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Street roots 7 May 23, 2014 The climate has changed. We haven’t. A personal journey through science, French artist Philippe Squarzoni brings us a fresh take on global warming BY TOM WATSON C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R an we change? Can civilization mount an adequate response to human- caused global warming and climate change? Do we still have time? These questions sometimes lurk in the background and sometimes hit us in the face in “Climate Changed,” a groundbreaking featof environmental journalism by French artist Philippe Squarzoni. You mightnot like his answers, but you owe it to yourself and future generations to take a few hours, dive into this book and learn about climate change from a new perspective^ This personal, investigative,'political, 480- page comic book (brilliantly translated from the original French by Ivanka Hahnenberger) maybe just what the climate change awareness movement needs. Squarzoni’s evocative ahd occasionally surreal black-and-white drawings and his : wide-open narrative approach make this book much more compelling to me than “An Inconvenient Truth” or any other comprehensive look at climate change, I’ve seen or read. Interspersed throughout the bookare snippets of interviews with nine French scientists and climate, experts, including three members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (IPCC).>The IPCC’s latest report reinforces the scientific observations in “Climate Changed.” Squarzoni concisely describes the scientific credentials of the IPCC, the evidence of climate change they have found and their predictions for the future. « Even when-he’s directly quotingexperts on technical matters, he makes the data come alive by showing us the experts as | they are interviewed, along with abstract or realistic depictions of what they’re talking about A potent example, he discusses impacts based on conservative estimates of rising sea levels from climate change. “More than half the world’s population lives near a coast... Numerous densely populated coastal regions such as the Ganges and Nile deltas could be flooded. Millions of people will be driven o p t and agricultural production will be severely affected. Twenty percent of Bangladesh could be flooded, 12 percent of Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia.” B Climate Changed by Philippe Squarzohi ICE, from page 3 strategy will be. I think this [CARI] is something as a coalition we need to pay more attention to,” says Romeo Sosa from the Portland-based advocacy group the Voz Workers’ Rights Education Project. Voz is a member of the Activists Coming Together for Justice and Dignity Network, or ACT Network, a coalition that includes the Oregon Chapter of the ACLU among others. In April 2013, responding to criticism from the ACT Network and pressure from Multnomah County commissioners, Multnomah County Sheriff Dan Staton changed his ICE detention policy, choosing to honor holds only for personal misdemeanors (crimes perpetrated against persons such as child neglect), felonies and more serious crimes. Staton stopped honoring ICE holds altogether shortly after the Miranda-Olivares decision. Sosa says with ICE no longer able to hold individuals up at the jail, he , expects to see more arrests at people s But knowing that people probably won’t take climate change seriously unless it becomes personal, Squarzoni includes his own journey of awareness. Many brief scenes show home life with his wife Camille. When hé. ponders turning down a short artisfs residency in Laos because of the huge carbon footprint of flying, Camille asks him, “Does this mean you won’t fly anymore? That We’ll never travel together anymore?” He replies, “I don’t know. I feel like I’m cornered. Caught in a series of | contradictions that are impossible to resolve. Because I really wqnt to go on this trip, to take this residency. I’ll be 40 soon, and there are still plenty of countries around the world that I want to visit. I want to go to Africa, New York. I’ve never been to Asia. And I want to make these trips With you. I’m just like everyone else. I don’t want to live like a poor person in some underdeveloped country.” He does not take the trip to Laos, but he eventually, guiltily, decides to take a maximum of one air trip a year, and only if it’s with Camille. Yoü could dismiss this as a “rich person’s, problem,” but it cuts to the heart of the challenge of reducing climate change. It will require sacrifice, and no one wants to be first in line. Venturing where American writers typically fear to tread, Squarzoni calls out .cholate change as a social justice issue. Rich countries, corporations and individuals have caused climate change and benefited from itwith their consumption, and poor people around the world pay the price. As an example of how society might react to future climatic upheavals, Squarzoni summarizes the effects of Hurricane - Katrina on New Orleans in a disturbing and eye-opening 12-page section, using stark graphic images and much harsher words than most American media have used. “The wealthier residents flee to neighboring states by car. The poorer ones, the ones who don’t have cars or can’t afford hotels, have no choice but to stay and wait for Katrina.” Then we see bodies in the water, forçèd evacuations and the plight of the refugees, many of whom are unable to reclaim their homes. Meanwhile, the rich benefit again in New Orleans. “Halliburton, Bechtel, KBR - companies with lucrative contracts in Iraq - are now awarded more than $3.4 billion in federal reconstruction homes. Sosa says he’s also concerned about another ICE program that employs biometrics, one that’s not expected to change with the Miranda- Olivares decision. Secure Communities Continues The technological net that initially . put Miranda-Olivares on ICE’s radar is part of a program called Secure Communities, or S-Comm. S-Comm shares fingerprint data with ICE via a series of databases run by the FBI and DHS. This data sharing, which occurs under a number of different programs, applies to all arrestees - not just immigrants - and was put in place after 9-11. But for immigrants S-Comm means even if you’re released from jail, .have your charges dropped, or even if your jail no longer honors ICE holds, ICE can still come after you. As Street Roots reported in March [ICE Case Reveals Complexities in Local Policies, March 14, 2014], this is What happened to Portland resident M lU r W « A fK , 6ACriT,M CAoartG MA3OK CHAHO«. TO TH6 £uefAC6 O P ÎH é e tW T , contracts without any bidding process.” The sooner we begin a meaningful response to climate change, such as Squarzoni writes, “the better prepared we’ll be for the shocks to come. But if we wait too long before we react, the restrictions will seem brutal. And they’ll be imposed instead of chosen. They’ll be imposed through shortages and widening social inequality.” Does Squarzoni leave us with any hope as he concludes this personal tale of a changed climate? You’ll have to read the book to find o u t But it’s not giving anything away to say that the ending will always be up to us. Reprinted from, Real Change Newspaper, Street Roots' sister paper in. Seattle Wash. Daniel Hernandez Garcia. Hernandez was picked up by ICE at his home in late January, two weeks after the Multnomah County Jail decided not to honor ICE’s request to hold him following his arrest for á separate crime. At the time, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Department determined Hernandez’s case was exempt from the jail’s already modified ICE policy. Becky Straus with the Oregon Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union says her organization is going to pay particular attention to the use of biometrics in the wake of the Miranda- Olivares decision. “Secure Communities and the CARI program use biometric data-sharing programs,” says Straus. “The idea of digital privacy is really pertinent to immigrant communities in Oregon and' elsewhere, not only because privacy is a fundamental right, but also because of the way these technologies are being used. It’s definitely an example of things we all now need to turn our attention to.” P H IL IP P E S Q U A R Z O N I A n excerpt from “Clim ate Change” by Philippe
