Nailsea Film Club

Film Club Extra may have folded as a route into Fresh Expressions but the Methodists are still planning to show regular films with discussion afterwards. They launched last week with a showing of The Age of Stupid. Here is the text of the closing thoughts and discussion questions.

'The Age Of Stupid’ is the new documentary-drama-animation hybrid from Director Franny Armstrong and Producer John Battsek in which Pete Postlethwaite stars as an old man living in the devastated world of 2055 where runaway climate change has ravaged the planet. He watches 'archive' footage from 2008 and asks: Why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance?

Pete plays the founder of The Global Archive, a storage facility located in the (now melted) Arctic, preserving all of humanity's achievements in the hope that the planet might one day be habitable again. Or that intelligent life may arrive and make use of all that we’ve achieved. He pulls together clips of “archive” news and documentary from 1950-2008 to build a message showing what went wrong and why. He focuses on six human stories:

Alvin DuVernay, is a paleontologist helping Shell find more oil off the coast of New Orleans. He also rescued more than 100 people after Hurricane Katrina, which, by 2055, is well known as one of the first 'major climate change events'.

Jeh Wadia in Mumbai aims to start-up a new low-cost airline and gets a million Indians flying.

Layefa Malemi lives in absolute poverty in a small village in Nigeria from which Shell extracts tens of millions of dollars worth of oil every week. She dreams of becoming a doctor, but must fish in the oil-infested waters for four years to raise the funds.

Jamila Bayyoud, aged 8, is an Iraqi refugee living on the streets of Jordan after her home was destroyed - and father killed - during the US-led invasion of 2003. She’s trying to help her elder brother make it across the border to safety.

Piers Guy is a windfarm developer from Cornwall fighting the NIMBYs of Middle England.

Fernand Pareau is an 82-year-old French mountain guide has witnessed his beloved Alpine glaciers melt by 150 metres.

When asked, 'What prompted you to make The Age of Stupid?' Franny Armstrong replied 'Either we seriously tackle climate change or we wipe out most life on Earth. So it's not a tricky decision, as a filmmaker, to decide which subject to work on. I find it hard to understand how anyone who grasps the problem can work on anything else.'

The Age of Stupid comes after Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth which laid out the scientific facts and makes it increasingly difficult to plead ignorance on climate change.

Yet those who are trying to take action face apathy and opposition from many well funded big businesses, politicians and misguided but well-meaning individuals who acknowledge climate change but still won’t accept a wind farm locally if it will 'spoil their views'. I attended a public meeting regarding a planning application for a Wind Farm near the Nuclear Power Station at Hinkley Point in Somerset a couple of years ago and heard a speaker from the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England say that she accepted that Wind Farms were probably necessary but that they should be put in Birmingham or somewhere that was awful already.

Even those who accept urgent action is required to reduce carbon emissions are divided as to the best alternatives with nuclear, wind, wave, solar and coal with carbon capture each having their supporters.

The biggest problem is perhaps that the gross inequality in the world means that developing countries are understandably reluctant to curtail their economic growth when they perceive that the mess we are in is the fault of the West in general and the USA in particular (where incidentally 5% of the world’s population consumes 25% of the world’s oil).

The Archbishop of Canterbury used his Ebor Lecture in York Minster on March 24th to spell out why respect for the environment is not an optional extra, particularly for Christians. Getting our relationship with the rest of the created order into proper perspective is both a responsibility and a necessity. Failure could have disastrous consequences especially for some of the poorest and most vulnerable. 'There is no way of manipulating our environment that is without cost or consequence … we are inextricably bound up with the destiny of our world.' 'Ecological questions', Dr Williams says 'are increasingly. ..defined as issues of justice.. both to those who now have no part in decision-making at the global level yet bear the heaviest burdens as a consequence of the irresponsibility of wealthier nations, and to those who will succeed us on this planet – justice to our children and grandchildren'.

So where do we go from here – what can we do:-

Tell as many people as you can about the urgent need to act on climate change tell your family, friends, neighbours, colleagues at work, school, college – indeed anybody who will listen – use The Age of Stupid, An Inconvenient Truth, A Time Comes, the internet anything you can lay your hands on.

Act – reduce your own carbon footprint at home, at work, in church, at school – reduce, reuse, recycle. Walk or ride a bike or use public transport. And start doing these things now – for as Phillip Vera Cruz famously said, 'If not you then who? If not now, then when?'

Join an environmental group – Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Plane Stupid, Rising Tide, Earth First – the flyer on your seats is for A Time Comes which tells the story of four activists who take direct action against a coal power station and are subsequently vindicated in court.
Use what weapons you do have – vote for politicians who are committed to act on climate change, only spend your money on products from producers who are acting to reduce their carbon footprint. Buy locally produced produce and only buy what you need.

'Throughout our history, the deal was we left the world in a slightly better place than we found it. That was progress. The wheel, the rule of law, penicillin. It was our covenant with our children and grandchildren.' If we don’t act on Climate Change we will be breaking that covenant. And as Edmund Burke famously said – 'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.'

Discussion Questions
How did you find the film and what struck you most?

Why should we bother taking action if the USA, China and India refuse to?

What reduction from our current standard of living can we expect in a future low carbon economy?

Who can or should provide the leadership necessary to achieve action on climate change?

What, if anything, will we do differently having seen tonight’s film?

Film Club 4 U

Nailsea Methodist Church is opening up Film Club 4 U. There is a showing of The Age of Stupid this Friday 25th September with a closing statement. This is no longer being seen as so much a Fresh Expression as a Church Film Club, but non-church members will be made very welcome.

Cafe Create

Cafe Create is tomorrow (Friday 18th September) in the Trinity Centre. Cool lounge music, live spoken word and musical entertainment, fair-trade cafe/bar. Be there 7.30 - 11.00 p.m.

Cafe Create

Cafe Create returns to the Trinity Centre a week on Friday, 18th September. Fair trade cafe/bar, DJ music and possibly live entertainment. Have a word with me if you wish to perform.

7.30 - 11.00 p.m.

Steve

So Farewell Then

3.08 at Kingshill School is closing after two years. Originally set up as a congregational plant from Christ Church, Nailsea the aim was to attract local families who do not currently go to church, might find Sunday mornings awkward and might find a school hall less threatening than a church. Whilst the team have enjoyed working together and have learned many new skills we have not been able to reach beyond those who currently go to other churches and kindly turned up to support us. So watch this space for new all-age developments at Christ Church and new Fresh Expressions in the autumn.

Cafe Create

The next Cafe Create will be at the Trinity Centre, Nailsea on Friday 16th January 7.30 - 11.00 p.m. Entertainment will be a quiz, music from resident DJ, donation-basis bar and lively atmosphere. Try it.

Film Club Extra

Film Club Extra is folding. It was an experiment and it lasted for fifteen months. Numbers only went over 30 on about four occasions and the vast majority of attendees were already members of churches. Few guests were brought along. On the one occasion two of us set aside some time to discuss a movie further in the pub nobody showed up. Rather than carrying on for ever the organisers have assessed its usefulness against their original vision 'to build a fresh expression of church amongst the movie-going community' and decided to call it a day. Thanks to those who joined us, whether once or fifteen times.