The Bowdoin Orient

There is no longer a scientific debate concerning the existence of climate change. Despite what the National Association of Scholars may claim, anthropogenic warming is not a premise to believe in but rather a scientific fact. In the past few weeks the College has seen a frenzy of debates, panels and meetings dedicated to issues of climate change and sustainability. But what seems to be missing from the discussion is an acknowledgement of the gravity of the situation—just what it is that’s at stake.

Stopping climate change is not just about saving the polar bear. It’s not about hotter summer afternoons and it’s certainly not about the rise of the Prius. In a 2009 address, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that climate change “is the greatest collective challenge we face as a human family.” Unfortunately climate change is insidious, and by the time we realized it was occurring, it had already been going on for nearly a century. Yet we have already begun to feel the disastrous consequences of a warming climate all across the globe, and it is only going to get worse. 

As a continuance of an almost poetic injustice—which seems so pervasive in our modern world—the most harmful effects of a warmer climate will affect those least capable of adapting. In Africa, where the population is expected to nearly double by 2050—according to the UN and Population Reference Bureau—yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 percent, according to NASA. This is a continent that already struggles to feed itself, and it is about to get a whole lot harder to grow food. We are entering the period of the “super;” be it the super-drought, the super-storm or the super-famine. Soon storms like Hurricane Sandy will not be a freak anomaly, and the U.S. will suffer horrible droughts like those now crippling our agricultural sector. The Global Humanitarian Forum estimates that climate change leaves over 300,000 people dead and severely disadvantages 325 million people every year. On the economic side, the world now loses $1.2 trillion yearly due to climate change, a number that may triple by 2030, according to DARA, an independent UN funded NGO.

Pamela Yates’ “Granito: How to Nail a Dictator” asks the unanswerable question of how to bear witness to genocide. Yates questions whether bringing those responsible for the crimes to justice can, at least for living survivors, lessen the pain associated with senseless violence. The film explores the role that Yates’ 1983 documentary, “When the Mountains Tremble,” played in bringing to justice the Guatemalan military dictatorship responsible for a decade-long genocide that devastated the country in the 1980s.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson released “There Will Be Blood” in 2007, proving himself capable of exploring the seemingly-opaque corners of the human mind to produce provacative and intriguing films. His most recent film, “The Master,” exceeds even that effort; the film is a wonderfully crafted and highly intelligent window into the tormented mind of an estranged veteran--the essence of cult. Joaquin Phoenix delivers a shattering performance as Freddi Quell, a haunted victim of war who wanders through life in an alcohol-and-sex-crazed haze. When he stumbles into Lancaster Dodd (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) leader of a cultish philosophical movement called “the cause,” Quell becomes a fervent believer. While Dodd’s philosophical underpinnings and methodology are evocative of Scientology, the film functions more as a general critique of misguided worship than an explicit condemnation of Scientology.