'Disruption': Film Offers Grassroots Global Revolt as Key Answer to Climate Crisis

Ahead of a mass demonstration scheduled for New York City on September 21 that will take place alongside a global mobilization aimed at world leaders meeting at the United Nations that week, climate campaigners have been ratcheting up their messaging to make their position as clear as the scientific consensus that informs it: The planet faces an unprecedented crisis due to human-caused global warming and climate change. As governments and business leaders have refused to act, it is ordinary people, pushing radically from below, who must now mobilize.

"The most dangerous threat we've ever faced meets a movement whose time has come."

Part of a new story-telling and mobilizing effort, 350.org--one of the key leaders of the upcoming "People's Climate March & Mobilization"--teamed up with filmmakers to produce a new documentary film called "Disruption," which will premiere via online screenings in people's homes and public venues this Sunday evening, September 7, from 7 to 9 PM EST. A public screening at The New School in New York City will include a follow-up Q&A with some of the climate movement's most recognized leaders, some of whom are featured in the film.

As the poster for the film states: "The most dangerous threat we've ever faced meets a movement whose time has come."

According to 350.org, the word "disruption" itself refers to both "the dangerous environmental tipping points after which the entire climate system could spiral out of control, as well as the need for a mass social movement to disrupt the status quo and business-as-usual approach which is inhibiting the bold actions necessary to protect the planet's future."

In their description, the producers explain the film's primary purpose is to answer a fundamental question: "When it comes to climate change, why do we do so little when we know so much?"

Like the upcoming actions this month, the film will also make an attempt to inform (or remind) people of the idea that the climate issue is not just an environmental concern, but a matter of social and economic justice -- one that most severely and negatively impacts the poor, the marginalized, and those who strikingly have had the least to with causing it.

"This is not just about the environment, it's about the community, it's about jobs, it's about justice," says Eddie Bautista, executive director for the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, in a clip from the film. Bautista is also one of the local leaders behind the organizing effort for the People's Climate March.

Author and activist Naomi Klein, whose new book 'This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate' will be released nationwide on Sept. 16, is also featured in the film.

Her message, in part, focuses on the enormous opportunity that exists in this era of global warming wherein the solutions that the climate crisis demands--a rapid transition to renewable energy, a more 'deliberate' and less destructive economy, and reclaiming democracy from corporate dominance (to name a few)--comport exactly to the vision and agenda that so many progressives have for a better world.

"In the past, masses of people have taken the wheel of history and turned it," Klein says in the film. "We have a responsibility to rise to our historic moment."

Also appearing in the film, MSNBC news show host Chris Hayes voices the perhaps still unrecognized power of the growing climate justice movement as he states, "There is no replacement for human bodies, standing as one, voices raised as one, making a political demand."

As this month unfolds, it appears the global climate justice movement will have its next opportunity to see how accurate such statements are as the marchers prepare to march and the mobilizers begin to mobilize.

Organizers have set up the 'WatchDisruption" website so that people can find a local screening of the film or register to host one themselves.