[Video Link for Email/Other Subscribers - 18min]
Last year, I saw a presentation from film producer Patrick Gregston, who was granted the opportunity by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to make a documentary on climate change. After recently speaking with Patrick, the movie will be coming out in select cities and venues this year. So what I’m bringing you today is an 18min compilation of clips he has on his YouTube channel, in addition to his presentation’s notes, which he kindly provided to me last summer.
Public Discourse is Confused
- Bipolar reduction of possibilities
- The science is not understood
- Most likely possibilities not discussed nor acted upon
- Awareness is not matched by prioritization
So this is the challenge for storytellers in most basic and polite terms - more accurate descriptions use rude vernacular. Most media on the subject, and yesterday’s news was a great example of this, focus on the opposite ends of a line. On one end you have enviro-extremists who say that unless we radically reduce our consumption, the planet and species are threatened. On the other you have the enterprise institutes and some senators who say that this is a hoax perpetrated by people who want to destroy our economy and your way of life.
While both of these seem polar opposites from a content perspective, they do have unique facets in common. First is that they are negative propositions. Second, regardless of what your opinion is, or which of these camps you are closer to, you don’t understand the science or how it is arrived at, or what it actually means.
Climate science, both observed and predictive, describe a range of possibilities, with each possibility having a probability attached. These two are the least likely outcomes. This means that the most likely possibilities, those in the middle of the curve, are not being discussed, much less acted upon.
Despite this mess, social science reports a high level of awareness that the climate is changing and acknowledgment of man’s role in it. As yet, they don’t give this priority. Security and prosperity trump climate concerns by big margins.
As a filmmaker, I didn’t want to make a MacBeth. For one, there are lots of those products out there. You can tell by titles like “the 11th Hour” that things aren’t going well. One peer of mine described it this way- your vegetarian friend made you go to “An Inconvenient Truth” and you walked out aware as in “Man are we screwed”.
Share a dream
- Alienating Consumption
- Conscious Commerce
As someone else has articulated very well, and that I will crib and crudely reduce for the sake of time, we don’t celebrate Martin Luther King because he said “I have a nightmare”. The global dream is to transform our economy into one in which all people can live well, forever.
In which alienating consumption, is transformed into conscious commerce.
- Transform the Public Discourse
- In Human Scale, In Human Impacts
- Business and Science is People Making a Difference
Motion pictures are public dreams, and both as a story teller and entrepreneur, I decided that the best product I could produce in this context would tell the story of that possibility that is in the middle of the bell curve, in the most positive terms I could, and in doing so take the public discussion of the subject out of the plane on which that bipolar line lies.
Climate being by definition beyond both the horizon and your lifetime, defies conventional story forms. So the film addresses the subject in terms of now - it isn’t about your children, but your quality of life now, today, your work, your play, your portfolio, your sense of security, and your sense of purpose. Tomorrow and every day into the future. It talks about whether or not you will have to give up your comfort, your convenience, and your sense of security. And it does so by addressing how business and science aren’t institutions or faceless giant agencies or corporations, but people - regular sized and shaped, with families and hobbies, who are committed to service of others.
What is Required of You
- Leadership
- Persistence
- Take risks
- Collaborate
The first is defined by one of the sources in the film as “doing the right thing earl”. You, by virtue of your attendance here are already stepping on that path. This is, as one of you reminded me earlier this week, something that is supposed to take forever.
Being early in the game, you must be willing to fail. And this is the biggest lesson and delta in how we approach everything. A hundred years ago, one person would go out on the ice and find the pole. Henry Ford would build the whole car and factory. Today the breakthroughs happen when teams of specialized knowledge work together. The polar ice person needs the wildlife expert and they both need the satellite resource and super computer folks. Business needs policy, and the government needs firm signals from the electorate, and so on. Talking to your competition is a part of getting the right policy. Everybody needs partners.
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For more information and full-length distribution opportunities, you can contact Patrick and check out his blog.
