I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from a film that’s byline is “A toxic comedy about global warming”, but whichever way you look at it, it’s not very funny. Everything’s Cool documents the story of the huge gap between what the scientists say and what the US government chooses to publicise about the global warming phenomenon.
The film starts by examining how climate change is already affecting Americans, and then goes on to catalogue how the coal industry has spent millions positioning global warming as a fringe idea, how coal and oil interests have called global warming the greatest single hoax and have continued to fight global warming policy that threatens the economy in any way. Bill McKibben, the activist who has been nicknamed global warming’s poet laureate, points out that these industries have conditioned us to look at the economy as being more real than the physical world, demonstrated by the fact that the real world, and the planet, doesn’t get nearly as much attention and care as the economy.
The movie goes on to look at the television coverage that both sides of the global warming argument have had over the past few years. On one hand The Weather Channel brings in climate scientist Heidi Cullen to talk about the science behind the weather, and on the other hand Fox News has an Exxon funded scientist saying that America is being tricked into energy poverty by the environmentalists.
Woven through the documentary is the story of Ross Gelbspan, the first journalist to take on global warming, Rick Piltz, government censorship whistle-blower, Bill McKibben, activist, and another likeable chap who works for a ski resort and wants to make his own biodiesel for his car and the snow cats to run on.
Everything changed when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and everybody started talking about global warming. Climate scientist Heidi Cullen now has her own show on The Weather Channel instead of the 3 minute slot she had before, Ross Gelbspan came out of retirement, and some interesting newcomers appeared on the scene. Michael Schellenberger and Ted Nordhaus say environmentalists are getting nowhere and bring out their Death of Environmentalism paper.
To say I enjoyed watching this film wouldn’t be accurate. In parts it was tortuous, not because it’s not a good film, but rather because while watching I was brought face to face with some very uncomfortable truths about how the trusted government of one of the world’s superpowers has so successfully pulled the wool over it’s own peoples eyes for years. It also brings home the fact that still not enough is being done to protect our future on the planet, and the lengths that the US government is prepared to go to to protect the large corporations over the well being of the man on the street.
I don’t understand where the idea came from that this film is a comedy. Am I missing something? It is definitely worth watching though. If you’ve seem An Inconvenient Truth it will fill in the gaps between when scientists and environmentalists first trying to bring the world’s attention to what is happening to our planet, and when we all finally sat up and realised that everything wasn’t the way the world leaders were trying to persuade us it was, thanks to Al Gore.
If anyone would like my review copy of the DVD Everything’s Cool, leave a comment and I’ll pick a name out of my party hat on the 1st of January. Please be aware that this is a region 1 DVD (US), so may not work in your DVD player. I had to watch it on my laptop.