#opoe

It’s been just over four months since we returned to Santa Fe, NM and began post-production on our film, Our Place on Earth.  In this time I’ve periodically had the Tom Waits song, What’s He Building in There? pop into my head.  I often speculate this is what people wonder about our process…

While our process is a little less sinister than the song’s protagonist, I sometimes feel as if we are tucked away, working in our little corner of the desert.  While there is no secret to what we are doing – sharing success stories of communities taking action in the face of a changing climate— our current stage in the process is much quieter than the last.  (Our Instagram feed has definitely slowed down, mostly because we assume our followers aren’t so interested in daily shots of our computer screens.) 

The last couple months have required us to spend quite a bit of quiet time reviewing footage (a lot of footage) and applying for grants.  All of which, in comparison to last year’s constant travels, feels like we have stepped knee-deep into molasses, wading our way to the shore.

We’ve also run into some interesting and unexpected challenges, which include:

Being your own boss and team, all the time. (Coming from the public sector where you thankfully never make a decision on your own, I’ve definitely experienced decision fatigue.)

It’s hard being creative all the time!  Things that we think shouldn’t take a long time end up taking ages – again the molasses.  For example, we are lucky enough to have connected with a fantastic web development firm here in Santa Fe (dsire.com), who are helping us with a poster concept (and depending on grants, hopefully more).  But, who knew conveying the film’s overarching message to a viewer in the five seconds they take to walk past a poster would be so difficult? (OK, I knew it would be difficult, but our creativity well we pretty low when we approached this, which made it take even longer.)

So, what are we doing about all this?

Well, in an effort to make this stage of our process more interactive (at least virtually), we’ve decided to take a new approach – we’re now tracking our time and will be reporting out on our process as we go.  Over the next few months we will release a series of blog posts about how we spend our time and how we are approaching this endeavor of making an independent film.

We’ll be sharing successes, challenges, and any unexpected turns we make along the way.   As first-time filmmakers, we have a lot of questions – luckily the film community is a collaborative one with a wealth of resources available online (a shout out to No Film School – a tremendous resource).   There is also what appears to be a growing movement of increased transparency and support for independent filmmakers (for example, the Sundance Institute is launching the Transparency Project).

We are excited to contribute to this body of knowledge by sharing our process and hopefully, provide a few answers to other first-time filmmakers.

To start, here is an overview of how we’ve spent our time over the last year plus: 

We’ll add to this as we go, but a couple of general takeaways:

We couldn’t do this without a supportive and extensive community of partners, family, and friends. (Behind each of the circles above is a wealth of support and generosity from a global community.  We couldn’t be more grateful!)

Fundraising takes a long time and is a lot of work.  Just stating the obvious.

Research, research, research!  We picked one of the most complex and fluid topics to make a film about – but that’s why we’re doing it.  We’re constantly looking for ways to make climate change discrete and tangible, which means we are never idle.

Our next post in this series will focus on fundraising, including an overview of our 2014-crowdfunding campaign.   

Also, keep an eye out for our upcoming series of posts specific to the content of our film and the inspiring stories we heard over the course of the last year.

That’s it for now – but we’d love to hear from you: how do you balance your creative process and the natural cycles of quiet reflection and external stimulation? 

The Ecomodernist Manifesto has sparked a lot of debate lately.  Many liken them to "techno-optimists" - those who believe technology and the market will be our saviors.  A different reading might interpret that Ecomodernists are calling for 1) a realistic acceptance of our human dependency on technology and its impact on the natural environment and 2) to work together and find pragmatic long-term approaches that utilize technology in ways that alleviate stress on the environment.  

Take this quote for example:

"Urbanization, agricultural intensification, nuclear power, aquaculture, and desalination are all processes with a demonstrated potential to reduce human demands on the environment, allowing more room for non-human species."  

Putting aside the debate on any of the above approaches, let's look at OPOE's experience in the field with two of these technologies as they relate to climate change.  On the small Caribbean island of Barbuda aquaponics are being studied as a viable food source due to the impacts of declining ocean fish populations and the high costs of importing food.  In this context, Aquaponics produces fish for human consumption and the recycled water is used to grow vegetables, thus reducing the community's dependence on declining natural fish stocks and imported food.

In Bequia, desalination provides drinking water during disasters.  And while expensive, the desalination facility also reduces the local impact of drought - a major issue across the Caribbean.  Both technologies have the potential to allow local residents to remain in their small island communities and without which, forced migration may be a more likely alternative.  

However, like many technologies that at first glance seem like "miracle cures",  desalination and aquaponics have their downsides and can lead to maladaptation and path dependency (path dependency here refers to decisions that limit future climate adaptation options by locking investments into options that are not easily adjusted to changes in future conditions).  Aquaponics is extremely energy intensive, and without substantial investment in alternative energies like solar, communities may be stuck using fossil fuels to power their facilities.  The gains in producing local food may be negated by the increased energy expenditures and the health risks associated with burning fossil fuels.  The decision to move to aquaponics may in fact replace one path dependency with another - shifting from importing food to importing fuel.  Like aquaponics, the same is true in the case of desalination.

And herein lies the difficulty of balancing present and future needs with available technologies.  Increased droughts due to the effects of climate change will prove the desalination plant on Bequia very useful to the local community.  But the universal application of these technologies may not always reduce human demands on the environment.  Counter to the context in Bequia, the desalination plant at Wonthaggi, Victoria, Australia and the corresponding Sugarloaf Pipeline water transportation project are concerning examples of path dependency.  In addition to reducing incentives for behavior change by reducing water consumption, the desalination plant is estimated to triple the annual operation emissions of Melbourne's water supply and sewage treatment. (In 2008, Melbourne water emitted 284,500 tonnes CO2e and it is estimated that upon completion, the plant's annual emissions will rise to over 900,000 tonnes CO2e.)* 

Understanding the implications of technological solutions requires an understanding of potential tradeoffs and path dependencies.  Further, it requires a recognition that not all technologies provide the same benefits at all scales and locations - not all technologies are universally beneficial.  Decision making in the absence of this type of localized information runs the risk of solving one problem by creating another.   

The Ecomodernist viewpoint may appear at first glance both naive in its reliance on technology and dismissive of the role of politics in creating effective change.  However, they are calling for the collaborative exploration of new ideas and long-term plans for a future that recognizes both our human dependence on technology, and the costs of that dependence on our natural environment.  We hope that this exploration recognizes there is no technological silver bullet and all implementation requires adapting technology to local needs and contexts.

What do you think?