National Geographic: Six Degrees Could Change the World

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Product Description
In a special broadcast event National Geographic explores the startling theory that Earths average temperature could rise six degrees Celsius by the year 2100. In this amazing and insightful documentary National Geographic illustrates one poignant degree at a time the consequences of rising temperatures on Earth. Also learn how existing technologies and remedies can help in the battle to dial back the global thermometer.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/NATURE & WILDLIFE UPC: 727994752837 Manufacturer No: 1000036970

Amazon.com
In the 2004 eco-thriller The Day After Tomorrow, director Roland Emmerich dramatized the potential consequences of accelerated global warming. By combining stock footage with computer-generated imagery, the National Geographic special Six Degrees Could Change the World serves as a sort of nonfiction counterpoint. As NASA climate scientist James Hansen cautions, even two degrees Celsius represents a tipping point (from which there is no return). Based on Mark Lynas's Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet and narrated by Alec Baldwin, the program roams from the bushfire-ravaged suburbs of Southern Australia to the drought-stricken farmlands of Nebraska to the rapidly melting glaciers of Greenland. In the process, aerospace engineers, marine biologists, and ordinary citizens share their experiences and predictions. In the end, it's the actual events--rather than the speculative scenarios--that prove most alarming, like the 30,000 deaths that resulted from 2003's European heat wave. While a skeptic might dismiss that tragedy as a statistical anomaly, every continent bears the scars of climate change, like the deforestation of the Amazon and the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. In order to inject some levity, Six Degrees detours to look at a British grape grower who has actually benefited from his country's drier environment and the carbon footprint involved in the creation of that all-American favorite, the cheeseburger (suffice to say, it's considerable). While some of the special effects are hokey--Hansen sitting at a floating desk, for example--the preponderance of compelling data helps to compensate for such lapses. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Also of Interest

Six Degrees Could Change the World on Blu-ray

More DVDs About Global Warming and Climate Change

More National Geographic DVDs

Stills from Six Degrees Could Change the World (click for larger image)

Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

The truth is hard to swallow February 15, 2008
26 out of 31 found this review helpful

Instead of listening to the blather of Savoy Scat in the only review to date. Just buy the dvd, watch and learn. With over 2500 scientists world wide validating global warming as a man made caused event it at times is alarming which I'm sure it is supposed to be. Maybe Savoy Scat is better at reviewing pizza, burgers and sandwiches which is mostly what has been reviewed so far.

5 out of 5 stars

Follow the Science February 15, 2008
18 out of 21 found this review helpful

Dido Eastsideenzo's comment. Buy Six Degrees, watch, learn, research and act. The science it contains is accurate and the consequences it presents range from probable to speculative, and is clearly stated so. Obviously, reviewer Scat Savoy does not give a hoot about science and did not read the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report nor the 2005 Joint science academies' statement: Global response to climate change in which the U.S. National Academy of Sciences joined 10 other national science academies in calling on world leaders to acknowledge that the threat of climate change is clear and increasing, to address its causes, and to prepare for its consequences. The statement says sufficient scientific understanding of climate change exists for all nations to identify cost-effective steps that can be taken now to contribute to substantial and long-term reductions in net global greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. (and this was based on IPCC 2001 data!) These documents are a simple Google search away. Nations are made up of individuals. This documentary helps to educate the individuals, all of us, who need to understand this issue and be moved to act...if not for yourself, then for your children and grandchildren.

5 out of 5 stars

Spectacular. Professional. Visually Powerful. Life Changing. April 13, 2008
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

This is a spectacular piece of professional work and so compelling as to be inspirational.

I watched this with my wife with no lights, and decided to take no notes. Here are the highlights from my memory.

1) Brilliant, utterly brilliant, history, photography, personalities (such as the Indian guru that has photographed the source of the Ganges for 50 years) and sequencing. I don't want to overdo it, but this may well be the single most important DVD of the century, and so worthy of both buying, showing to groups, and giving as a gift to others.

2) We are well on our way to 2-3 degrees rise, and if we do not begin to act sensibly now, toward six degrees. I absolutely loved the way this film developed, showing the changes one degree at a time. My wife had to point out the computer simulations, the producers and editors of this film are world class--they should share the Nobel with Herman Daly, Lester Brown, Paul Hawkin, and Anthony Lovin, Gore's Nobel was an ill-advised politicized award, he is in the fourth grade compared to this film and the serious people it focused upon.

3) Oceans as the critical carbon absorbing element, and coral as the "canary in the coal mine" really grabbed me The overall screenplay, photography, voice overs, everything about this is spectacularly professional and rivieting.

4) Amazon as the next most critical element, with riveting views of the Amazon river drying up in 2005, and the potential scenarios of drought, fires, more drought.

5) Increasing destructiveness of weather. Katrina as the first of what could become every month storms, instead of 100 year storms. In passing, the film shows the world-class levies built by the Europeans, and they do not show the downright retarded cement levees of the US Army Corps of Engineers, levees that are the laughing stock of the rest of the (sophisticated) world.

A highlight of the film was its focus on the one man that has figured out the total carbon footprint of the cheeseburger, to include the methane farts of the cows. I am not making this up. This film is AMAZING, it is spectacular, it is professional, it is precisely the kind of well-crafted material that We the People need to begin self-governing rather than entrusting war criminals and and cronies (both parties) who sell us out.

Here are ten links that augment the deep insight and value that this DVD provides to anyone able to see it.

High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
The Future of Life
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
The Philosophy of Sustainable Design
Running On Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Apart from these, allowed by Amazon, I recommend the many books on climate, catastrophe, etcetera. See my many lists.

1 out of 5 stars

HOGWASH FOR SALE February 14, 2008
10 out of 76 found this review helpful

THIS IS MY PERSONAL OPINION FOR WHAT IT IS WORTH. THOSE OF YOU WHO WATCH THIS DVD WILL, OF COURSE, FORM YOUR OWN OPINIONS, AND THAT'S HOW IT SHOULD BE; YOU HAVE THAT RIGHT IN THIS COUNTRY, AND WE CAN THANK OUR FORE-FATHERS FOR IT.

I viewed this program recently. Never have I seen so much HOGWASH in so short a period of time: pure, unadulterated, anti-American, pusdo-scientific BS.

There are some really misinformed, therefore, ignorant people out there, and it is due in part, and probably to a large degree, because of the selfserving and irresponsible efforts of those who make and support this type of documentary HOGWASH for personal monetary gain and, obviously, to support some special PERSONAL cause which is based solely on what appears to be questionable ulterior motives. They have, in my humble opinion, created a myth by distorting facts and,thereby, possibly hindered the course of true science. And, for what purpose have they done this? Could they be trying to advance an industry devoted to the "their special cause"; a big paycheck at the expense of truth and the American way of life...true Americans beware!

Why is it that they, the individuals who made and produced this DVD, own and over utilize the same things they say are causing most of the problem? Those who come to a pulpit to preach to me had better come free of the vices they preach against and they had better approach the secred ground of scientific descovery with intentions as pure as new fallen snow; these people, it appears to me, do not.

Whatever happend to honesty and devotion to true science which includes strict adherence to the integrity of scientific method and testing, the inclusion and consideration of documented historical scientific data and documented evidence, and the truth? Does this DVD deal set forth prediction based on intentionally distorted information and hype? Does it ignore documented scientific fact which, as far as I know, still is an important, and required, basis of consideration regarding the scientific testing of hypothesis, not to mention all the other requirements of the scientific method that I, and others like me, were taught to respect assuming one wanted to be recognized by the scientific community as a person of integrity? If one does not play the game properly, their theory is no better than they are, and that is in fact---a truth.

For those who want to base their decisions on a pack of lies and hype, this is for you: buy several copies. For the rest of you, well, the best advice I can give you is: DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS MISGUIDING PROPAGANDA; INVEST IT INSTEAD, AND SOME OF YOUR TIME, IN A MEANINGFUL EFFORT TO EXPOSE THESE PEOPLE FOR WHAT THEY ARE.

5 out of 5 stars

National security issue. April 16, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

It's a shame how militarists have so narrowly defined "national security" as an issue to focus us on war-making. But as ample evidence shows, we have security issues that involve building a sustainable economy, renewable energy, sensible transit, green architecture, new urbanism and much else.
I saw "Six Degrees" on the National Geographic Channel, and the author of the book was recently interviewed on C-SPAN's BookTV. As impactful as these media efforts have been, social change is being stalled by reckless voices on radio stations around the country (Limbaugh alone is on over 700 stations) who are misinforming millions of politically engaged people. These same people insist that we spare no expense when it comes to threats from foreign policy blowback, but they refuse to acknowledge the potential catastrophe of double-glazing the planet in carbon dioxide.
"Security" does not have to mean more profits for weapons contractors Why We Fight. Security can come to mean more profits for businesses that work on wind, solar, and tidal power; as well as efficiency and conservation innovations Sustainable Industries.
Many of our energy "needs" have actually been manufactured and marketed by industries that want to maximize the use of their commodity. Overcoming the "perception management" campaigns of those entrenched business interests is a daunting task, but so much progress has already been made that corporatists are increasingly desperate in their media efforts. The general public may not have PR firms funded by Exxon to advocate for their interests Everything's Cool, but we do have countless people who can write letters to editors, blog, call into talk radio (progressive and right-wing shows), post on message boards, share DVDs Refugees of the Blue Planet, subscribe to magazines Plenty Magazine, teach Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, preach A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet's Future and invest green Green Investing: A Guide to Making Money through Environment Friendly Stocks.
True security doesn't mean designing evermore destructive weapons of war; but, rather, designing evermore constructive methods of sustainability e2: Design Season 2.

"Humanity has entered into a condition that is in some sense more globally united and interconnected, more sensitized to the experiences and suffering of others, in certain respects more spiritually awakened, more conscious of alternative future possibilities and ideals, more capable of collective healing and compassion, and, aided by technological advances in communication media, more able to think, feel, and respond together in a spiritually evolved manner to the world's swiftly changing realities than has ever before been possible."
-Richard Tarnas, quoted in Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beau

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