This Changes Everything

This Changes Everything is a powerful passionate new Canadian climate change documentary made by people who don’t like climate change documentaries, and asks the question, “Why don’t we like these kinds of movies? “

Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein’s new documentary answers this question by telling us that it’s because we are often told that climate change is caused due to our greedy selfish human nature. That’s just the way we are so we can’t change it. But what if climate change is due to something else? What if it’s due to a story we’ve been lead to believe is true but isn’t. That, we can change.

They argue against the long and commonly held belief that the earth is a machine to be used, shaped and dominated by people. And that the current political/economic model of continued unsustainable growth and deregulation, which gives Corporations free reign to extract resources out of the earth at any cost to land and people, is linked directly to our current climate crisis and only benefits the few at the top of that system.

Five years in the making, the film shows the devastating struggles by people on the front lines whose lands and livelihoods are directly affected by today’s global economic policies and make convincing connections between our unsustainable destructive economic system and the rapidly changing climate.

The filmmakers take us to all corners of the earth where similar stories are playing out, of regular folks living in rural communities who are forced to go to extraordinary length and risking their lives to protect their families and stop brutal practices inflicted on them by their governments and multi-national corporations. 

Greek villagers living on generations-old pristine unspoiled paradise are being forced to abandon their way of life by a Canadian gold mining company who wants to completely annihilate it by constructing toxic chemical plants with bulldozers and drilling equipment.

Indigenous people in Alberta and elsewhere are being killed and forced off the land they subsist on, despite ages old treaties that promise the land will be protected and can be used only by them. There are many more examples of ever increasing violence against people and the effect these government and corporate practices are having on our environment all over the world.

The film also points to positive ways we can change these practices and continue to provide secure jobs for people by putting our efforts into safe renewable energy and technology that has already been successful in other countries. But greedy governments won’t adopt these ways on their own. They need people to demand change. 

The film shows examples of communities that, after rising up and long struggles, have been successful in bringing attention to their plight and have affected change in their government’s short sighted policies. Many communities have now created local governments that have their best interest at heart with the power to stop these global companies from taking over and destroying their land and homes.

This is an important eye-opening film that deals with issues that affect everyone and is well worth seeing. It should be shown in schools everywhere. As someone in the films says “it’s not just an Indian issue. If you drink water and breathe air, it will affect you.”

Premiering soon at the TIFF Toronto International Film Festival, make sure you take the opportunity to watch it when it comes in theaters later this year.

JP