About a week ago, National Geographic published on YouTube their documentary, directed by Leonardo DiCaprio and Fisher Stevens, about climate change. Since the video has been posted, it has received millions of views and good reviews from film critics. The documentary, called Before the Flood, was made to create awareness about climate change and its effects, urging us to take action. Before the Flood also gives us an inside look on the work of scientists, the lives of real people, and the making of “The Revenant”. Since its publication, the documentary has been translated into many languages, so I will include the English version through this link so you can all watch it, it’s worth it. The documentary is very well made, focusing on the balance between scientific evidence and the human aspect, including economic and artistic elements. Throughout the entire film, DiCaprio uses “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch as a reference, comparing it to the three stages of society, but with a horrible ending: the flood. That ending, represented by the third panel of the painting, is exactly what he wants to avoid.
Recently a non-profit organization focused on creating awareness about climate change called El Puente ELAC, standing for Enlace Latina de Acción Climática, organized an educational tour which consisted on showing the documentary in different universities and discussing about its effects in Puerto Rico. I had the pleasure to meet David Ortiz, the director of ELAC, and ask him a few questions regarding his experience with the organization, climate change in Puerto Rico, and the documentary. As we spoke, he showed me biodegradable plastic cups made from plant molecules, a new and creative way of reducing waste.
As he answered my questions, I was impressed with the emotion and enthusiasm he added to his words, showing that this is a cause he really cares about and has struggled with. It’s a cause we should all care about. Climate change is probably considered irrelevant in many global topics, many people think it’s a hoax, but it’s actually a real problem that is advancing faster than scientists have predicted. Why should we care? Simply because we live in this planet; it’s our home. Climate change affects us directly if nothing is to be done about it.
HCUPR Contibutor: How did ELAC start in Puerto Rico?
David Ortiz: Originally, it started in 2013, a few years ago when Luis Garden Acosta organized a meeting with all leaders of the island; many of them being scientists, people, community leaders. From that meeting, more than 200 people came up the idea to create this organization. That is how the ELAC was created in 2013.
HCUPR Contributor: What is the organization’s mission and vision?
David Ortiz: Our vision is to unite communities, groups, individuals, and leaders capable to confront climate change, promoting security, integral health, and the cultural values of self-determination, sustainability, social justice and peace in Puerto Rico. The mission of this organization is to inspire and nourish leaders for peace and justice, to create awareness for the environment, and to encourage the participation of citizens for the mitigation and adaptation to climate change.
HCUPR Contributor: What activities and events have been done to create awareness and deal with climate change?
David Ortiz: Right now, we are reorganizing our focus areas, but mostly we’ve done workshops in public schools and workshops to other organizations. We have a march called “Caminata de un Puerto Rico Unido Ante el Cambio Climático” (March for Puerto Rico United Before Climate Change), which we did for the first time this year… it feels like it happened last year, but it was this year, April 30. More than 1,000 people participated! By the way, it was raining a lot, but the sun came out after that, and I think that was the guy upstairs letting us know that everything is gonna be alright. We’ve also done tours in areas that have been affected by climate change, we take people to the beaches so they can see how the sea is taking away the palm trees due to erosion. We try to take people up to the mountains so they can see how climate change affects agriculture. There are many ways in which climate change is making an impact on the island. We still can’t see all of the impacts, some still haven’t been classified as problems due to climate change, but we believe they are examples, or early science, of climate change and what is coming next.
HCUPR Contributor: What position do you take place in ELAC? How has your experience been?
David Ortiz: I am the director of El Puente ELAC here in Puerto Rico. My experience has been excellent because this organization gives me all the creative freedom to create an organization that is representative of what we, as Boricuas, want and that is what I’ve enjoyed the most, more than anything. Not only to spread the message of climate change and what is happening, but to also motivate and move people from their communities to carry the information. Also be able to create an organization with a council that is composed of people from the membership, for them to give us a blank canvas and say “create what you believe Puerto Rico should have” is excellent to me. It has truly been a pleasure; it’s an honor, to be a part of this process.
HCUPR Contributor: Where can we follow ELAC on social media?
David Ortiz: You can follow us on Facebook; we have a very, very active Facebook page, which is ELAC PR (@ELACPR). Right now we’re making some changes to our Twitter account, so it’s not accessible yet. We have a website for the march as well and you can also find us on the website for El Puente New York.
HCUPR Contributor: One of the most recent events was a tour in Puerto Rico, which stopped at various universities to present a documentary titled “Before the Flood”, directed by Fisher Stevens and Leonardo DiCaprio, for free and for educational purposes. How did this idea of a tour come up and why do you think it’s important for people to watch this documentary?
David Ortiz: The idea came from the members that met with me, including Rue, one of the coordinators, and Jackie, and I told them “Let’s do it. It’s a great idea.” The idea was to create some type of tour where we could present the film in different places, universities mostly, because that’s what National Geographic asked for. We made a partnership with National Geographic; they sent us the video with a set of rules that we had to follow, like for example, it couldn’t be presented after November 9. We tried with various universities, some worked and some still haven’t worked, but we’re working with different locations to show the film. We believe it’s a good way… when one has an actor like Leonardo DiCaprio and a director like Fisher Stevens you know it’s going to be a high-quality film, it’s easy to attract people to the topic of climate change, and people feel moved by what they see and what they feel. We feel that this documentary does a great job at doing that. We’ve presented other films about climate change before, but they focus too much on the data and the impact, and they don’t capture the humanity side of the process. And I believe that this video, this documentary from DiCaprio, does a good job on uniting all of those elements, and they truly show you a documentary with good quality, high quality, to move people, so they can see that this is a real problem. I love it because it shows you both sides of the perspective: those who believe in climate change and those who don’t believe in climate change, but showing towards the end that it’s real, it’s happening, and we should do something about it.
HCUPR Contributor: The documentary shows us the causes and effects of climate change from different points of view from different countries. Regarding Puerto Rico, we know that we are one of the countries that produce the most waste per person (5.5 pounds of trash on a daily basis), the amount of cars surpasses the population and we emit too much carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. Can this be considered some of our main problems of climate change? Even though many of us have this knowledge, we don’t know the possible, long-term effects that could occur in the island. Can you give us an idea of the effects?
David Ortiz: Answering the first question, those are some of the causes, the first causes, but we also have the cause of lack of conscience, which many of us still have. When I’m in a line of cars waiting in the stoplight, I’ve seen people throw cans of beer and bags of McDonald’s out the window, anything out the window. That is lack of conscience. By the way, there have been times when I’ve gotten out of the car, I’ve taken the beer can, showed it to the person, and took it to my car. Sometimes we need to do that. Pardon me saying this, but sometimes the best way to educate someone is to embarrass them, to show them that if they’re not going to throw away the trash in the right place, someone is going to have to do it for them, and show them what to do. I have an example, in the United States when they passed the law that cigarettes cannot be sold to people less than 18 years of age, there were many stores that still sold them to underage people, and they way the stopped selling them happened when underage kids wore undercover cameras and recorded people selling cigarettes to them. They caught them there and they fined them. They would feel embarrassed and think “Wow, they caught me selling cigarettes to kids!” So, sometimes that works and we have to do that. I also think that lack of conscience is when authorities say they’re going to reach 15% of renewable energy when the Virgin Islands are already in 20% of renewable energy, and we’re getting ready to reach 15% by the year 2035! There are obviously some interests there that aren’t to make the island better or to protect our natural resources. The interest is that there are bonds to pay, and it’s taking us towards the direction of the third panel of “The Garden of Earthly Delights” that Leonardo DiCaprio shows us in the documentary. We, as a country, don’t have to wait until another country sets the example, we can be the example. If we want to pass the carbon tax, we don’t have to wait until the United States passes it, China passes it or any other country passes it. We can pass it and we can set the example. We need to reduce the IVU tax (laughs), but we can pass the carbon tax in a way that won’t affect us much. We also don’t want to affect the part of the population that is suffering from poverty, lack of services, and from other things. They could be thinking “Climate change is the least thing that is passing through my mind, I have bills to pay, and I have to put food on the table”. It has to be done up to par with what they consider as more important needs and what is needed at the moment.
Photo credit: http://www.indiewire.com/2016/10/before-the-flood-leonardo-dicaprio-clim…
HCUPR Contributor: What can we do as citizens?
David Ortiz: Educate, educate, educate and when you think you’ve done enough, remember to educate again. And I don’t mean “educate” because people lack education, no, that’s why sometimes I prefer to use the word “inform”. Inform because sometimes there are moments when we forget to recycle, instead of throwing away a can, we can wait and place it on the nearest recycle bin. I believe in spreading the word about protecting our natural resources and forcing our leaders to contain climate change in their platforms, at least as one of the top 3 most important topics. The reason why I say this is because the platforms of people that are running for positions in authority and leadership rarely pay attention to an environmental platform. If you observe, the money given to non-profit organizations like us, the environmental area is the last one considered. It starts with youth and children, which is very important and I’m not saying it isn’t, I think the services go after that, and the last tier is us, the environmental organizations, and we are the ones who face climate change and fight against out leaders to protect the natural resources that this island has, when it really should be done by our leaders.
HCUPR Contributor: Should Puerto Rico change its methods to obtain energy for renewable ones, such as solar power, wind power, and hydraulic power?
David Ortiz: Yes. We, as an organization, are pushing to make that happen through our campaign with the Authority of Renewable Energy. We believe that reaching just 15% of renewable energy by 2035 is settling, and its settling because they know there is a law that pushes them to reach 15% in 19 years. No, we want to push more. The other thing is that we understand that the government tells us “if not, we’re going with natural gas…”, and that’s more of the same problem, “… well we’ll go with diesel”, and it’s going to be worse. No, it’s not like that either. “If we don’t go with what we want, then we’ll make it worse and you all will have to deal with it”, that’s what they’re saying. It shouldn’t be like that, we need to think about this in a better way so we can create a system of renewable energy on the island, so we can start to move away from fossil fuels and diesel and not have to resort to using natural has, like they did with diesel at the beginning, and that’s why they can’t get out of it. We have the technology, maybe there are some advances that are still missing, but we’re obviously moving towards there, so there is no reason to say we can’t do anything now, or to say that we can’t do anything at all. No. We can do something now. We’re still missing a few things, like batteries that are more efficient, like Tesla (mentioned in the documentary), but cheaper and more efficient for the citizens. But we should start to move towards that direction.
HCUPR Contributor: In one of the scenes of “Before the Flood”, Leonardo DiCaprio has a discussion with Sunita Narain, the general director of the Center of Sciences and the Environment, due to dilemma about the necessities and consumption of the human population versus what is right for the environment. They also discuss a critique to the United States due to its use of fossil fuels. How can a balance be created within that dilemma, especially with massive and powerful corporations that we depend so much on?
David Ortiz: I believe that this question is a matter of us being able to reflect that climate change, and the minimization of its impact, not only consists of asking those massive companies to stop using and selling fossil fuels, it’s more like what the director from India said: “we need to make a change in our lifestyle.” That is what she was trying to say to Leonardo DiCaprio, who was thinking about it in his perspective. He is a Hollywood star, one of the highest consumers in the world; they have private jets, limousines, everything is big, big, and grandiose. And you have this director from a very humble and poor part of India telling him “you people are the problem… and I’m going to explain why.” For him to react with a shock like that, that is the same reaction of the planet. Sometimes we leave the water running when we brush our teeth; when the water reservoir of Trujillo Alto is full, they open it and waste water. We, as citizens of the planet, need to start to see how we can live a more sustainable life; how we can respect the resources we have, to respect the planet we have. We can’t be like the characters of a book called “Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit” by Daniel Quinn, that talks about the takers and the givers. One of the characters is a gorilla that tells a human “You’re a taker, because all you do is take, take, take, and you’re never satisfied. You’re always finding a way to take.” We need to learn to stop taking and start giving, and we’re talking about giving back to the planet because we’ve taken so much from it. So we need to find ways to live a more sustainable life. Instead of buying products from outside, buy local, it used less fuel to get to your house, compared to a boat. Even if imported is cheaper, make the sacrifice, but if a family doesn’t have a lot of money, then it’s understandable. We need to take a more holistic approach in making decisions: think about how we affect other countries, think about how we affect the environment, and how we need to live from our resources… It’s possible. But that’s a part of creating awareness, which we still need to do, and it’s going to be long work. The leaders can do whatever they can, for example, many people say that one of the problems of Puerto Rico is that we have too many laws yet none are applied, so in a similar way, if we don’t create awareness for climate change and a different lifestyle, then the same will happen on a global scale.
HCUPR Contributor: For me, the most emotional scene was a conversation between DiCaprio and the doctor and astronaut Pier Sellers, where he shows him a virtual panoramic view of planet Earth with thermal graphics (confirming the existence of climate change) and another view of the water current patterns. As the scene was ending, Dr. Sellers says that there is a solution for climate change and that there is hope. Do you have hope? Is there hope for Puerto Rico?
David Ortiz: I have to have it. I have to have hope as a community organizer, first of all because I see myself that way, even though I am the director. I am not comparing myself to him, but imagine Jesus Christ trying to teach the words of the Bible to the people without giving them the conclusion that they will go to Heaven when they die. It’s the same thing. I have to have faith that this will be solved, so that our people can move and say “I have to do something now.” I believe that Sellers has a good point; there are many scientists that would say “No, there’s no way. We are where we are.”, and they’ll show you statistics on how long the CO2 emissions will last in the air. But it’s a question I’ve asked myself several times since I saw the documentary, because he mentions that it’s real and that it can be solved. I don’t know yet, but I think so. I have to believe it is so we can push, motivate, and make that change, because if we don’t, the alternative is the third panel.
Photo credit: Wikipedia.org
After we finished the interview, David gave me a pamphlet with the platforms of all six candidates to the Puerto Rican government regarding climate change. He was handing them out like flyers to everyone. That for me was evidence that sometimes a cause you’re fighting for might seem small at the beginning, but all that hard work will pay off, especially when you’re helping the environment. You can read the pamphlet digitally through this website: http://www.benandjerryspr.com/cuestionario2016.html.
The interview took place the day before the election, and after seeing that Donald Trump won the presidency of the United States, someone who doesn’t believe in climate change, it was a lot more important for us to publish this. We should take David’s advice and be the energy that creates change in the world, without having to wait for examples to be set. In the eve of our new government, we should make an effort, whether it’s making a high-quality documentary or handing out flyers in sidewalks… both equally make a change. I would like to finish this profile with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that David sent me after we found out the results of the election in Puerto Rico and in the United States: “We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope”.
We urge readers to watch the documentary, learn more about ELAC through their social media information and think “What can I do to help?“.