In 2010, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino announced plans to develop a new mixed-use neighborhood on the city’s southern waterfront, hoping to welcome a new wave of entrepreneurs into the Massachusetts capital. The development would be called the Innovation District.
Many climate activists and other concerned citizens in Boston began referring to the development as the “Inundation District,” alluding to the fact that Boston officials and developers had left the new development at a high risk of coastal flooding; based on current climate trends, the entire district could be overrun by water in as little as 30 years. Long-time Boston Globe reporter and documentary filmmaker David Abel will be presenting his 2023 film “Inundation District,” a 79-minute documentary about the consequences of ignoring the threats of climate change, at 4 p.m. in Smith Wilkes Hall, in partnership with the Chautauqua Climate Change Initiative.
“The vast majority of humanity is living at or near a coastline, and with sea level rise and increasingly more severe storms, we’re seeing the devastating consequences of living on shorelines and along coastlines,” said Mark Wenzler, Peter Nosler Director of the Chautauqua Climate Change Initiative. “As we think about climate change and needing to adapt, really what we should be talking about is retreating from shorelines. … (‘Inundation District’) shows that we’re actually doing quite the opposite in this country: We’re not talking about managed retreat (and) we’re still continuing to overbuild our coastlines as if climate change and sea level rise didn’t even exist.”
The film explores the decisions that led to the creation of the Innovation District, while also painting a picture of the dire future for the area if further action isn’t taken to protect it. Abel said the film serves as a stark reminder of the tangible threat of climate change and the havoc it can wreak on vulnerable communities.
“Climate change is not just an abstract threat, but one that very much presents a clear and present danger,” he said. “The film aims to show something that seems abstract and difficult to comprehend, given we often think of these things as far away, but tries to reflect the immediacy of concerns and impacts of rising seas.”
Abel built much of his career around telling the stories of people on the margins of society, often ignored and left behind. He did just that while reporting in Latin America and Yugoslavia in the 1990s, covering violent conflict and the stifling of free speech by authoritarian regimes. In 1999, he began writing for The Boston Globe, first covering academia in New England, before eventually launching a new beat at the newspaper covering poverty issues.
As Abel continued reporting on undeserved communities, it became clear just how pervasive climate change was.
“We began to see how our environment here in New England … was starting to change in ways that seemed rather abrupt, and in some cases catastrophic,” he said. “As time went on, it became clear that climate change was an existential threat to our civilization.”
Wenzler hopes that Chautauquans leave “Inundation District” with a deeper understanding of the systems in place in the United States that often incentivize unsustainable practices in the midst of the climate crisis — and with a newfound inspiration to make a change.
“Our system actually has perverse incentives for overdeveloping our coastlines; we see this happening in places like Miami,” Wenzler said. “Coastal property is extremely valuable (and) people make a lot of money on coastal property. Our whole economic system incentivizes building on coastal properties. … I hope people come away with an understanding of the perverse economic incentives that we have, and maybe being inspired to try to change our system for the better, so that we are not continuing to build in the wrong places — and we start to think about ways to do things better and differently.”
