650 million years in 94 minutes

A History Channel production on climate is worthwhile

Posted by JMG (Guest Contributor) at 8:56 PM on 01 May 2008

Read more about: climate science | climate | movies | green living

A coworker lent me an amazing piece of work called A Global Warning? It does an excellent job illustrating the chaotic nature of terrestrial climate and explaining the theories behind some of the most dramatic climate transitions. It's not a perfect movie, but if you won't read With Speed and Violence, it's probably the best thing there is. It gets into both ocean clathrates (methane hydrate crystals) and the melting permafrost (more methane).

Best of all, not a single denialist or confusionist in the whole thing. It simply says "most scientists," cites the IPCC (the only appearance by Gore is him picking up the Nobel), and makes a strong case that while climate may undergo some rapid changes without us, we have our collective finger on the trigger on the climate howitzer. No James Hansen, but lots of Lonnie Thompson (Ohio State), whom people will recall from The Weather Makers and other good books on the climate crisis.

I give it four stars rather than five -- with good editing it could have been an amazing and riveting hour rather than a good 94 minutes. A little too much playing with CGS gizmos, a little too much repetition, but maybe that's them knowing their audience.

What's most amazing is that it seems to have received essentially zero notice -- someone put a lot of work into this thing, and I've never heard of it, nor had my coworker. It should be in every library and school in the country.

And nice touch: the packaging is 100% recyclable material, no plastic at all (save the disc itself) and the "5 Easy First Steps You Can Do Today" on the inside cover are reasonably sensible, though we might quibble with the order:

Bring your own bags when you shop
Save on electricity (with suggestions)
Save on gas (with suggestions)
Shop a farmer [sic] -- local food
Water smarts-- drink tap, not bottled, get a stainless steel bottle.

Interesting how such an uncompromisingly pro-science movie appeared on the History Channel and managed to be so widely ignored.

For story: 650 million years in 94 minutes
6 Comments | Post a Comment

The history chanel has some good stuff

I liked this:

"...we have our collective finger on the trigger on the climate howitzer."

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 9:36 PM on 01 May 2008

Be sure to ...

6. Flight smarts (?)
NOT clock up more than 50,000 airmiles a year!

by LGT at 10:08 PM on 01 May 2008

Yep history channel

Featured Joseph Romm putting the lioe to the fabulous hydrogen energy economy.

JMG, you better get the Jim Kuntsler Colbert interview up. Watching it now.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 7:55 AM on 02 May 2008

Kunstler and Colbert

Man, those two would seem like one of nature's great pairings ... like grape juice and chocolate cake. This I gotta see.

I have no ability to post it though -- ask the proprietor.

The 5% Project

by JMG at 8:57 AM on 02 May 2008

Yup, grape juice & chocolate cake

I really respect a lot of Kunstler's work, but his determination to get through his canned and oft-repeated observations doesn't work well with Colbert. Kunstler is determined grunge; Colbert is brilliant jazz -- each one is fine, but the styles don't mesh well.

The 5% Project

by JMG at 9:09 AM on 02 May 2008

People need to know that the climate changes

It is great to educate people about past climatic transitions and mass extinctions. Too many people choose to believe that the climate will stay the same, because it significantly changing is outside their experience.

"We now have evidence from the Earth's history that a similar event happened fifty-five million years ago when a geological accident released into the air more than a terraton of gaseous carbon compounds. As a consequence the temperature in the arctic and temperate regions rose eight degree Celsius and in tropical regions about five degrees, and it took over one hundred thousand years before normality was restored. We have already put more than half this quantity of carbon gas into the air and now the Earth is weakened by the loss of land we took to feed and house ourselves. In addition, the sun is now warmer, and as a consequence the Earth is now returning to the hot state it was in before, millions of years ago, and as it warms, most living things will die." (The Revenge of Gaia)

"I'm going to tell you something I probably shouldn't: we may not be able to stop global warming. We need to begin curbing global greenhouse emissions right now, but more than a decade after the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, the world has utterly failed to do so. Unless the geopolitics of global warming change soon, the Hail Mary pass of geoengineering might become our best shot." --Bryan Walsh, Time Magazine, 17 March 2008

by dobermanmacleod at 2:37 AM on 06 May 2008

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