ENGLISH 23
(A.K.A. CLIMATE CRISIS 101)
Deep Dive
Fire in Paradise
I had avoided watching the Fire in Paradise film for so long because I knew it would be completely heartbreaking. I live about an hour away from Paradise and I remember how terrified everyone was here, even though we were so far from the flames. I can’t even imagine the emotions that residents of Paradise and the surrounding communities must have been experiencing. My high school was shut down for a week and a half not only because the downpour of ashes made for unhealthy air quality but also our campus was an evacuation site.
This film is difficult to watch, largely because of how “human” it is. In my other ecology classes, I have always been told the cold, hard facts and numbers. While the statistics are convincing and concerning, they never made me feel as distraught as the personal account, onsite footage, and recorded phone calls presented in this film…
It is also astonishing when Ken made the comparison between fires in California and Australia. I can’t, and maybe don’t want to, picture the impact of a fire that’s four times as big as all 15 largest wildfires in CA combined. I wonder if I went back in time and told Ken(in January 2020) that the fires burned an estimated 46 million acres in the 2019 – 2020 Australian bushfire season, would he even believe that?
In Ken’s Youtube video that gives an introduction to this documentary, he explains that because this film isn’t a scholarly film, we may wonder why it’s even required. But I wasn’t questioning this at all! It’s easy to see why this would be such an important film to broadcast. In fact, I sometimes think that films like these are more important to watch than films that spew a bunch of facts. This documentary had me so engrossed and invested that I even shed a few tears at some points. I feel like I just went through such a visceral, cathartic experience after watching the utter devastation that this wild fire created. Looking at environmental issues from a humanistic perspective rather than a scientific one allows people to form emotions about climate issues rather than simply being exposed to facts.
As an Environmental Studies major and a climate activist, I have watched many films about the climate crisis and the impacts it has caused and will continue to cause if action is not taken immediately. However, I do not recall any film that has evoked the same level of emotion that “Fire in Paradise” did. I found myself reaching for a box of tissues more than once..
This tragedy however, comes to show that the climate crisis can no longer be ignored by the developed world…In 2019 Greta Thunberg delivered a powerful speech asking people to act as if their house is on fire, but this is no longer an if, our house is literally on fire. The climate crisis is a daunting task and can at times make us feel like sitting ducks, as people did in the film, waiting for climate change or a fire to wipe us out. However, I have hope for our future. I believe that my generation will be able to make the cultural change to finally put out the fire that has engulfed our home we call planet earth.
There is a shortlist of people who could be considered directly responsible for the loss of life in Paradise. The higher-ups of ExxonMobil who created their own studies and knew for a fact that continued use of fossil fuels was going to be disastrous and said nothing. The Koch brothers and every other right-wing think tank funded by oil money that lied to the American people and the world. Many of these people are still around today, living comfortable luxurious lives. What these CEOs and politicians have done to my generation and the many that will come after goes far beyond negligent or selfish. It’s criminal. These people are criminals. Their mindless pursuit of infinite growth lays the fate of every town like Paradise squarely at their feet. One can only hope for a day when these people could be tried for crimes against humanity, a sort of Climate Nuremberg Trials, but sadly, that day likely won’t be coming anytime soon. All we can do is ensure towns like Paradise are never forgotten and keep fighting for a better world.
When it comes to the topic of climate change, we often think of sea level rising, animals going extinct, things that seem surreal and very far away from us. But what we don’t realize is that the effects of climate change are taking place in our backyard. And the severity of bush fire caused by climate change is worsening each year. At the same time, it just amazes me people like Donald Trump and just looks at the catastrophe of California wildfires, continue to deny the existence of climate change, and tell people to “clean up the floor of the forest”.
My dad is a firefighter and talks about how draining and dangerous wildfires can be and how he has lost friends trying to help out in situations like this, and even though he talks about his experiences, I don’t think I’ve ever fully understood how detrimental wildfires truly are; I’ve heard the stories and watched the news, but this documentary really opened my eyes to how climate change is such a large, dangerous influence and how it has made fires so much worse. Documentaries like these should be played in science classes across the country because they could further influence the generations who will continue to take action against worsening climate change. However, big corporations and businesses are the ones who hold wads of power, and most of them aren’t doing anything to slow/end their impact on the world and its climate. Big names/brands/companies need to be held accountable for their actions, whether it is for something giant like starting a devastating wildfire or just admitting that they need to alter production and come up with a new sustainability model that could potentially make a difference in the world we all live in.
Having taken English 22 already, I watched the second film and found it to be effective because of the people that tell the story. The fact that the film showcased the story of young kids around our age, made me think about what this situation may have been like if it had happened to me and those around me. Seeing people who lived a very similar life to yours, and then their life got turned completely upside down was very disheartening, but also very close to home. When I watched the other films, such as the one starring DiCaprio or Al Gore, although also powerful, I did not get the same feeling. This film showed that this type of disaster can happen to anyone at any moment, and change your entire life forever.
My frustration cannot be put on the city officials of Paradise, however. My anger from how bad us humans let the climate crisis get is being displaced and let out over this documentary. How long will it take for a majority of the population to acknowledge and PUSH for change in environmental habits? I fear that it will take everyone to experience their house burning down or being flooded and swept away for this issue to be considered a priority at a grand scale.
Having watched A Fire in Paradise last quarter for Ecocriticism 101, I was really intrigued by this shift of perspective. The first film was about Paradise as a whole, but The New Yorker’s documentary focused primarily on the students and educators it affected. Seeing those clips of high school students who are probably not that much younger than me really made me connect to the stories they told. A Fire in Paradise also had interviews but it allotted a lot of the runtime to explaining what happened in a sequential matter. I felt like this documentary was not trying to explain/recount what happened, but rather look deeper at how many people were affected through their testimonies.