Climate change is suddenly popping out of everywhere. Media outlets that couldn’t discern climate from weather not too long ago are covering the politics, technology, economics — and sometimes, science — of climate change.
We have to thank Al Gore and his Oscar-award winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, for helping climate change to reach that tipping point. For sure, it has been building up for years, but it took moving images to really push it up the agenda.
While the political stature of its ‘star’ — and now, the Oscar – takes this film to a league of its own, it’s not the only global documentary about this important topic. In recent years, a number of factual and make-belief films have been made with climate change as their principal theme.
No wonder Hollywood is attracted to this subject – it offers the ultimate planetary disaster, even if it unfolds slowly over decades. That’s not a major constraint in the land of make-belief: in The Day After Tomorrow (2004), director Roland Emmerich just accelerated natural climatic processes to happen within weeks – with dramatic results for his story (and box office).
It may be convenient to take such liberties with the truth in fiction, but delivering factual and credible content involves bigger challenges. That requires balancing facts, opinions and interpretations while engaging today’s easily distracted audiences. The task becomes harder when the subject is as technical as climate change.
I recently wrote a review of two major climate change documentaries, both released last year: An Inconvenient Truth, and The Great Warming.
Read the full review on TVE Asia Pacific website
Open Minds! 