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Goodman: Make Time To Study Climate Change

Peter Goodman

Commentary: At the old Fountain Theater in Mesilla we saw a moving film (moving moving picture?): Funan, a complex animated feature that tells the story of a Cambodian family caught up in the Khmer Rouge madness of the late 1970's. It destroys their lives. Only one woman and her young son escape to Thailand, and ultimately to France. 

Very fine movie. Maybe the animation, though highly effective, helped distance us emotionally – just enough to make the unbearable bearable. The characters are 2D recreations of humans. (At some of the toughest moments, while I was contemplating a new horror visited upon the family, I was also thinking “Wow!” at the subtle way an animated face had changed, or at the slender white line that appeared, stretched itself, and quickly disappeared to indicate a tear.) 

Mother and son escaped. Filmmaker Denis Do dedicated the film to his mother and brother. Not hard to hazard a guess he's a young half-brother, born after their escape. (The husband gives his life to make sure they escape.) 

Animated or not, the film was effective. We witnessed normal lives destroyed, replaced by horrendous work-camps run by Khmer Rouge fanatics with automatic weapons, then by death or a harrowing escape, with nothing at all.

Afterward, a little shell-shocked, we walked through the familiar streets of Mesilla, where I lived nearly fifty years ago. The world felt secure again: solid adobe structures, peaceful streets, a mild autumn evening.

We are (mostly) not living in fear – nor escaping fear by migrating to a miserable border area lock-up.

Maybe it's obvious to think of those gentle Central American refugees who've washed up here this year, not long after their lives – partially but not wholly through our government's actions – fell apart and fleeing became the only real option.

But in those animated detainees/refugees, I see us too. Climate-change is here; and like the aliens from outer space in the old horror movies, it's going to grow voraciously and destroy the fabric of our lives.

Already two billion people on this planet are experiencing some degree of food insecurity due to climate-change; the climate is hinting that Hatch chile may not grow in Hatch much longer; superstorms have decimated Houston, New Orleans, and Puerto Rico, turning folks like us into homeless folks on cots in a big gym. In India, flooding from extra-heavy monsoon rains displaced more than 1,000,000 people – and killed hundreds. Galveston is asking the Dutch how to protect low-lying land. Alaska's sea ice melted for the first time this year – and Iceland has held a funeral for a dead glacier. Weather extremes during the last 20 years have killed people. In about 10 years, the warming will be about 50 percent greater than what we've experienced.

 

Maybe we'll all be refugees migrating North – or to a suddenly green Siberia, where we'll be at the mercy of Vlad Putin's successor.

Residents of Miami and Bangladesh and the Marshall Islands will suffer first – like the minor characters the monster eats before the protagonists wake up to the danger and get organized. We're safe for now. But this ain't some MGM epic and we're not stars, who can't die, and always win. 

Donald Trump says it's nonsense. Not worth getting upset over. So enjoy today's NFL football games.

But, if you've kids or grandkids, make time to study climate-change a little. For them.