The documentary “This Changes Everything” was an incredibly eye opening and moving film about the issue of climate change. The documentary focuses on 5 people in 4 different social climates and how the climate change crisis effects them and their surrounding areas. The first young woman, Crystal, is an indigenous leader in the Tar Sands country. Her fight surrounds a restricted military base and looking for answers about a current environmental catastrophe. The next couple is Mike and Alexis. \they are goat ranchers in Montana and are dealing with a broken oil pipeline. Their fight against climate change includes protesting against fossil fuel extraction in the Powder River Basin. They also work with the Northern Cheyenne Tribe as they try and bring solar power to a reservation. The next woman is from Northern Greece, which just so happens to be where a lot of my family is from. This one was personal to watch because I am familiar with the region and the issues they have been facing for a long time. Melachrini is a housewife and she speaks about how people are using Greece’s economic crisis to justify mining and drilling projects, even though they negatively effect the mountains and seas. Despite the state of crisis, there is a social movement of people working together to fight the mining and drilling. The last woman, Jyothi, is a matriarch in Andhra Pradesh, India. Along with the other villagers, she fights the proposal of a new coal-fired plant that would destroy the wetlands. Their protest leads to a nation-wide movement. My favorite part about the documentary was how it used all these different people from all over the world to tell the same story: we need to stop doing such harmful things to our environment and work as hard as we can to improve it. Climate change is not a small issue. It is not an issue that only effects a small group of people. Climate change effects the entire world. The Earth is our planet, it is our home and the only one we will ever have. It is our job to come together and try and save it from all the harm we caused.
