Right now, pollution alone causes more excess deaths than war, drugs, malaria, HIV and alcohol combined. Extreme weather events are more frequent than ever and causing thousands of excess deaths and devastation, globally and in the UK.
This year we have had new, disease-carrying mosquitoes for the first time in the UK, due to warmer climate, and the Environment Agency just announced that 1 in 4 homes will be at risk of flooding by 2050 in England alone. There are very few climate change deniers anymore!
The direct impacts on public finances, on public health, the cost-of-living crisis (food and energy costs) and all other areas of public policy are plain to see. All experts now agree that the costs – both financial and ecological – of doing nothing far outweigh the costs of action.
Over 90% of members surveyed recently said they were concerned about climate change. And many of our members are directly involved in preventing, preparing for and protecting against the impacts of climate change, while extreme weather is making us all increasing uncomfortable and unsafe in our jobs.
UNISON and many of our members are already active on climate change. Read on to find out what we are doing and how you can join us during this special highlight Year of Green Activity – there is a whole calendar of activity to get involved in, including:
political engagement opportunities on winnable issues
a webinar series to spotlight the impact of climate change in our work and lives
The three films we’ll be screening in September were chosen to work together: the short film The Man Who Mends Things is a beautiful, gentle yet devastating portrait, about the need to come together to ‘mend’ the planet; 2040 is a deliberately upbeat and optimistic vision of how the future would be if we make right climate choices in time; The Line We Crossed is a hard-hitting, fly-on-the-wall documentary about attacks on our rights to non-violent protest in the face of climate change and how our climate defenders are being targeted.
As part of this celebration month we would also promote the link to Waterbear.org, which is a film website for free access to issue-based documentaries and films including a whole section on Climate. It also has a range of films with audio described versions.
A multiple award-winning stop motion animation from Anne Farley – Inspired by a real person who started mending things in lockdown.
Producers Synopsis: This is the story of the man who mends things. He mends his bicycle and his coat, his teapot and his spade. People notice how careful his repairs are and bring him things to mend. One day he helps a child mend his kite – and his joy. That is when things begin to bring themselves for him to mend. “Mend me’ says the dog who has lost his tail. And he does. Soon the broken things get bigger and more complicated and there begins to be things he cannot mend: “Save us, save us” say the ancient woodland “from the whine of the chainsaws and the terrible diseases.” He cannot mend the things that have been broken in carelessness or greed, in ignorance or in anger. It’s only when they all join together and become people who mend things that he finds we have a chance to mend the Earth (watch trailer here).
2040 follows award winning director Damon Gameau’s imagining of a future for his four-year-old daughter Velvet, where climate change has been solved. Described as “an exercise in fact-based dreaming” the film is structured as a letter to his daughter whereby Gameau travels around the world investigating numerous solutions that can contribute towards climate mitigation and imagining what a future would be like where they have been implemented at scale. In choosing what to feature in the film, Gameau restricted it to solutions that are either already available or have a realistic potential to greatly contribute to reversing climate change by the year 2040 (watch trailer here).
“accessible, informative and optimistic look at solutions to the climate crisis”. – New York Times
A British story of dissent, drawn from the frontlines of climate resistance. Through the experiences of those who stood in defiance, it traces the quiet unravelling of our protest rights. The film challenges audiences to question what makes dissent effective and where the line of acceptability is.
For two years we documented how the right to protest in the UK is under threat and how environmental defenders, in particular, are being targeted. We have witnessed first-hand how they are being silenced in court, criminalised and are receiving disproportionate punishments for nonviolent protest. The right to nonviolent protest is a fundamental pillar of democracy and enshrined in many laws to which the UK government are signatories. (watch trailer here).
