The film is a powerful "docudrama" set in the year 2055, after global warming has done massive damage to humanity. Oscar-nominated actor Pete Postlethwaite stars as a historian who "looks back" on real footage from 2008 to try to answer the question, "why didn't we stop climate change while we had the chance?"
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Does the reconstructed Neandertal look like someone you know? I was talking to a friend and he mentioned it looked like a friend, and I immediately thought of some dude I know.
It was nothing but gray skies and intermittent rain while I was there. It was so beautiful … it felt like home. It was also good seeing my old mentors from grad school days, Chuck Kimmel and John Postlethwait.
For your consideration: Two possible, if not probable, future scenarios for the human race should the business of fossil fuel combustion continue as usual for the next few decades.
Here are three animals. If you had to classify them on the basis of this superficial glimpse, which two would you guess were most closely related to each other, and which one would be most distant from the others?
My heart sank as I looked into this. I've been active in trying to counter the scientific errors behind most of the popular criticism of conventional climate science, and the major premise of the film is fine.
The problem is that the film appears to use massively hyped and inflated notions of what physical damage is possible in the next 45 years. And this is going to make it an easy target and a poster child for scientifically absurd views on the side of those who recognize climate change as a real problem... which it is. The real problems are likely to be large economic costs, and significant personal suffering as we have to adapt to changing conditions.
What's your opinion of James Burke's "After The Warming"? That was quite an early influence on me.
Ian! ATW is one of those thing that materialized while I was dividing my time between intense study and teaching and being in Zaire. But I just glanced at it and I love the fact that he starts out in Japanese and appears to have laser eye mouse capabilities.
I'll have to put this in a post!