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Annotation #9 11/12/12 //National Geographic: Six Degrees Could Change the World//

National Geographic’s //Six Degrees Could Change the World// was directed by Ron Bowman and was released in 2008. It focused on the problems associated with global temperatures rising six degrees Celsius over the next century. The movie made sure to specify that a variable climate is not unusual but an overall temperature shift year around is dangerous. The movie talks about what would happen at each incremental degree up to the “doomsday scenario” at six degrees and how up to three degrees the situations are predicted fairly well mathematically (Six Degrees (movie)). After that, it’s mostly speculation but it is generally accepted to be “a runaway train” (Six Degrees (movie)). The movie does have a lot of numbers for the general trends in the last decade as well as what is considered safe levels for the future which help validate the terms of the movie. However there were a few factors that I felt detracted from the truth of the source. The first was how for those who didn’t speak English dubbing was used instead of subtitles which I think influences the opinions of viewers more. The other thing was that the visual effects about the predicted scenarios were very obviously someone’s imagination of what was going to happen. If these effects were shown on a computer or something then a viewer might have thought of it as more of a simulation rather than something that, I felt anyway, had little more scientific fact than a cartoon. Overall, I felt that the movie was addressing the general public as to how their everyday life is eventually going to add up to bad news for the environment. I believe Bowman was stressing how a cultural shift in energy usage is the most important/beneficial solution and the general public needs to be the ones to know that.

Multiple cultural, technological, and ecological problems were described in this film. One of the major points made was that everyday activities are major threats to climate change. The most compelling thing I heard was that global warming is the “death of permanence” (Six Degrees (movie)). Humans are going to have to start moving to different areas if the environmental impact is as bad as predicted. Other things like eating a cheeseburger 3 times a week has a larger carbon footprint than one might believe. Our culture is going to have to change to halt or at least slow the impact on the environment. The movie suggests that, moving forward, wealthy countries need to cut their energy usage to allow development in poorer counties. The only problem I have with this is that wealthier countries need to guide these other countries to avoid making the same mistakes twice; their development needs to be more sustainable. As it is, wealthier countries can afford the technologies that may allow them to exist farther down the road like barriers that will prevent rising sea levels from affecting cities too badly. Poorer countries are left to deal with our mistakes due to the lack of shared technologies. According to Bowman, it is inevitable that the temperatures of the world will continue to rise and that there is a tipping point where there won’t be any stopping the environment from tearing itself apart. We are already seeing stronger natural disasters like Katrina and glaciers are already melting at a rate that does not allow for them to refreeze at a needed rate. For now, the movie stressed how some areas would see completely opposite affects than others, but all could somehow be attributed to global warming (rising sea levels in some areas, massive draughts in others). I found it interesting that the movie pointed out that draughts could lead to fires which would again lead to more draughts. This just shows the compounding behavior the environment would have on itself.

As I watched this movie I was curious as to whether New York City had looked further into the dikes to hold back water especially since Sandy just hit them. Apparently there is currently a proposal that has been written since Sandy that will block off New York City from the ocean for $6 billion, but even if the government decided to support it instead of the smaller scale changes to local communities that were originally planned, it would still be a long time before construction starts (Svensson). The only thing I didn’t like about this article is that hindsight is 20/20 and sometimes I think it takes a disaster like this to make people realize that it could be a problem. I was also wondering about the possibility of potential problems of the nuclear fusion solution that Bowman seemed all for. There are always problems that are not accounted for. While it is highly unlikely that we will be able to come up with a completely sustainable solution, it is interesting to see what people consider to be acceptable losses. According to O’Rourke there is a lot less hazardous waste involved with nuclear fusion compared to fission. The problems lie in the fact that the steel surrounding the plasma deteriorates which calls for frequent replacements. It also has the potential to be a strong source for nuclear weapons (O’Rourke). I feel like as long as the reactor is built safely and proper safety and security requirements are managed both of these problems can be avoided.

References: Svensson, Peter. Jennifer Peltz. “NYC Sea Barrier Could Have Stopped Surge During Hurricane Sandy, Say Experts.” Huffington Post. 1 Nov 2012. <[]>. O’Rourke, Breffni. “World” Nuclear Fusion Promises Abundant Energy—Or More Problems?” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty. 14 April 2005. <[]>.

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