Enfnts Terribles

Before The Flood starts with Leonardo telling about a poster he had in his crib as a child. Which was a print of The Garden of Earthly Delights Triptych from Hieronymus Bosch, painted approximately between 1490 and 1510. The outside is a painting of the world during creation, the 3 scenes at the inside show us the evolution of mankind destroying all beauty on this planet. With a view on the underestimated climate issue, this triptych almost looks visionary. If we wouldn’t know anything about its Biblical background.

Before The Flood

For those who have lived on another planet the past few days… Before The Flood is a documentary about climate change, directed by Fisher Stevens and produced in collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio. For two years, the team travelled around the world. They visited different countries and interviewed specialized scientists, world leaders such as Barack Obama and Pope Francis. I’ve always taken climate change very seriously but after seeing this documentary, I was once again shocked. How could we haven taken it that far? And so many of us aren’t even aware of the situation or still in denial.

Before The Flood is something everyone must have seen. You can watch the full documentary on Youtube.

Below the sea level

I’ve never seen a coral reef in real life and I’m afraid that there’s a small chance I ever will since 50% (???) has disappeared in the last 30 years. Besides forests, the oceans are the longs of our planet. They take out 1/3 of the CO2 in the atmosphere. And nowadays they can’t do their jobs fast enough.

“We take away the eco systems that help us stabilize the planet” – Before The Flood

Not to mention all the fish we’re catching, the whales we’re killing, the marine life we’re destroying. “Finding Dory” was a blockbuster, it makes us emotional and it’s oh so cute. But that’s on screen, we couldn’t care less about the Dory’s in real life.

What can we do?

History has proven that we, the people, like a good game of puppetry. We let a small group of rich men control the strings and benefit from our behavior. To keep the list short: Politicians, lobbying and business share in what we eat, our transport, what we hear and read. Or did you actually think that nepotism, abuse of power and money-grabbing were topics from the last century? So wake up from whatever bubble you’re in. You have a voice, use it!

Besides not believing every thing that is said to you there are many other small but important steps you can take. The first one is eating less red meat, veggies are delicious too and if you’re really stubborn you can always replace that piece of beef by chicken. Don’t even get into your mind that fish is a nice alternative unless you want our oceans to be empty in the near future. And oh yes, sushi is also fish in case you had forgotten.

Stop consuming products that contain palm oil to save those dear forests. Food, cosmetics and so on… you’d be surprised how omnipresent palm oil is. And last but not least a thing we’ve know for a long time: don’t waste energy. Don’t put the heating and lights on all day and go to work by bike or public transport.

If you’re rolling your eyeballs at the exact moment when reading this (however, I think there’s a small chance you ever got this far in the article). Yes, your denial and ignorance is part of the problem. And I hope you don’t have children or grandchildren who will ever have to suffer because of your short-term thinking.

Photo credits: Before the flood, National Geographic, Wikimedia, AFP