Importance of the 10-year-old documentary, ‘Carbon Nation’

Arizona PBS is re-airing the documentary ‘Carbon Nation’ from ten years ago. We talked to Peter Byck, a Filmmaker and a Professor at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, about how it is still relevant and what has changed in the last decade.

This documentary was described as a climate change solution movie, that doesn’t care if you believe in climate change or not. He explains why it was described like this. They wanted it to be a movie that would invite everyone in, not just people who believed in climate change.

He said he wanted to show that the solutions to solving climate change were good business decisions. Byck said they did a lot of stories about efficiency. They were talking with many different people, like people from the department of defense.

We asked if the dynamic, the landscape, or the equation changed since the documentary was released. Byck said the price of solar and wind energy has gone down a lot. Something that has not changed since the movie is buildings being made to be more energy efficient. He said there are so many ideas that are energy-efficient and cost-effective.

The problem is with all of the different regulations. For instance, where sometimes you cannot even make your power. He explained that there is good stuff that has changed since then and also bad stuff.

We also talk about if climate change is still debatable. Byck said, he doesn’t care what people believe, he cares about what they do. He said when something becomes political, it excludes people. They did not want to do this in their film.

He said if someone doesn’t believe humans are causing climate change, they still want clean air and water. “We don’t like to argue with people, we want to find out where we already agree.” He said one of the most important things they filmed was land use and how we raise our food and treat our souls.