Climate Change and the Human Prospect

Brief Synopsis
“The climate change issue, what we're confronting, it's impossible. It is beyond us. But then, on the other hand, throughout history the most interesting things have been in those moments in history when people decided to do the impossible and that's what we need to do now. And that's what we will do now.”
- Rankin MacSween, Thinkers Lodge, Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Climate Change and the Human Prospect documents the vision created at the Climate Change and the Human Prospect: A Thinkers Retreat held at Thinkers Lodge in Pugwash, Nova Scotia.

On the 60th Anniversary of the Inaugural Pugwash Conference on Nuclear Disarmament held in 1957, twenty-four global and regional Thinkers, armed with the conviction that local action is not only possible, but also the best path forward, gathered to define a path to restore and revitalize local communities in the face of climate change.

In the compelling setting of the Thinkers Lodge where scientists and scholars from all over the world have stayed and tackled the world’s most pressing issues through the power of dialogue, Climate Change and the Human Prospect captures the thoughts, emotions and ideas of these Thinkers – scientists, economists, municipal councillors, planners, artists, community activists, First Nations and Eastern wisdom representatives, the Project Drawdown Director and others – as they articulate global warming’s cascading impact on small, rural, and coastal communities and focus on actionable, locally-oriented and forward-motion climate change plans.

Long Synopsis
We know there are no more chances. It is not going away. Today is the time to take action. We need to deal with our climate crisis, just as we have lived with the 20th century legacy of nuclear war.

In 1957 at the inaugural Thinkers Retreat on nuclear proliferation at the Pugwash NS Thinkers Lodge, the hearts and minds of renowned thinkers – scientists from both sides of the Iron Curtain – assembled near the medal room, which now displays the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize, the Lenin Peace Prize, a letter from Albert Einstein and numerous other items conveying the potency of this place and its history.

Fast forward sity-years when twenty-four global and regional Thinkers gathered for two and a half days of intense, intentional, and focused conversation on Global Warming, the greatest threat facing humankind.

In this compelling setting, the film Climate Change and the Human Prospect documents the vision created by this diverse group of Thinkers — scientists, economists, municipal councillors, planners, artists, community activists, First Nations and Eastern wisdom representatives, the Project Drawdown Director, and others— as they powered through a cross pollination of thoughts, emotions, and ideas, fostering charged and difficult conversations.

Without shying away from the hard reality of a changed and changing world, we witness these Thinkers identify and articulate Global Warming’s cascading impacts on small, rural, and coastal communities. Believing local action as the best path, the Thinkers’ mission was to move from ‘conversation’ to ‘doing’ by generating a roadmap to develop community-based action plans, with drawdown potential, that enable us to manage life in a very different world.

It is the Thinkers’ belief that our shared duty now, as one people, is to protect and repair our Earth. This film freeze frames the moment these Thinkers take first steps towards an ongoing and positive movement, generating new ideas and innovations to help our communities survive and thrive in the midst of the looming environmental threat of climate change.