Global Warming goes Mainstream: NPR Climate Connections Series

Want to know what's happening to farmers on the Cape Verde Islands because of global warming? For info about how these islands off the coast of Africa, along with the rest of the world, are being affected by human fueled climate change you can tune into National Public Radio (NPR). On both their morning and afternoon news shows they are is doing a year long series called Climate Connections that features stories about "how climate changes people and how people change climate." In addition to the radio stories the Climate Connections website features interactive games and tools for learning more about your own carbon footprint and an archive of past stories.

Scientists Warn of Severe Effects of Global Warming

From time to time Working Films finds interesting news articles we want to share with you.

Check out this article from the Atlanta Journal Constitution about the testimony of experts witnesses who shared their concerns about the impact of global climate change with Congress. Also take a look at the responses of Congressional Representatives who don't believe the scientists. This article reminds me how much work there is to do. Like the global warming messengers in Everything's Cool we all have to keep up the pressure to make sure that more of our leaders understand the reality of global warming.

Scientists warn of global warming doom; skeptics scoff
By BOB DART
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/27/07

"Mexican butterflies fluttering around Austin, Texas, could be harbingers of a global apocalypse caused by climate change, scientists warned a congressional committee Thursday.

Global warming is reaching a point at which flooding, pestilence, fire, disease and starvation could threaten human existence, academics told the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

Earth is approaching "tipping points of the system with the potential for irreversible deleterious effects," said James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies..."]

Read the entire article here.

Reaching Out on Global Warming

On Sunday, April 15th Everything’s Cool co-director Judith Helfand and Robert West, co-founder and executive director of Working Films, participated on a panel at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival about using film to support the movement to end global warming. Working Films is coordinating the two-year audience and community engagement campaign for Everything’s Cool. The panel was sponsored by the Fledgling Fund and moderated by Fledgling’s founder Diana Barrett. Diane Weyermann and Lisa Day of Participant Productions were also on the panel speaking about An Inconvenient Truth.

The panel emphasized the need for filmmakers to listen to the needs of organizers in order to form a campaign that will effectively support the movement. Robert and Judith illustrated Working Films’ methodology for the audience by discussing their partnerships formed around the Everything’s Cool world premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

Audience members asked: What comes first, the film or the movement? The panel made it clear that it has to be a reciprocal relationship. Robert said, “the environmental movement – like all strives for justice – needs the skills of filmmakers, crafting the stories that will incite and ignite audiences. Film and video hold unique power to move audiences to action.” Judith explained that it is helpful to get feedback early on in the production process in order to create a movie that can be used as a tool for the movement. By working in close partnership with the organizations and activists on the ground, filmmakers are able to connect their stories to current campaigns and initiatives which take the film and audience to another level of engagement – action.

Light Bulbs, Get Your Light Bulbs

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Video by Jeremy Levine

Our video above (heavily featuring Everything's Cool producer, Adam Wolfensohn) shows the delivery and distribution of over 3600 energy-saving compact florescent lightbulbs generously donated by IKEA at Sundance.

Lighting accounts for about 15 percent of household energy use. If you swap the five standard light bulbs you use most for energy-saving compact fluorescents, you can save roughly $60 each year on electricity. Make sure you use EnergyStar compact fluorescents, which are tested for quality and longevity. Visit the Natural Resources Defense Council website to learn more ways to save energy and decrease your carbon footprint.

Step It Up, a call to action on global warming

Working Films teamed with John Quigley of Spectral Q to direct a human aerial image encouraging the growing community concerned with the perils of global warming to take immediate action by stepping up our responses. This event launches a two-year audience and community engagement campaign organized by Working Films for the Sundance Film Festival film "Everything's Cool."

Approximately 1000 middle and elementary school students, along with the production team of Everything's Cool and some of the main characters in the film, formed a message with their bodies, spelling out "Step It Up." The image contains a circle with bear paws, representing carbon neutral footprints and a word in Inuktitut meaning: "I hear you and I am doing something about it."

Park City's students were sending a message back to the Arctic Inuit Community, where, as captured in Everything’s Cool, residents and activists on Earth Day 2005 lay on the Arctic Sea ice in 30 below temperatures sharing the ancient wisdom of their elders and warning the world about the devastating impact the melting arctic will have on the rest of the world.

"The themes and messages of this film arrive at such a critical moment in our struggle to see action on the issue of global warming," said Robert West, co-founder and executive director of Working Films. "The image we're created today demonstrates that each individual is a necessary part of the chain for change; by linking together, we can create a call to action."

Working Films, Spectral Q and Cucolaris – who specialize in social messaging – jointly coordinated the event. This is part of a series of aerial images linked to the STEP IT UP Day of Action; the next will be created in Greenland in May of this year to encourage individuals and corporations to go carbon neutral.

Photo credits: top left: John Quigley, Spectral-Q; middle right: Working Films and Chris Pilaro

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Video by Jeremy Levine

Everything's Cool Sundance Audiences Curb Their Carbon

Activities surrounding Sundance are keeping us busy! Keep posted to find out what's going on and how you can be involved! Check out our video of audiences taking action to counter global warming:


Can't see the video? Download Quicktime 7
Video by Jeremy Levine, music by Atwood

As the curtains close after Everything's Cool screenings at Sundance, audience members are signing postcards to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – urging Congress to STEP UP their commitment to address global warming. Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Energy Efficiency Tip cards are being distributed with over a thousand IKEA compact florescent light bulbs.


Everything's Cool and Working Films are also offsetting over 300 pounds of the carbon emissions generated from travel to Sundance - Cool Tags are being sported by each Everything's Cool audience member. To counter the CO2 emitted by the cars, planes, and other transportation used to get to the festival, Clif Bar Cool Tags represent an investment in the Alaskan Native Village Wind Project. Take the next step and offset your own carbon with NativeEnergy.

Climate expert, Heidi Cullen stands up to "stop the spin".

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In our video above, climate expert Heidi Cullen responds to recent controversy around one of her blog posts. She explains that the Weather Channel, backed by more than a century of scientific evidence, has a responsibility to report to the public on Global Warming.

You can see more of Heidi's response here:
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