Documenting the Divide: Combating Climate Change Denial Through Before the Flood, Don’t Look Up, David Attenborough: Life on Our Planet

Abstract

In the current era, climate change has become an undeniable reality due to the world's growing population, bringing significant changes to the topography. However, many people, especially in first-world countries like the United States, Canada, and Australia, continue to deny the existence of climate change, often influenced by misinformation and political agendas that downplay scientific evidence. The downplay of such events delays crucial policy decisions, allowing greenhouse gas emissions to rise unchecked, worsening global warming. Here, media serves as a powerful tool for educating the society, raising awareness about the realities of climate change by presenting scientific evidence, expert insights, and real-life consequences through visual narratives. This paper aims to analyse how climate change denial is reversed through documentaries and films namely, Before the Flood by Fisher Stevens, David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet and Don’t Look Up by Adam McKay which documents the real-life calamities and changes it cause to the planet. As such documentations validate the need for first world countries to act for the cause of climate crisis.