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Jacob Houser, Annotation #2 Six Degrees Could Change the World

The film Six Degrees Could Change the World, directed by Ron Bowman, was released in 2008 and deals with how global warming could potentially impact our planet and lifestyle. Its main focus is on how each degree the temperature increases more severe consequences await us. The film specifically tracked how various things that we do may bring about each of these six one degree changes. The high budget of this film allows them to use plenty of amazing visuals and all kinds of scientific data to impress their message upon the viewer.

Global warming is a major hot button issue in modern culture. This film describes why global warming could be the largest problem facing our time. The film specifically outlines how CO2 may have dire consequences if allowed to increase at the current rate. It used such examples as the destruction of the entire rainforest due to breakdown of photosynthesis to demonstrate this. It also illustrates how such an increase in temperature will lead to climate change and extreme weather. It uses horrifying imagery of a world where El Nino is a common occurrence and the oceans and vast deserts are wastelands. It attributes many of these problems to excessive reliance on carbon intensive energy, vampire costs of standby modes, and a lack of initiative on the matter by wealthy countries such as the United States.

This film, as I mentioned, was very high budget and was very persuasive with its statistical data and simulated scenarios. I found both of these qualities to be very persuasive. The images served to get the audience’s attention and succeeded with flying colors. Seeing images of great cities such as New York flooded and massive hurricanes making landfall was enough to make anyone take notice. The statistical analysis behind these images is what gave them credibility, however. The scientific data behind all of their scenarios was always fully disclosed, ensuring that the film didn’t come off as fiction or overreaction of environmentalists. The film also provided concrete solutions and ways the problems could be solved realistically.

There were less persuasive portions of this film despite the care with which it was made. Some portions of it seemed a bit contrived or gimmicky. The tale of the catastrophe survival nomad specifically seemed like it was ill supported and simply thrown in as a scare tactic. Some of the solutions also seem a bit farfetched, such as an array of mirrors in space to shield our planet from the sun. One of the other issues with the film was that it seemed to ignore the sector of the public that is skeptical or denies global warming. This is an issue because these people are a major obstacle to fixing the problem and environmentalists should try to address why they don’t believe in global warming and try to persuade them to reconsider.

The target audience for this movie seems to be individuals who believe global warming exists, but are not sure to what extent it could affect our planet. The graphics intensive and data intensive presentation seem to appeal to a younger generation used to CGI graphics and scientific data and simulations. This film also appeals to intellectuals for this reason.

When it comes to educating people on the consequences of global warming, this film may be the best there is. Its production quality and budget allow it to represent the consequences in a statistical, expository, and graphical manner. This really allows the audience to learn about the problem in whatever way they are most comfortable. The film also did a nice job of incorporating the matrix problems that can cause such catastrophes to allow the viewer to see the whole picture. The alternatives presented in the film were plentiful if not a bit unreasonable. The film suggested reasonable solutions such as reducing use of CO2 energy, elimination of vampire costs, converting our power supply and lowering greenhouse emissions as well as eccentric alternatives such as the aforementioned mirrors in space.

When I attempted to find additional information on this subject online, I was overwhelmed with the amount of information I found. I decided that I would focus more on the causes of these doomsday scenarios. Oddly enough I found the National Geographic website to be full of valuable information on the causes of CO2 emissions as well as other gasses such as nitrous oxide that are even worse for the environment. TimeForChange.org also provided me with excellent graphs that show the ways different global warming concerns stack up against eachother. One interesting fact I found was the emissions from agricultural byproducts are greater than fossil fuel retrieval, processing and distribution.

"Cause and Effect for Global Warming | Time for Change." //Time for Change | For Whom Enough Is Too Little - Nothing Is Ever Enough//. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. .

"Global Warming Causes, Climate Change Causes - National Geographic." //Environment Facts, Environment Science, Global Warming, Natural Disasters, Ecosystems, Green Living - National Geographic//. Web. 4 Nov. 2010. .