Customer Reviews

Everything's Cool

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The list of events that we see that have been predicted by climate scientists is seemingly without end. According to the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, before the end of this century we may live in a world of elevated temperatures, rising sea level, and extreme weather. However, as dire as the predictions are, the reality is much worse. The climate models are indeed inaccurate ... in their timing. Climate change has accelerated beyond the predictions of only one or two years ago. In his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore states that the Arctic will be ice free in the summer in 40 years. That would put it about 2046. However, there have been news reports at the end of 2007 that NASA climate scientists are now predicting the summer of 2012 as the date for an ice-free Arctic. The ice in question is floating sea ice. Its melting will not raise the level of the world's oceans. However, an ice free Arctic Ocean will absorb more sunlight, increasing the Arctic warming trend.

This film documents the actions of those who are bringing the message of the reality of climate change to the public, and also those in our government and in private industry who would have us believe that there is a genuine debate about the reality of climate change. In fact, the "debate" has been artificially created by the fossil fuel industry. All you have to do to be convinced that we are in trouble is to look at the satellite view of the Arctic Ocean for September 2007. (See customer image) Forty percent of the area that had been covered by ice is now open ocean.

Although the majority of people in the US are convinced that we have to do something about climate change, there is still well financed opposition. I recently received a petition in the US mail. It included a 12 page color so-called scientific paper that claimed to prove that more CO2 was a good idea. Many people at universities have gotten this mailer. It costs a lot to send these out. I did a Google search. The authors of the paper are associated with the Marshall Foundation, whose president is from the Petroleum Institute. Marshall has received funding from the oil industry.

On the positive side, we do have the opportunity for green industries, to develop alternate sources of energy, to increase the efficiency of our energy use. Grass roots groups to fight climate change have grown up all over the US. The Weather Channel has expanded its coverage of climate change by expanding Forecast Earth to one hour. However, Heidi Cullen, who was one of the people featured in Everything's Cool, is no longer the host of the show. She now appears occasionally in her role as a climatologist.

This is a must-see movie. I also recommend the books: "With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change",about recent scientific investigations and their implications for global warming, and Global Warning: The Last Chance for Change, which details the world politics of climate change.

PS. In November 2008, the Weather Channel, now owned by GE, cancelled Forecast Earth.

I think "An Inconvenient Truth" deserved all the accolades and awards it received, but "Everthing's Cool" is even better. This film brings us into the struggles and the triumphs of several people who have been sounding alarms around climate change for years - including award-winning authors Ross Gelbspan Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists and Activists Are Fueling the Climate Crisis--And What We Can Do to Avert Disaster and Bill McKibben Fight Global Warming Now: The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community. I've had the good fortune to hear both of them lecture on C-SPAN and "Alternative Radio." This DVD made me more aware of their personal struggles with what can be very depressing information, and the fossil fuel industry's public relations efforts to cast doubt upon this issue. People should be skeptical of everything, but it would be prudent to take steps now to avert what could be an environmental catastrophe. "Everything's Cool" follows Gelbspan and McKibben to various encounters with the corporate media, their homes, activist gatherings and other venues. It also provides an intimate glimpse into the effort that White House whistle-blower Rick Piltz has made to expose what was done to "doctor" his department's report on climate change.
Yet another interesting portrait this film provides is that of the Weather Channel's Heidi Cullen who has the task of covering climate issues for its tens of millions of viewers. Beyond climate change, "Everything's Cool" provides insight into the workings of the media, the PR industry and the actions of concerned citizens across the country - including a worker at a Utah ski resort who experiments with biodiesel and brings it to the resort that employs him.

This film is very well done, very entertaining, informative, and will provide ideas and inspiration for all sorts of constructive engagement on this issue. I hope the nay-sayers of climate change are right; but we should be wise and take action just in case. If nothing else, we would end up with sustainable energy, cleaner air, fewer oil spills and an array of other benefits from transitioning away from "dinosaur juice."

Here a couple related items:
Refugees of the Blue Planet
A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil
Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century

The film has a bit of fun with Society's blindness to the urgency of global warming. When it was over, I said "All my friends need to see this." It doesn't have the mountain of facts found in "An Inconvenient Truth", but it's a strong statement nonetheless.

Everything's Cool is a fine documentary about global warming and the politics surrounding the issue of global warming. The film gives us a very good understanding of the reasons why some people deny there's global warming and why others contend that global warming is reality. The filmmakers interview very intelligent people who make their points about global warming very well; and we do see the struggle people often have to make to get people to realize that global warming is in fact happening. The cinematography is excellent as well.

The film will introduce you to many people, all of whom have quite interesting stories. We see that as far back as October of 1987 Time magazine had a cover story about climate change and its potentially very negative effects on planet Earth. Later, under the Bush administration, there were people employed by the government who steadfastly refused to acknowledge that there were any facts whatsoever to support global warming as a reality; and on the other hand we meet several people like Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Ross Gelbspan who come out of retirement and labor endlessly to make people aware that global warming is real and very threatening in the near future--not someday so far down the road that it's "hysteria" to worry about it now. We also meet Rick Piltz who resigned from his government job in order to speak the truth about global warming based on the data he had available to him; and there's plenty of time on weather expert Dr. Heidi Cullen who is hired by The Weather Channel to report on global warming and how it exacerbated the effects of Hurricane Katrina and so much more. In addition, we meet a man who is a model for us all--he converts his car so that it will run on vegetable oil--great! We also meet Alaskans who are interviewed about how their lives have been directly impacted by global warming.

I would have liked this documentary to include one or two more things, however. We don't get much information on what, if anything, other presidents besides our most recent president, Mr. Bush, have done to combat global warming. I can only assume that they didn't do much; I would like to think that this documentary would have mentioned any contributions other presidents made toward solving this problem. It could have also spent more time showing how people can reduce their "carbon footprint" and use alternate sources of energy. I will have to take off one star for this.

The DVD comes with extras including an optional director running commentary.

Everything's Cool is a very important, timely film for everyone to see so that they can better understand the politics of global warming and become more aware of the seriousness of the pressing issue. I recommend this film. It's very educational and the interview footage is memorable.

There's an interesting scene in the documentary "Everything's Cool" in which George Bush (at a press conference with Tony Blair) responds to a question about global warming. Bush tells his questioner that, while not actually doing anything about global warming, the US government is investing more than any other country into research into the phenomenon. Of course, Bush's interest in scientific stuff is short-lived. Once the findings are complete -- and the most comprehensive and expensive governmental survey of the effects of climate change has been written -- the report will be buried without a trace and scientists will be told they can't talk about it. Future environmental reports will be edited by a former oil industry lobbyist. When all these shenanigans get exposed, the former lobbyist quits "to spend more time with his family." Of course, his interest in his family is short-lived. Three days later he accepts a job at Exxon-Mobil.

I picked this movie up at my local library last week and very much enjoyed it. I watched the movie, the extras, and the movie with commentary and enjoyed and learned from almost everything.

This movie has such a clear explanation of the crisis of global warming and even why we have been so ignorant to it for all these years.

One of the parts of this film that touched me personally was how some of the stars of the film have dealt with the struggle of getting the goverment to take action on global warming and how they deal with the thought of a possible loss. This film and another documentary on pbs helped me deal with my own frustrations about global warming and goverment inaction.

P.S. This film has re-sparked my desire to get involved and do what I can.

This film should be on every global warming/climate change list. However, the film moves somewhat slowly, and moves from topic to topic in a seemingly disconnected manner. A better development of its various topics would have improved the film.