Creating the story of the future

In this episode of Changing the Bog Standard, host Dan Ilic chats to filmmaker and activist Damon Gameau about the power of a good narrative, and the importance of creating a new one

Featuring:

• Dan Ilic – host and investigative humorist

• Damon Gameau – filmmaker and activist

Damon Gameau understands the power of stories. The documentarian is perhaps best known for his 2014 work, That Sugar Film, which tackled hidden sugars and healthy eating myths, and his 2019 film, 2040, which looked how climate change might impact the world over the next two decades.

Gameau’s most recent work, Regenerating Australia, released last year, centred around a series of interviews with a diverse group of Australians who shared their hopes and dreams for the country’s future.

The idea, Gameau says, was to show viewers a vision of regeneration and a pathway to help bring it to life.

But to build a new narrative, we have to change the old one. “The major narrative that’s doing all that the damage is this idea that we are separate and superior to nature,” Gameau says.

Fortunately, this way of seeing nature is a relatively new thing in human evolution and it’s not too late to change it, Gameau says. We need to appreciate the “intense complexity” of a tree: all the life it provides for animals and insects, its ability to store carbon and to transpire moisture that cools the earth, as well as the nutrients it carries underground through mycelium networks.

This is more than just a nice story. This reframing is essential for biosecurity and even national security, Gameau says. We need to consider the things that we rely on trees for, such as medicine, and how deforestation could affect disease treatment, or how food shortages would worsen refugee crises.

“If we don’t have forests, we don’t have pollinators and we don’t get those foods. So everything is deeply connected.”

If there’s one thing he learned from making Regenerating Australia, Gameau says, it’s “how incredibly lucky we are in this country and how spectacular [our ecosystems] are … and how crazy it is that we’re not looking after them”.

Mangroves, for example, can store up to four times the carbon that a land forest can, as well as providing habitat for thousands of species, yet we’ve destroyed an estimated 20-35% of them worldwide over the past 50 years or so.

Still, Gameau maintains hope, and his latest project is a manifestation of that. He is currently working on a film with eight young environmental activists between the ages of 10 and 12 from all over the world. The idea is to ask them which CEOs they would like to talk to, and then tour around Europe on a yellow school bus run on biofuel to meet those CEOs.

“They are just so switched on and so eloquent,” Gameau says. “It really does get down to simple things … ‘Why aren’t you going and cleaning up your mess from the oceans? Why are you leaving up to us?’

“We’ve created all this complexity to distract and make excuses, but there’s something refreshing about having these children just cut through and actually not listen to any of the bullshit.”