In Berwyn, a Sobering Message About Rising Sea Levels and an Optimistic Message About Solutions

In Berwyn, a sobering message about rising sea levels and an optimistic message about solutions

--by Matt Zencey

Rising sea levels are already causing havoc in parts of the East Coast, thanks to human-caused climate change, forcing homeowners and cities to spend millions of dollars coping with ever-increasing flood damage.

That’s the message some three dozen people heard in Berwyn Sunday, at a showing of the documentary, Facing the Surge. Hosted at Easttown Library and Information Center by the Chester County chapter of Citizens' Climate Lobby, the film chronicles how the city of Norfolk, Va., a low-lying coastal city that’s home to the largest US Naval base, struggles with regular floods.

What once was nothing more than a big rainstorm can force schools to close, cut off access to the Navy base, and even close the three tunnels serving the city, which lies exposed on a peninsula just a few feet above sea level.

In one poignant scene, the film shows a rescue boat carrying schoolchildren to safety when floodwaters overtake their school bus. Norfolk’s mayor offers the chilling thought that sea level rise and regular floods threaten to make entire city neighborhoods uninhabitable.

Filmmaker Diogo Castro Friere says he focused on Norfolk because he wanted to “show how climate change is relevant to individuals in what they can see and feel today.” Too often, he says, climate change seems like some distant, abstract concept that’s easy to shrug off.

Just as importantly, Friere’s film talks about ways the climate crisis can be solved and how ordinary citizens can get involved and convince their political leaders to take strong protective action.

“We don’t want people to just watch [the film] and then two weeks later, they’ve forgotten everything” and fall back into their normal routines, Friere says.

Facing the Surge features several Citizens' Climate lobby leaders and volunteers from across the county talking about how they believe ordinary citizens, working together in a respectful way, can overcome the powerful fossil fuel lobby and get Congress to pass strong climate protection measures.

Citizens' Climate Lobby wants Congress to charge a steadily escalating fee on the greenhouse gas pollutants, levied on fossil fuel energy producers, with all net proceeds sent back to US households in equal monthly rebate checks – an idea known as “Carbon Fee and Dividend.” According to a rigorous economic analysis done for the group, after ten years, the policy would cut greenhouse gas pollution by a third while creating a net of 2 million new jobs and shielding low-income consumers from the force of higher energy prices.

Filmmaker Friere ends his documentary with a call to action: “The climate is changing for all of us. Speak up for those on the front lines.” The audience got the message, according to Jane Klein, co-founder of the Chester County group of Citizens' Climate Lobby.

“It was really great. People were really engaged,” Klein said. “When so many people stay afterward and talk, you know it’s a success.”

Many attendees stayed to sign a “giant scroll” – a petition to Congress supporting strong climate protection measures – and also posed for a group photo. Klein reported that the Chester County climate group recruited four new volunteers, including one who said, “I have been looking for something like this for a long time. I really want to learn more so I can do something to make a difference.”

Click here to contact the Chester County group of Citizens' Climate Lobby on Facebook.

Facing the Surge is a crowd-funded project by Friere’s filmmaking group, Adaptation Now. For more information about future showings on Friere’s East Coast tour, or to help his film reach a wider audience, visit adaptationnow.com.

Click here for more information about how Carbon Fee and Dividend will help solve the climate crisis.

As the Berwyn audience learned in a panel discussion afterward, Carbon Fee and Dividend is a revenue-neutral, market-based solution designed to win bipartisan support that will overcome partisan gridlock in Congress.