Yes THAT Sphere -
This past Monday I got a chance to visit the Las Vegas Sphere and see "A Postcard from Earth", a film shot in 18k showcasing wildlife and our planet's beauty on the vast screen (bigger than big screen). The experience was truly memorable, and if ever given the opportunity - I highly recommend each of you see it yourselves. But it wasn't entirely the technology that blew me away, in fact it was the film, who's premise was centered on climate change, that made this so memorable.
Not to provide any spoilers, but the film mainly depicts beautiful imagery of Earth's landscapes, and narrates a storyline of human's killing the Earth and re-creating life on another planet (through a magic golden seed). From a plot perspective, the film critic in me cringes a bit, but trust me, the visuals themselves are well worth the visit. What did truly move me though, was when the imagery shifted from our beautiful planet and natural ecosystems, to the absolute destruction climate change has been ravaging across the planet, and what it may look like if action isn't taken.
The film really gave me the feeling of seeing our Earth from different POVs as the climate desperately tried to rid itself of the greenhouse gasses and pollution we as humans have caused and failed to reverse. As we were leaving the film, I so desperately wanted to ask anyone else if they felt as moved as I did - and quickly turned to Google & Reddit to see what the consensus was. Surprise, many people had EXTREMELY mixed reviews. Although cost was an overarching theme, many described the climate change storyline as "political" and "far-left propoganda" and felt the need to pre-face it to other viewers because it might "kill the mood". And the film itself tried to convey a happy ending (although hard to bounce-back from some extremely saddening visuals) with some cryogenic humans now repopulating a new home for us.
Many of us that work in climate, or that read our newsletters and now see climate change in your daily lives more often, likely see a very different perspective than the reddit and google reviews that were only worried about watching a film that made them happy. And it really made me think - how oblivious some people can really be to what is going on around them. Climate change can absolutely be difficult to visualize in our day to day, but excercising the skill of seeing the big picture needs to be further stressed. I'm happy this film is being shown often at the Sphere, but we can't afford to be giving movie reviews when the world's ending.
This experience taught me a lot about people's perception, but also how increasing our content, media, and understanding of climate change will spur these conversations further - after all, any news is good news, especially if we're facing our potential extinction. So continue to talk about and see climate change in your daily life, help those around you become more sustainable, and continue to act on climate issues anywhere you can - because unlike the film, there's no golden seed that can save us this time.
