Friday, December 9, 2011

Movies About Climate Change

Many teachers in the ICCARS Project share movies/documentaries (besides An Inconvenient Truth) about climate change with their students.  What are the movies/documentaries that you like best?  Here are a couple of movies/documentaries, with a short description of them.  All of the ones listed below can with be streamed or downloaded from the websites.  Please share your comments and suggestions in this posting:


Carbon Nation:  carbon nation is a documentary movie about climate change SOLUTIONS. Even if you doubt the severity of the impact of climate change or just don't buy it at all, this is still a compelling and relevant film that illustrates how SOLUTIONS to climate change also address other social, economic and national security issues. You'll meet a host of entertaining and endearing characters along the way.
http://www.carbonnationmovie.com/

A Sea Change:   It’s a frightening premise, and it’s happening right now. A Sea Change follows the journey of retired history teacher Sven Huseby on his quest to discover what is happening to the world’s oceans. After reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Darkening Sea,” Sven becomes obsessed with the rising acidity of the oceans and what this “sea change” bodes for mankind. His quest takes him to Alaska, California, Washington, and Norway as he uncovers a worldwide crisis that most people are unaware of. Speaking with oceanographers, marine biologists, climatologists, and artists, Sven discovers that global warming is only half the story of the environmental catastrophe that awaits us. Excess carbon dioxide is dissolving in our oceans, changing sea water chemistry. The more acidic water makes it difficult for tiny creatures at the bottom of the food web to form their shells. The effects could work their way up to the fish 1 billion people depend upon for their source of protein.
http://www.aseachange.net/

The Age of Stupid: The Age of Stupid stars Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite (In The Name of the Father, The Usual Suspects, Brassed Off) as a man living in the devastated future world of 2055, looking back at old footage from our time and asking: why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance?
http://www.spannerfilms.net/films/ageofstupid

Earth The Operators' Manual:  “Earth: The Operators’ Manual” dispenses with politics, polemics or punditry; instead, it presents an objective, accessible assessment of the Earth’s problems and possibilities that will leave viewers informed, energized and optimistic.  Host Richard Alley – a geologist, contributor to the United Nations panel on climate change and former oil company employee whom Andy Revkin of the New York Times once called “a cross between Woody Allen and Carl Sagan” – leads the audience on this engaging one-hour special about climate change and sustainable energy, premiering during Earth Month 2011. Alley’s book of the same name, a companion to the program, is published by W.W. Norton & Company.
http://earththeoperatorsmanual.com/broadcast_info

Power Surge:  Can emerging technology defeat global warming? The United States has invested tens of billions of dollars in clean energy projects as our leaders try to save our crumbling economy and our poisoned planet in one bold, green stroke. Are we finally on the brink of a green-energy "power surge," or is it all a case of too little, too late?  From solar panel factories in China to a carbon capture-and-storage facility in the Sahara desert to massive wind and solar installations in the United States, NOVA travels the globe to reveal the surprising technologies that just might turn back the clock on climate change. NOVA will focus on the latest and greatest innovations, including everything from artificial trees to green reboots of familiar technologies like coal and nuclear energy. Can our technology, which helped create this problem, now solve it?
Learn more about the "carbon calculator" discussed in the program at this site from the Cool Climate Network.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/power-surge.html

3 comments:

  1. Thanks to the recommendation from someone at last month's PLC, I showed Power Surge to my students. It's a great movie, very watchable and easy to understand, and filled with ideas for possible solutions.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'll be starting my Climate Change unit in March: I plan to use at least one or two movies. Thanks for these: now I'll have time to previw and develop questions.

    ReplyDelete
  3. If you liked Power Surge, I have another one for you that is not all doom and glood and has solutions, not just problems:

    Beyond the Light Switch
    www.beyondthelightswitch.com

    "This two-part, two-hour documentary series thoughtfully considers the trade offs of carbon capture and storage, hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, a nuclear renaissance, the costs of solar power, the sprawl of wind power and the feasibility of a super grid.

    Comprehensive and timely, Beyond the Light Switch will add a much needed balanced perspective to a national energy debate that will surely become more heated and more critical than anything since health care.

    ReplyDelete