Joidan Williamson

LBST 2301
Documentary Critique

Years of Living Dangerously: Season1 - Episode 8

I watched an episode of Years of Living Dangerously and my is blown. There was a

sufficient amount of evidence that answered the question of is climate change effecting people

socially, economically, and physically. The answer is yes.

The documentary explores three different places; Los Angeles, California, Yemen (a

country in the Middle East) and Bangladesh (a country in South Asia).

First, they discussed the extreme hot temperatures taking place in Los Angeles. Scientist

projected by the mid-century, extremely hot days will increase from thirty days a year to eighty

or even ninety days a year. The heat waves are affecting the health of citizens. Dr. Khan

correlated heat waves to pregnant women having early contractions. Mrs. Fallon, a Los Angeles

resident, reported having contractions at twenty-nine weeks. Dr. Khan determined it was

dehydration from the heat waves. He explained how dehydration cause the body to generate a

chemical called Oxytocin which is the hormone that triggers labor. Heat waves are causing

women to have pre-mature births and infant fatalities. Dr. Rupa Basu, an epidemiologist at the

California Environment Protective Agency has been studying heat waves in Los Angeles for

about a decade. Dr. Rupa Basu originally came to Los Angeles to investigate the heat wave that

hit in July. She is under the impression that the heat is causing all types of health consequences

that are being over looked. She believes that the death toll officials say come from heat waves is

higher than what they are reporting. She was determined to find a specific number of deaths that

were associated with the July heat wave, therefore she did. 170 excess deaths. 170 more people

died in July due to the heat wave in Los Angeles. Heat waves are causing fatalities across the

world. In 2003, a heat wave struck Europe killing more that 70,000 people. India had two heat
Joidan Williamson
LBST 2301
Documentary Critique
waves for two summers in a row killing thousands. Russia and Eastern Europe experienced a

heat wave that killed 55,000 in 2010. These are just a couple out of hundreds of countries who

are or have experienced heat waves server enough to cause mass numbers of fatalities.

On their way to Bangladesh, they stop in a small country called Yemen. Yemen’s climate

is changing, but more rapidly than other places. Rains are rare there. If rain does fall it is

destructive. Their current president has never seen such rain patterns in his country before. The

lack of water is turning citizens violent. People are being killed everyday due to the lack of

water. Families are dying due to dehydration. Citizens are turning against each other, killing each

other for water. The president was asked “Could Yemen run out of water”? His reply “Yes.

Possibly”. Yemen can become the first country in the world to run out of water completely.

Bangladesh is known to be geographically cursed. Dr. Atiq Rahman is one of the top

climate scantiest in the country. He explains how Bangladesh is the flattest, lowest lying county

in the world. Approximately a quarter of the land is less than seven feet above sea level.

Bangladesh is known for its horrible monsoons; however, they are getting worse. Global

warming is making them worse. In the past twenty years, fifteen percent of the lands were

covered by floods. Dr. Rahman estimates that by the end of the century, there will be a three-foot

rise in sea level making seventeen percent of land and population under water. Twenty million

people will be forced off land by year 2100.

This episode of Years of Living Dangerously effectively produced information about

climate change. They used multiple places, in and outside of the United States, to do research at.

Each country provided multiple examples of climate change and how it is affecting citizens daily

life. They emphasized the long-term effects of global warming and how majority of these
Joidan Williamson
LBST 2301
Documentary Critique
countries are not even the main causes of climate change, but they are experiencing majority of

its consequences. The had well renowned scientist give their scientific opinion of climate change

and what the countries may look like in the future. I applaud them on the execution of the

documentary and how things flowed. There were moments where it did go a tad of subject,

however they always fought a way to tie it back to climate change. It was very bias which I liked

because I’m bias towards global warming.

Overall the documentary hit all the marks on climate change in the different countries and

provided sufficient evidence to support the question does climate change empact people socially,

economically, and physically.

Joidan Williamson
LBST 2301
Documentary Critique
Works Citied

Cameron, James, et al. Years of Living Dangerously. Http://Yearsoflivingdangerously.com,2014.