A documentary airing tonight on KVCR-TV shows the effect of the climate crisis on California’s watershed. KVCR's Benjamin Purper spoke with documentarian James Thebaut, who produced and directed the documentary.
The documentary, called “California’s Watershed,” was produced and directed by documentarian James Thebaut.
It chronicles the negative effect that climate change has had on California’s watershed and stresses the importance of a statewide watershed management approach.
“California is the fifth largest economy in the world, and the water in the watershed basically supplies water for Northern California, the Bay Area, the San Joaquin Valley, and one third of the water supply for Southern California. So it’s really key to that whole issue," Thebaut says.
According to Thebaut, the documentary has a few lessons for people living in California and beyond.
“We’re in a world right now where there’s eight billion people on the planet," Thebaut says. "We’ve never had to feed eight billion people, and it’s projected we’re going to have ten billion people by 2050. And the implications associated with that are immense. We need to start going into schools and teaching the whole foundation of ecology to the first graders, second graders, third graders. And we need to start developing infrastructure to deal with the climate crisis we’re experiencing."
"When the fires broke out in the mountains it was warming temperatures, wind issues, it was a perfect storm. But that’s going to continue, so we’ll have to build our infrastructure to accommodate those problems. And that’s going to be vital to the survival of our planet. We have to do this all over the world. California in many ways is a microcosm of the planet, and so it’s vital to the survival of the planet.”
“California’s Watershed” airs at 7:30p.m. tonight on KVCR-TV.