A short climate change art documentary film with music from Kelly Lee Owens, Arthur and Keep Walking.

Playlist:
Kelly Lee Owens | Arthur
Kelly Lee Owens | Keep Walking

From 1900 to 2000 the world population rose from 1.6 to 6 billion people. This rapid global domination by a single, fossil-fuel-burning species is unprecedented in world history. As the energy-guzzling machinery struggles to feed and entertain 7, 8, 9 billion people, consumer society inexorably approaches the planetary limits to growth.

Kelly Lee Owens Arthur Keep Walking | Climate Change Documentary Art Film

Abundant, high-grade coal powered the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries facilitating rapid urbanization and population growth. Cheap, abundant oil then became a major fuel source in the 20th century laying the foundations for a global, technological society of several billion. Oil powers the machinery of giant industrial agribusiness and provides large-scale monoculture with the chemical fertilizers and pesticides used in intensive farming. It fuels the military-industrial infrastructure and transportation network of modern society. Vital for pharmaceutical, chemical and synthetics production, oil is the main ingredient in the manufacture of plastics: essential for so many modern-day applications. And, of course, much of the sale of oil is now pegged to the US dollar protecting America's fiat currency from hyperinflation. Oil is rapidly depleting. After fossil fuels, there is no equivalent energy supply. This represents a major crisis for an urban population artificially inflated far beyond the natural carrying capacity of the planet.

Kelly Lee Owens Arthur Keep Walking | Climate Change Documentary Art Film

For the last 800,000 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide has varied from 180 to 300 parts per million. The pre-industrial CO2 level of 280 ppm, however, now exceeds 400. This rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 has raised the average surface temperature of the planet by one degree Celsius since 1880 and altered the pH of the oceans from 8.2 (1800) to 8.1: representing a 30 per cent increase in acidity. The post-industrial world has seen Arctic sea ice decline by 40 per cent and sea levels have risen 20 cm as the warming oceans expand. Warmer sea surfaces alter global weather patterns increasing the frequency of extreme weather events. With temperatures rising ten times faster than at the end of the last Ice Age, many species are unable to adapt and are going extinct. Amphibians — the world’s most endangered class of animals — are now experiencing an extinction level “as much as forty-five thousand times higher than the background rate” and many other species are rapidly approaching the same level (Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction, 86).

Kelly Lee Owens Arthur Keep Walking | Climate Change Documentary Art Film

Kelly Lee Owens is a Welsh electronic musician and producer. She released her self-titled first album in 2017 to critical praise, her follow-up album Inner Song was released in August 2020. Her third studio album LP.8 was released in April 2022.

Kelly Lee Owens Arthur Keep Walking | Climate Change Documentary Art Film

Kelly Lee Owens Arthur Keep Walking Tags: kelly lee owens, kelly lee owens arthur, kelly lee owens keep walking, kelly lee owens live, kelly lee owens more than a woman, kelly lee owens melt, kelly lee owens jeanette, kelly lee owens depeche mode, kelly lee owens interview, kelly lee owens dj, kelly lee owens throwing lines, kelly lee owens arpeggi, kelly lee owens bird, kelly lee owens set, climate change documentary, climate change, climate change explained, climate change news, climate change song, climate crisis