I wish someone would produce a disaster film about global warming

[MoonRiver]

I envision a horrifying docudrama that could rake in millions. Included would be images involving massive coastal flooding of major international cities like Tokyo, New York and Sydney, as a result of our polar ice caps melting. It should show details of the devastation to most life forms from release of toxic fumes as millions of years of accumulated matter is released from thawing perma frost. And there are many other nightmarish effects from global warming that could be portrayed by this thriller, including what happened last summer to tens of thousands in France. Wake-up call for the earth and humanity's survival, anybody?

:scared:

[XanaDUer]

1. There was a movie called

"The Fire Next Time", w hich I think was about global warming.

[MoonRiver]

2. I'll look for it.

Another one wouldn't hurt wake up the sheeple though. It would need to be a Stephen Spielburg or somebody like that to get wide circulation.

[Mikimouse]

3. I am afraid that it would probably go unnoticed...

especially since such reknowned scientists as * and Limbaugh have repeatedly informed us that there is no such thing as global warming. Too many people take these idiots' spewings as immutable truth, and will continue to do so until something really fierce happens in their neighborhood. I agree with your post, but am terribly discouraged at the thought of how it would be received.

[MoonRiver]

4. It is depressing.

I feel so desperate about the condition of not only our political situation but the looming global warming disaster.

[mmm]

6. I now view it all with a mix of anger, depression, and curiosity

if the Dems fail, all we will be able to do is sit back and watch it unfold.

[MoonRiver]

7. Exactly. It will be interesting because at that point nothing can stop

the Rethugs from getting exactly what they want. Trouble is, they may experience first hand that old axiom: be careful what you wish for.

[mouse7]

5. Didn't you see"Waterworld"?

It was a water-inundated world, and it was also a disaster in other ways.

[Pontus]

9. What about AI?

[slackmaster]

8. Some clever time compression could make it interesting

Otherwise the plot would be like a parody disaster film promoted by the Firesign Theatre:

Glacier! It's coming. Slowly. Very slowly.

[MoonRiver]

10. Not so slowly. Ten years is now the estimate for a global disaster.

The rate of warming is much faster than previously predicted. Somebody here posted some excellent data about this a few days ago. It really got me thinking.

[librechik]

11. New movie called "Day after Tomorrow" with Dennis Quaid

to be released early spring portrays a climate change disaster where NYC must be evacuated. http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0319262/

watch for it May 5, 2004 from the same people who brought you Independence Day

view the trailer:

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0319262/trailers

[pink_poodle]

12. I'm with you. I "see" what you are "seeing" and think this would........

be a great idea, great timing and might even help raise awareness a notch.

[sid dicious]

13. "The Day After" - Whoops, wrong kind of Global Warming

I guess that it was nuclear war. :)

[peacetalksforall]

14. Have you thought about what the hide-the-riches people are

going to do when the water rises on the islands where their money is held in little banks?

Satire intended with sadness and apologies for the century long lives of all island inhabitants.

And for the islands with some mountain heights - hope you have a flat landing strip someplace on your pinnacles for the new banking industry that is about to descend on your island when the flat islands' vaults go under.

[MoonRiver]

16. The truth is we're all members of a small family inhabiting Planet Earth.

Destroy our home and it's doom for even the wealthiest within the clan.

[Atman]

15. It's called "The Bush Family Biography"

eom

[phaseolus]

17. paradoxically, global warming just might end up causing...

...global cooling.

http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/abruptclimate_joyce_keigwin.html

Thanks to whomever turned me on to this site a couple months ago. I think it was other DUers...

[MrPrax]

18. Global Warming is too subtle for a movie

and is partly why it is largely ignored or even disputed by 'industry' think-tanks...The term is 'Climate Change', remember?

What would you show on the screen? Flooding would be sporatic and not directly linked...
Sure France had a massive killer heat wave this year...next year Denmark or Iowa...who knows
What would one show? Huge chunks falling off an iceberg?

I think just a film would probably have a greater impact as an educational-type IMAX film instead...
You can get scale and facts without the suspense sequencing, inane 'backstory', character motivations necessary to make a 'fictional' account

[sid dicious]

19. Maybe one of those IMAX movies

Showing the Ozone hole with timelapse animation. I wouldn't want to see it.

[MrPrax]

22. Hehe...well I would!

Much better than seeing boring tigers wandering about...natural destruction on a huge screen!!

hehe

[G_j]

26. I'd would rather see it done with class, not a Hollywood disaster film.

pick some top rate actors and focus on a few individuals, perhaps activists, in the midst of the global changes, maybe through a couple of generations.


--global warming--
-------**-------
**Global Warming is Here Now, Say U.N. Delegates http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/121403G.shtml
--------------
**Global Warming Kills 150,000 People a Year, Warns UN
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/121303G.shtml
--------------
**The Four Degrees (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit): How Europe's Hottest Summer Shows Global Warming is Transforming Our World
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=471135
----------------
**Earth Warming at Faster Pace, Say Top Science Group's Leaders
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1218-01.htm
----------------
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1204-04.htm
**Climate Change Laid to Humans
--------------------
**Melting Ice 'Will Swamp Capitals'
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/120903H.shtml
------------------
www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/15/1071336885565.html
**Inuit begin rights case over global warming
------------------
http://www.news-leader.com/today/1203-Globalwarm-232039.html
**Global warming imperils ski slopes

[Lisa]

27. good idea ...

I think the way in which filmmakers have approached nuclear war is a model for this. The smaller-scale stories (done, as you suggest, to emphasize changes over a longer time period) may have a better chance of getting the message across. In "The Day After" (and in "On the Beach" and "Testament") they focused on one family or group of people, and how they were trying to cope. (Monica Hughes wrote a heartbreaking story for teenagers about a family losing their livelihood as a result of global-warming-induced drought on the Prairies.)

[MoonRiver]

28. I'm want to get the message out to the most people.

Your ideas sound like winners!

[Thoth]

20. Global Superstorm

...a movie adaption of the book by Whitley Streiber and Art Bell on global warming shutting down the Gulf Stream and bringing about a huge northern hemisphere storm is in production, I believe. Though Whitley and Art can be far out on other topics, they did a good job with their book, which certainly alarmed me! I think the basic scenario is plausible, as others here have posted. I hope the movie is serious and not hokey or overly sentimental or violent. The general public must awaken to this serious threat, that is being ignored with all the focus on (fake) terrorism.

Children being born now will likely experience a major climate change-induced upheaval, whether a meltdown, superstorm, giant fires or flooding. The stress put on forests could result in a massive die-off and mass extinctions. There is only one Earth for us!

[KFC]

21. I wish someone would produce a disaster film about paint drying

Would be just as exciting.

[kskiska]

30. Andy Warhol has already done those types of films

There was one called "Empire," I think, of a camera fixed on the Empire State Building. Another featured a guy sleeping.

[smirkymonkey]

23. And while they're at it...

another disaster film about the Bush Administration.

[Thoth]

24. Kick! Anyone have information on the Superstorm movie?

Climate change is real and it will not be a nice, gradual change...

[Lisa]

25. "The Fire Next Time"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105998/

This is one of the few movies that does focus on climate change and its possible impacts. I lucked out this month and managed to find a secondhand copy in a local video store!


I teach college-level environmental science and for classroom purposes, I've been keeping track of how global warming is portrayed in movies and TV ... although some films (Waterworld, AI, The Arrival) use it as background or a plot point, not much work has been done on the long-term physical and social effects. (And even for hard SF, stories only become really compelling when we look at how they affect the lives of individuals ...)

There's an entire sub-genre of movies that look at nuclear war (from the post-apocalyptic actioners like "Mad Max" to more thoughtful examinations like "Testament). Maybe because global warming isn't as sudden or devastating (the types of damage, like drought/fire/floods, are known types of disasters) it hasn't been dramatized as much as events that have big explosions!



p.s. Written SF is far ahead of movies when it comes to climate change. In the 1970s-80s, a number of novels looked at what would happen if a new ice age began (e.g. "A Creed for the Third Millennium" by Colleen McCullough). SF authors picked up on the global warming science relatively quickly (as one might expect, since they watch trends in research). Bruce Sterling's "Heavy Weather" was pretty good, and Audrey Schulman's "The Cage" (I think that was the name) was so eerily prescient re: the fate of Arctic wildlife populations that I keep a copy in my office, alongside the reports from some biologists I know who are monitoring declining polar bear populations ...

[Shakespeare]

29. THERE IS a movie (coming this summer!) about global warming

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319262/

Big, summer blockbuster flick, too. Let's hope it gets folks' attention.

[frogfromthenorth2]

31. ****** GLOBA YAWNING *****