sort·ed
/ˈsôrdəd/
British English informal. [adjective] Organized, arranged, or dealt with satisfactorily. "Have the solar panels been installed?" "Sorted!"
[In American English it is, "sorted out." verb (tr, adverb). To find a solution to a problem, especially to make clear or tidy. "it took a long time to sort out the mess." ]
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My name is Nousheen Zoarder, and I am a twenty-four-year-old Bangladeshi woman. I am guessing you have not seen a climate crisis documentary from the perspective of a person like me - from the most climate-vulnerable city in the world, Dhaka, Bangladesh. I am working with American filmmaker Kurt Norton to tell a first-person informative and entertaining (and, even with humor) call-to-action story that exposes the climate crisis's stark economic realities. And to show a positive path forward that people throughout the world can work to achieve.
Why another climate change documentary? I think we can all agree -- climate action is on most people's minds. However, the climate crisis can sometimes be pushed to the back-burner (so to speak) in peoples' minds due to a pandemic or a growing family's needs. Sometimes, just due to a beautiful blue sky day, it does not seem quite so urgent.
Our documentary can do the necessary job of helping keep climate action on the front-burner (so to speak). Reminding people, inspiring people, and providing a blueprint for action.
While we firmly believe climate action has moved to a dynamic level of worldwide activity, economic forces are still slowing down the transition from traditional forms of dirty energy to clean energy. It is continuously necessary to shine a bright light on destructive conduct that benefits the few and hurts the many.
For example, China, India, Russia, and other countries dump their 20th-century technology of coal power plants and old-style nuclear to power desperate countries in the developing world while boasting they are reducing their dependence on fossil fuels. In my own country, India is financing and building the Rampal Thermal Coal-Fired Power Plant adjacent to The Suburbans, the world's largest mangrove forest - trees especially suited for absorbing CO2. Rampal is one of many coal plants being planned or constructed in Bangladesh, and construction moves forward with little notice from the international community.
American oil companies extract oil throughout the world that should be left in the ground, and their production has never been higher. Amazon and Microsoft present an environmentally friendly public face. At the same time, they offer up their cutting-edge cloud computing technology to Chevron and ExxonMobil to assist with big data analysis supporting oil exploration, production efficiency, and cost-cutting. Our story will not deal in broad strokes but specific conduct by governments and multinational corporations.
As a counterbalance to the story mentioned above, we will focus on the most potent path to mitigate the rise in global temperature – the protection of tropical rainforests throughout the planet that can provide one-third of the necessary mitigation to stabilize global warming below 2 degrees centigrade. Achieving this goal will take people's political will throughout the world, creating alliances to force their leaders to take action.
Instead of the typical montages of climate catastrophes or staid talking heads lecturing us on how we're destroying the planet, our film will inspire people to action to get the climate crisis sorted!
Sound Recordist Marina Fusella adjusts a microphone on Nousheen Zoarder while on the London Eye.