally, the film is critical of claims that the energy transition is unaffordable, but doesn’t attempt to rebut those claims with evidence.

While I generally hold Deutsche Welle documentaries in high regard, this one falls disappointingly short of its potential. Don’t watch it if you’re looking for an in-depth exploration of cognitive and neurological barriers to climate action. George Marshall’s 2014 book Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change remains a far better resource on this issue, succeeding admirably where this film fails.

Read the full article at the original website

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