Política y medioambiente, el verdadero reto del futuro

Mientras los políticos en España se pelean por ver quien tiene dos votos más que el otro en las elecciones municipales, en un momento en el que la ciudadanía ha dado claramente la espalda a sus supuestos representantes, he encontrado este documental neoyorquino que habla sobre lo intrincada que estará en el futuro la política local con la global como consencuencia de los cambios medioambientales:

800 Steps Apart (en inglés) 800 Steps Apart is a video triptych by Brooke Singer and Brian Rigney Hubbard that compares two opposing protocols endorsed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to handle cleanup in Lower Manhattan post-9/11. A Russian émigré, living at 300 Albany Street, was told by the Red Cross, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the EPA to return to her apartment two weeks after 9/11 and to simply remove the dust and debris with a bucket and a mop. The other site, 130 Liberty Street or the former Deutsche Bank building, is just four blocks from 300 Albany Street, but a world apart in its approach to cleanup. 800 Steps Apart is a video short that is part of a larger documentary project by Singer and Hubbard about communities affected by toxic contamination, abandoned by the EPA and in search of responsive, environmental leadership.

The documentary questions the response (and responsibility) of government agencies in environmental crises. The administration of toxin-cleanup after 9/11, the video shows, was not uniformly thorough or competent, leaving some victims to suffer
the consequences of their contaminated environments. With this terrifying
revelation, we are led to question how our governments will manage future
ecological and environmental disasters that lie on the horizon as a result of
climate change. Indeed, 800 Steps Apart challenges the local/global opposition.
By uniting a highly localized issue—contamination in Lower Manhattan—and
questions of national environmental leadership, the video simultaneously
addresses a narrow and broad audience. The way such disasters are handled—even
at the level of neighborhoods, blocks and apartments—is relevant to us all; it
speaks to our ability and preparedness to deal with environmental emergencies on
the global scale—a response that will certainly be tested in decades to come.