Tell the story of blood glaciers and creative climate for an uncertain future

Tell the story of blood glaciers and creative climate for an uncertain future

The creepy mountain landscape, some jumping panics, and a lot of blood–“Blood glacier“It may look like all other low-cost horror films. But it has another story to tell.

“In 2014, the last skeptic was silent,” the film’s title opened. “Climate disasters are more serious than imagined… The consequences are not yet clear, but we know one thing. Life on earth will change forever.”

Throughout the film, a group of scientists, government officials, and a technician fight mutants at a research base in the Austrian Alps because the glacier seeps a mysterious red liquid, turning local wildlife into a deadly abomination Things.

When Christy Tidwell watched this movie for the first time, she smiled. Tidwell is an associate professor at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, where he studies science fiction and environmental humanities.

In an interview with GlacierHub, she admitted to GlacierHub that compared to other eco-horror films she has watched, this movie is not very good. But its “badness” aroused her curiosity, which led to her recent publication entitled “‘We will change”: The deep past and uncertain future of Scarlet Glacier,” in the magazine Sci-Fi Movies and TV.

Tidwell explained that although this movie may not reflect the true situation of climate change, it requires viewers to consider how their choices shape a future so fragile that even the world’s glaciers are no longer permanent.

“Blood Glacier” follows the growing trend of telling creative stories about climate change. Fiction or non-fiction, stories about melting glaciers or coastal towns threatened by rising sea levels can provide a more perceptual or fascinating understanding of a warming world that science cannot traditionally provide.

Find the right story to tell

Matthew Tegelberg’s bookshelves are full of climate novels. The Associate Professor of the Department of Social Sciences at York University spoke with GlacierHub about the continuous growth of climate fiction and its value in communicating the climate crisis. “The novel invites the public into the world of science in a way that scientists cannot do on their own,” he said.

Tegelberg studies environmental communication, exploring how to tell stories to people who don’t care or know that climate change is a real problem. He explained that novels can inform scientists and policymakers about the way in which they communicate about the climate crisis. “If science communicators can understand how fiction is done and find ways to construct the same narrative as non-fiction, then we have a better chance to take the actions we need.”

Tidwell’s article echoes Research Co-authored by Tegelberg, on how the media represents glacier retreat-a phenomenon that is difficult to communicate to the public given its geographic distance and non-human time scale. Emmy Award-winning documentary “Chasing ice“Success in this regard, Tegelberg explained. The film follows National Geographic photographer James Barlog using time-lapse photography to document the effects of global warming on glaciers.

The Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland appeared in the “Ice Chasing” documentary about glacier retreat. Credit: Spencer and Carroll/Flickr

Stories about climate change often rely on what Tegelberg calls the “icon” of climate change, like a lone polar bear balancing on a melting iceberg, and because mainstream media often share this image, this distances the public from reality. However, using time-lapse photography can bring viewers close to the real impact of a warming world, showing how much geological time has been eroded by human activities in just a few hundred years.

But how do these creative climate stories, horror movies and documentaries become meaningful real life?

“Connect them to real life,” Tegelberg replied. “We need to scale up [stories] At the local level, think about these larger [climate] The concept is entering the community level. “

The Climate Future of the New Jersey Coast

Far away from the Austrian Alps is Asbury Park, New Jersey, where David Eisenhauer tells stories and studies. Researchers from Bennington College focused on telling stories about the future of coastal cities and providing possible solutions to the effects of climate change, such as sea level rise due to melting glaciers.

Eisenhauer explained to GlacierHub that Asbury Park has a history of segregation and housing inequality. It has recently experienced an increase in development. Luxury apartments and high-end restaurants have moved in along the coast, expelling low-income Residents of ethnic minorities. He explained that a future climate story in Asbury Park envisaged coastal flooding on the waterfront to make houses off the coast more popular and push low-income minority residents to the west and away from the city.

In the past few years, the coastline of Asbury Park has undergone recent developments, which has raised concerns about housing inequality and coastal flooding. Image source: Lhcollins/Wikimedia Commons

Telling climate stories can imagine a more ideal future for Asbury Park, which focuses on its history but solves the current problems that people face in the community. This story can influence how decision makers design a just and sustainable future in coastal cities.

But what does it mean when these future stories are not so promising?

Not sure about the climate story in the future

In the last few minutes of “Blood Glacier”, the protagonists escaped from the research base in a helicopter, too scared to speak. The climate disaster is much more serious than they thought, and the future is full of uncertainty and grim future.

Tidwell explained that in the novel, the sensational climate change is a danger, combining “Blood Glacier” with Roland Emmerich’s “the day after tomorrow“-A 2004 movie that tells the story of a paleoclimatologist who issued a superstorm warning to the United Nations but was largely ignored. In this movie, a super hurricane inhales freezing from space The air and literally chase the characters in the movie.

“Emerich really wants to say something [about climate change],but [public’s] The response was’This is ridiculous, it won’t happen like this,’” Tidwell said. She explained that although ecological terror may make climate change more difficult to be taken seriously, expecting it to provide a real solution to the crisis requires that There are too many types. “Blood Glacier” recognizes that climate change is terrible and that evokes emotions are unique things it can do.

Tidwell added that ecological horror also requires viewers to imagine a new type of relationship between humans and the natural world, which is both productive and valuable for climate communicators.

The documentary “Chasing the Ice” also did a similar thing, raising the issue of how the media can expand its relationship with the story it tells, such as devoting more resources and time to a frontline community that may not be able to use time-lapse photography to tell its own story. Tegelberg added Say, climate story.

Eisenhower’s work also highlights the new relationships in his storytelling, connecting the historical past, the current problems people face in Asbury Park, and the future they can strive to achieve. He added that by helping residents tell their stories, this work helps them advocate for a fairer city. “Stories cannot solve all problems, but it is very important to have a story that can establish all these connections,” he pointed out.

Whether it’s an ecological horror film, a documentary film, or a documentary novel, storytelling is “all about experience and emotion—things that traditional science thinks we shouldn’t include,” Tidwell concluded. “It can’t do everything, but no matter what it is doing, you will feel it.”