Climate Change Film Tells Us 'How to Let Go of the World'

China’s smog-ridden skies have driven some people to rebel in the streets—even if their communist government punishes them severely for doing so. This is a country, after all, where Facebook is blocked and Google is censored.

Director Josh Fox discovered this first-hand when he headed to Beijing for his latest film, How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change.

“Even the nicest hotel room can turn into a prison,” he said in the film as a guard stood outside his hotel room at 4:30 a.m. Even on the streets in broad daylight, he and his crew were tailed by secret police who drove behind them in a white car. The film’s producer was detained, and the team nearly lost its footage. A trip that had set out to cover the polluting effects of coal quickly evolved into a segment on political repression and human rights.

“Human rights is the air that we breathe,” Fox says.

Three years after his Gasland series showed viewers the detrimental effects of fracking, Fox explores the hard truths of climate change and, recognizing the immensity of the struggle we confront, challenges us to let go of what can’t be helped.

Read the Yes! magazine story - “Climate Change Film Tells Us “How to Let Go of the World”.”