[Vision2020] Screening, Panel With Director "Carbon Nation" Beasley Coliseum WSU 7 PM Wed. Nov. 9

[Ted Moffett]

http://wsutoday.wsu.edu/pages/publications.asp?Action=Detail&PublicationID=28355&TypeID=2

‘Carbon Nation’ Nov. 9

Screening, panel with director of climate change film
Monday, Oct. 24, 2011

PULLMAN, Wash. – "Carbon Nation” is a documentary movie about climate
change targeted even to those who "doubt the severity of the impact of
climate change or just don't buy it at all.”

The film will be shown at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9, in Beasley
Coliseum at Washington State University. Director Peter Byck will
attend and participate in a Q&A panel following the free public
screening.

The panel plans to focus on the local effects of climate change and
possible public action. The panel tentatively will consist of
representatives from WSU and the University of Idaho, which are
hosting the screening.

The film "illustrates how solutions to climate change also address
other social, economic and national security issues,” according to the
"Carbon Nation” website.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/feb/11/carbon-nation-climate-change-documentary

Will Carbon Nation Succeed Where An Inconvenient Truth Failed?

A former army colonel, a Texan farmer and a geothermal energy pioneer
who twice voted Bush – these 'greenocons' are the stars of a new
climate change solutions film aimed at America's right

"Bin Laden hates this car" says the bumper sticker on former CIA
director Jim Woolsey's plug-in hybrid. Though he's no longer in the
secret service, Woolsey cares about defending America's national
security, and for him that means weaning the country off its
dependence on foreign oil.

The former spook turned clean-tech venture capitalist is just one of
the all-American heroes who feature in Carbon Nation, an intriguing
new documentary about climate change solutions aimed at the American
right.

Touring the States after its premiere last night , Carbon Nation bills
itself as an "optimistic, solutions-based, non-preachy, non-partisan"
film. The take-home message is that what's good for the climate is
also good for the economy, for national security, for health, for
nature – and for America.

Speaking at the UK preview last month, director Peter Byck said he
"wanted to find the common ground" on solving climate change, and that
meant reaching across the political spectrum. "There are a lot of
people who can't stand listening to Al Gore.".

The people in Carbon Nation couldn't be further from Gore.

We meet Bernie Karl, an Alaskan who voted twice for Bush and has
become a pioneer of geothermal energy because he "likes clean air and
clean water"; Cliff Etheredge, the chipper one-armed Texan farmer
bringing wind turbines and jobs to the flailing southern town of
Roscoe, and Dan Nolan, a former army colonel leading the charge for
energy security at the Pentagon. They are the nation's "greenocons" –
neo-conservatives who promote clean energy – and ordinary Americans.

"Someone once said that the storyteller runs society," says Byck. "So
far the folks who don't want to believe that climate change is real
have done a better job. I wanted to change that."

The battle to win over the American right to the cause of halting
climate change is certainly far from won. Opinions are drawn sharply
along political lines, with polls showing a growing rift between
liberals, who are increasingly convinced of the problem, and
conservatives, who are becoming more doubtful. Liberal blogger Joe
Romm at Climate Progress writes that this is "No surprise, really"
since those who deny climate change use pundits that are more credible
to conservatives, and "disinformation is repeated to death on
conservative media outlets".

Solitaire Townsend, co-founder of sustainable communications agency
Futerra, says the split is also down to the fact that there are aren't
many people promoting climate action who conservatives can identify
with:

"There are reams of evidence [showing] that we respond to messengers
who are like us. If an advertising company wants to reach young women
in cities, they'll put their message in the mouth of a young urban
woman. If they want to reach rural farmers in the mid-west, that's who
they'll use. It's not even questioned in advertising. But up until now
there have been very few mid-western or southern messengers on climate
action.

"The problem is that climate change is getting drawn into the culture
wars. It is being wrapped up with a set of liberal values and that's a
barrier to entry for conservatives. If you're not allowed to be
pro-action on climate change unless you sign up to a set of other
liberal values like being anti-guns and pro-abortion that's a huge
barrier."

But a growing number of conservative messengers have taken up the
cause of climate change. Take the work of the "green hawks" at the
Pentagon who promote energy efficiency and renewable energy at army
bases. In Iraq, soldiers on fuel convoys are easy targets for
improvised explosive devices, so insulating air-conditioned tents
better and developing solar and wind power units could save American
lives. Operation Free, a war veterans' organisation aiming to "secure
America with clean energy", is concerned that the destabilising
effects of climate change could make terrorism worse, threaten food
security and increase Russia's power.

Then there's the Christian Coalition of America, which, according to
Townsend, has published an advert linking their anti-abortion stance
to the need for action on climate change – under the banner "we also
believe in life after birth".

Perhaps the most controversial part of this reinvention of climate
change action is the suggestion that we don't need to dwell on climate
change at all. Carbon Nation is billed as "a climate change solutions
movie that does not even care if you believe in climate change", and
some of the interviewees say they aren't sure whether global warming
is man-made or not.

Even the White House seems to have decided to go quiet on climate.
Sticking to the less controversial ideas of innovation and clean
energy, Obama made no mention of climate change in his State of the
Union speech last week.

Byck thinks that once the clean energy economy gets off the ground,
there will be no stopping it, no matter what reasons lay behind it.
Others, such as the co-founders of liberal think tank the Breakthrough
Institute, are in agreement.

But many do not. Townsend argues that not mentioning climate change is
a false solution, and fails to make up for the problem of too few
conservative commentators who support action on climate change. "It's
very difficult to create political space for congress to pass a
climate bill without mentioning climate change," she says. "Even if
the government calls it a clean energy bill, the American right is not
stupid; all they have to do is rebrand it as the climate bill."

Byck says his film has already won round one unlikely fan – his uncle
Phil's sceptical college roommate Charles, who sent Byck a slew of
articles denying climate change during the making of the film, but now
wants everyone to watch it.
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett