Jun 17 2008
The Macaulay Institute is pleased to announce the unveiling of its new film, Choosing our Tomorrows, at this year’s Royal Highland Show, Edinburgh. The film explores what life could be like in 2050 through the video diaries of the same Scottish farming family as they experience three very different futures...
The year is 2050. What if - in an attempt to meet our target of an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions - Scotland has embraced nuclear power to produce all of its electricity? Or in an attempt to feed our share of the anticipated 9 billion people in the world, we have farmed every last square inch of the available countryside, filling it with GM crops and livestock developed by giant US agribusinesses?
Or perhaps we’ve shunned our high-carbon lifestyles in favour of a more ‘localised’ existence - buying our food (and renewable energy) from local farms rather than supermarkets, reducing our commuting and working more from home, and never flying anywhere (even on holiday).
Alternatively, what if we have done little in response to climate change and continued to be highly dependent on fossil fuel reserves, squeezing every last drop from dwindling oil reserves as its price spirals upwards? How will rural Scotland cope as it experiences warmer, drier summers and milder, wetter winters, with an associated dramatic increase in storms and flooding?
The current world food crisis has given us something of a glimpse into one possible future, where food crops fetch a higher price as biofuels, vital food producing areas have been lost to extreme climatic events, and ever increasing global demand for oil has sent its price – and the price of many other things dependent on oil for their production - rocketing to record highs.
Such a situation demonstrates how climate change – and also our response to climate change - will have profound impacts on our environment and our society.
The films are an attempt to stimulate wider debate around the issues of climate change and our responses to it, and are not intended in any way to be exact representations of 2050. Rather by giving people a range of possible futures to react to we can explore some of the decisions that society is already starting to face.
Researchers will be on hand at the Institute’s Royal Highland Show stand to discuss the many issues raised in the film, and to answer questions about the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead for Scottish farmers.
Choosing our Tomorrows was made for the Institute by film makers Callisto Productions