On Thursday, Bette Midler, who uses so much hair spray she has personally engendered global warming, was panicked in New York as the temperature rose to a balmy 62 degrees in the middle of winter.
Kids can learn a lot about science by watching shows like Nature Cat—with one glaring exception.
PBS Kids
Acheetah can run 70 miles per hour. Venus and Earth are about the same size. Blobfish don’t have any bones.
These are facts I’ve learned from my 5-year-old in the past several weeks courtesy of the science- and nature-themed television shows he loves: Wild Kratts, Nature Cat, Blaze and the Monster Machines, and Octonauts. He is an erupting volcano of scientific trivia right now, so I was surprised the other day when I mentioned climate change and he said: “What’s that?”
After a few more questions, I discovered that he’s never heard any of his favorite science shows mention climate change or global warming. Which is strange, because according to overwhelming scientific consensus, climate change is one of the most important environmental issues of our time. It affects wildlife, natural resources, weather, and human health, all of which are regularly discussed on kids’ shows. My son can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about red pandas, except for the fact that their very existence is being threatened by the changing climate.
I know better than to trust a 5-year-old’s memory, of course, so I reached out to PBS Kids, Nickelodeon, and Disney Junior to see if there was any truth to his claim. I was told that with the exception of an episode of Disney Junior’s Doc McStuffins called “The Big Storm”—in which stuffed owl Professor Hootsburg says that “as the Earth gets warmer and warmer, big storms get bigger and bigger”—none of the three networks’ shows has ever discussed the causes, mechanisms, or impacts of climate change on our planet. (Kids’ movies don’t seem to fare much better. There is only one climate change–focused movie among Common Sense Media’s list of 47 “Movies That Inspire Kids to Change the World,” but alas, it’s rated PG-13.)
Jeremy Renner, Alec Baldwin, Heidi Klum, John Cleese, James Franco, Anjelica Huston and Omar Sy are part of voice cast of the family film, hitting theaters in 2018.
Open Road is teaming with the Arctic Justice: Thunder Squad, acquiring the starry and topical CGI-animated film for a 2018 release.
Jeremy Renner, Alec Baldwin, Heidi Klum, John Cleese, James Franco, Anjelica Huston and Omar Sy are among the voice cast of the family film, directed by Aaron Woodley. It is produced and fully financed by AMBI and its principals, Andrea Iervolino and Monika Bacardi. Animation work is currently being done out of AMBI’s Toronto-based AIC Studios.
Arctic Justice: Thunder Squad tells the story of a rag-tag group of inexperienced heroes (voiced by Renner, Franco, Baldwin, Huston, Klum and Sy) who come together to save the arctic and foil the evil plans of a sinister Doc Walrus (voiced by John Cleese), who hatches a secret plot to accelerate global warming and melt the arctic circle.
“The family film audience is hungry for quality product and we are very happy to serve up something fresh and topical with Arctic Justice,” stated Tom Ortenberg, CEO of Open Road.…
Guest essay by Eric Worrall According to Salon, women who have taken a personal decision to help save the planet, by not having children, are angry that celebrity hypocrites appear to be ignoring the climate issues which they claim to take so seriously. Baby Doomers: As climate change threatens to strain resources, women are increasingly […]
PARK CITY — In light of the premiere of Al Gore’s new film, “An Inconvenient Sequel,” CFACT’s Climate Depot sent an undercover agent into Park City Utah to ask the attendees of the snowy 2017 Sundance Film Festival what their biggest fears were about global warming. Their answers, just like their so-called “science,” are pretty hard to believe!
Gore Rewrites ‘Inconvenient’ Claim about NYC Flooding in ‘Sequel’ – But his original prediction was not about extenuating circumstances of a storm like Sandy slamming into New York or any “storm surge” at all. It was about the sea level rise that would be generated as (he predicted) ice melt in Greenland and Antarctica escalated dramatically.
Climate Depot’s undercover agent caught up with Gore on Saturday January 21 at Sundance film festival in the late afternoon while Gore was exiting a private party at the Zoom restaurant in Park City Utah. Gore was trudging through the snow to his oversized Chevy Suburban SUV, when the undercover agent asked an inconvenient question of Gore.
Question: “Hey Al, I just saw [your sequel] ‘Inconvenient’.”
Gore: “Oh great, thank you!”
Question: “My friends make fun of me about the 10-year tipping point, what do I tell them?”
Gore: “Well, we gotta keep working.” Gore then gives a momentary stare and then ignores the question and enters his “Executive Car Service” Chevy Suburban and departs on the snowy street.
PARK CITY — In January 2006, former Vice President Al Gore predicted, when his first film “An Inconvenient Truth” was first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, that earth would be in “a true planetary emergency” within the next ten years. According to CBS News, Gore warned in January 2006 that “unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return.”
Climate Depot’s secret undercover agent caught up with Gore on Saturday January 21 in the late afternoon while Gore was exiting a private party at the Zoom restaurant in Park City Utah.
Gore was trudging through the snow to his oversized Chevy Suburban SUV, when the undercover agent asked an inconvenient question of Gore.
Climate Depot’s Undercover reporter at Sundance: “Hey Al, I just saw ‘Inconvenient’.”
Gore: “Oh great, thank you!”
Climate Depot’s Undercover reporter at Sundance: “My friends make fun of me about the 10-year tipping point, what do I tell them?”
Gore: “Well, we gotta keep working.” Gore then gives a momentary stare and then ignores the question and enters his “Executive Car Service” Chevy Suburban and departs on the snowy street.
Below video shows Gore’s massive gas-guzzling SUV (Chevy Suburban) prepping for Gore’s pick up on the snow streets of Utah.
The newer, brisker, and unexpectedly more optimistic follow-up doc seeks, in large part, to calcify Gore’s legacy, resulting in a split-minded film that’s more fascinated with the former politician’s daily life than the melting polar ice sheets.
WHAT’S THE GENRE?
Superhero tragedy disguised as end-times environmental doc.
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
A decade after An Inconvenient Truth spotlighted the grave threat of climate change, former Vice President Al Gore returns with a new PowerPoint presentation that will recruit an army of environmentalist lieutenants, who themselves will assemble enviro-militias across the globe. Their weapon: the truth!
WHAT’S IT REALLY ABOUT?
The life of Al Gore, a button-up-wearing superhero (supported by a crack team of smartphone-wielding millennials) who will save us from global warming even if he alone has to fistfight the sun.
BUT IS IT ANY GOOD?
As a call to recruit and energize a new generation of environmentalists, no, it’s not good. Al Gore travels across the globe, educating trainees, who we barely get to know. And what exactly Gore trains these men and women to do, beyond monologue in public spaces, is unclear.The film doesn’t offer any surprising updates on global warming for a pseudo-woke teen with a social media stream. Nor does it lay out actionable strategies for viewers who could be persuaded to change their habits, but don’t know how. In that way, it’s a missed opportunity for Gore and his multi-decade agenda. An Inconvenient Truth formed the choir, and it’s inexplicable that this sequel makes no effort to teach that choir to sing.
However, as a documentary about the loneliness of would-be-President Gore, An Inconvenient Sequel is awkwardly engrossing. Gore’s loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 election, in particular, is grist for the film’s few jokes. At one point, Gore invites the cameras into his home, and they capture a man alone in an empty house, musing over photographs and notes from a different life. Gore seems peerless in his battle against global warming, for better and also for worse. In his personal and professional life, he appears deeply and tragically alone — often literally stranded in the film’s composition.
An Inconvenient Sequel often plays out like a tragic superhero film. Gore is depicted as a one-man army, fighting the good fight against impossible odds. Other politicians, from Obama to John Kerry to Justin Trudeau, drift into the film, lending their support.
“Future generations will look back,” Gore growls, “and say ‘What were you thinking?’ Couldn’t you hear what the scientists were saying? Couldn’t you hear Mother Nature screaming at you?”
a climate-change superhero, he’s also jet-setting around the world, observing atrocious evidence that the planet has long since teetered toward catastrophe.
Greenland’s fast-collapsing Jakobshavn Glacier, where raging rivers of melted snow carve explosive rifts in the ancient ice sheet. Miami Beach, where that same water sends city officials on the fool’s errand of building taller streets. Silicon Valley, where Solar City leads a stunning corporate charge for renewables. India, where energy ministers are desperately erecting “dirty coal” plants to support the population explosion. The Philippines, where Super Typhoon Yolanda killed more than 6,000 people.
The former VP is a central figure in each of these scenes, tirelessly flying around in helicopters, boats, planes, cars (in one case ditching traffic for a subway to make a meeting on time) because this is what he does now.
And these are no empty gestures. He’s a climate change James Bond, using his wits and gadgets and sheer will to save the day at every turn.…
“We will win,” Al Gore told the audience after two standing ovations followed the screening.
Al Gore received two lengthy standing ovations as An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power made its world premiere Thursday at the Sundance Film Festival.
“Now we are undergoing a time of challenge, but we are going to prevail,” said the former vice president to thunderous applause. “I’m not going to give all the evidence of why I’m so confident. Always remember that the will to act is a renewable resource.
“We will win,” Gore told the crowd. “No one person can stop this movement. We want this movie to recruit others.”
