JPH+6+Degrees

**Director:** Ron Bowman **Year:** 2008 **What is the central argument or narrative of the film?** This film examines how the world would be different for each degree Celsius that the earth warms due to global warming caused by CO2 emissions. It starts out with the environmental and societal changes that would take place due to a one degree increase and examines the same changes for each successive degree up to six degrees. The film examines who agricultural and weather patterns will shift, desertification, disease, and mass migration will undermine our current global civilization. **What sustainability problems does the film draw out?** This film focuses explicitly on the effects of global warming and how global warming is a danger to current civilization. It discusses how increased temperatures would results in shifts in agricultural production. England, Canada and Scandinavia would experience an agricultural bloom previously unknown while the American heartland, Africa and Southern Europe would become a desert and result in a significant decrease in agricultural production. Extreme weather patterns previously unknown to people of certain geographical locations would become prevalent and would wreck havoc on infrastructure and people. An example of this is the heat waves in Paris that killed over 3000 due to the design of Parisian houses. As the glaciers melt, people that rely on the fresh water for survival, such as Indians that live along the Ganges river, will becoming increasingly desperate for a continuous water supply. This will force the mass migrations of people and armed conflict over water resources. The effects of global warming and climate change will have profound environmental and societal consequences that are unsustainable by our global civilization. **What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?** I was most convinced by the argument of positive feedback systems that will accelerate many of the issues that are caused by global warming. As Greenland’s ice sheets collapse and begin to melt the water will destabilize more of the ice and cause the glaciers to accelerate towards the sea. Also, as temperatures rise, trees will stop absorbing CO2 and will in fact emit it. These types of feed backs seemed rational without scientific evidence and convinced me that even if global warming is overhyped once it starts it will become a self proliferating system that will be difficult if not impossible to reverse. **What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by? Why?** I was not convinced that scientists can adequately measure the average temperature increase across the entire globe. I believe that there is strong evidence to suggest a warming globe, a changing climate, and that CO2 is a leading contributor in rising temperatures, but I am very skeptical that science can be confident that the temperature has risen 0.8 degrees Celsius. There are too many variables and factors that control temperature and temperature is always in a constant flux across the globe. There are also clear examples of data points that have increased temperatures that are not caused by CO2 emissions and would probably not have a significant impact on global climate change. The heat island effect of cities can skew data if many measurements are being calculated from near cities. I have also never seen standard deviation data, level of significance or confidence intervals, or linear regression data that would support the statistic of the claim of a 0.8 degree increase. If this data was presented to me then I might be able to be more convinced of this particular claim. **What audiences does the film best address? Why?** This film best addresses people that are already convinced that global warming is an issue or those who have not studies the science behind global warming and the measurements in depth. For those that are convinced that global warming is an issue they will find that this movie will motivate them as a call to action because it displays the different scenarios that are probable should global temperatures increases and serves as a warning that action needs to be taken now before the affects of global warming become irreversible. **What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental educational value?** This film did not delve too deeply into the science and theory of global warming instead it presented scenarios assuming the global warming was occurring. More information that would aim at convincing viewers that global warming is real and is a significant threat would have been helpful. Also, I would like to see what methodology scientists use to calculate the current average global temperatures along with some statistical analysis of their conclusions. **What kinds of actions and points of intervention are suggested by the film? If the film itself does not suggest corrective action, describe actions that you can imagine being effective.** The major point of intervention on this issue is to reduce the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses that we putting into the air. Americans consume twice as much energy as we actually put into use. The rest is wasted. We should work to build better insulated and more efficient homes and building. Buying local products is another beneficial way for you to reduce your carbon footprint because food does not have to travel as far. Carbon taxes are a systematic way to reduce the demand for greenhouse gas emitting products and processes. Carbon taxes will make alternative solutions more affordable and acceptable. **What additional information has this film compelled you to seek out?** I looked up additional information about how global temperature averages are calculated and found many scientists who are concerned about the methodology and what the data actually represents. Temperatures can be averaged for local regions but they become meaningless over a huge area (i.e. around the globe). The forces that affect climate change are generally the differences between regions not necessarily the average. [] - Sponsored by the University of Copenhagen The graphs on this page represent the average global temperature from 1880 to present. Although there has been an upward trend the graph does not convince me that the data is statistically accurate or that such a mean temperature increase is a problem when the real problem should lie in how different regional variations are effecting changing climate patterns. [] – Data supported by IPCC
 * Film:** Six Degrees Could Change the World