Review of “Life at 50 Degrees Celsius” (2021)
Seen in 2022.
Everyday human life around the world, in places acutely affected by climate change.
I watched this documentary when, a month into the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Swedish parliament arranged an election-year reduction of the consumption tax on diesel and petrol, while much of continental Europe continued to import and burn fussil fuels from Russia, including my native Sweden itself. That week, the fuel tanker Coral Energice carried LNG as usual from Vysotsk, Russia to Nynäshamn, Sweden, where my parents lived when I was born. A spokesperson for the company Gasum, shipping the LNG, said the company acted this way because there were not yet any official government sanctions against Russian LNG, just a union blockade which Gasum deliberately skirted.
The documentary does an excellent job showing, on a concrete level, where such subsidies and profit-seeking in favour of greenhouse gases have led and would lead as a matter of course. It’s well shot, skilfully composed and important.