2022 Earth Day Learning and Reflection

In the spirit of 2022 Earth Day, the Dharma Drum Vancouver Young People English Book Club got together to watch The Magnitude of All Things, a documentary that explores the emotional and psychological dimension of climate change. The group engaged in a discussion after watching the film and reflected upon the impacts we bring with our actions in our daily lives.

The film features environmental crises in different parts of the globe, and how each crisis on one end links to another on the other end. The film starts in Nunatsiavut, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, where polar ice caps are rapidly melting at a rate that has never before been seen. Threatened by the rising sea levels due to rapidly melting ice, the film brings us to Kiribati, an island nation in the central Pacific Ocean, which will soon sink, along with the loss of incredible biodiversity that it houses. The film then takes us to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, where more than half of the corals are dead due to the rising sea temperature. While in Australia, the film features the impact of coal mining on mountain lands and the consequences that bushfires bring to countless Australian wildlife.

The film came to me in multiple dimensions. I started to evaluate our relationship with nature and began to ask what we did that got us to where we are today. A member shared with us what West Vancouver was like 30 years ago and what it is like today. Learning the difference is shocking. This made us think about how focused we have been on economic and production growth and have become indifferent to others with the consequential impacts we are bringing to the planet. What we do eventually comes back to us, echoing a statement made by one of the interviewees in the film: “when our land hurts, we hurt.”

Seeing the impact of climate change around the globe and across all lives got us thinking about what we can do differently in our day-to-day life to protect our environment. Whether that is starting to recycle more or drive less, the power lies in our hands and the changes start with you and me.

Written by Monica Ho 2022.4.24
Photo：Dharma Drum Vancouver Centre 2022.4.24