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