Educational Media Reviews Online

Sounds first heard on this program are subtitled ‘pulsing music.’ This continues for more than a minute. Meanwhile, a narrator describes an ‘unprecedented’ melting event in Greenland only to declare ‘this isn’t an isolated case.’ Insistent drumming resumes, pounding under photos of ice chasms, ice islands, huge blocks of ice breaking off and falling into the sea. Are you frightened yet? If not, hang on, for “Be Very Afraid” appears to be the main message of this infomercial for fear. The growling, insistent music continues under a patchwork of photos (flooded roads, cracked deserts, collapsed buildings, crumbling ice) and scraps of interviews that seem left over from other films (such as Climate Blueprint, the same company’s excellent overview of UN Climate groups’ history). A script that keeps calling humanity ‘man’ and overuses the phrase ‘et cetera’ offers a little history of polar exploration, a bit of explanation of how the north and south polar regions differ, a mention of the speed of changes in both places and the effect these have on land and sea animals, air and sea circulation patterns, sea level rise, and human communities, including governments. Scant explanation of what the Gulf Stream does to modify climate in Northern Europe accompanies speculation that this could change as the balance of fresh and salt water changes when ice and permafrost melt. “Extreme, intense, catastrophic, exceptional, violent, threatening, alarming, worrying, drastic” are all adjectivally employed well before the halfway point of the program. Claims that there is unanimous scientific agreement that climate change is “caused by man” and that many remarkable weather events experienced recently are definitely the result of climate change are unsupported. The international cast of scientists and environmental activists mostly do not have English as a native language and some comments are difficult to fathom at first hearing (e.g., ’the most probably development’ or ‘the political level’ of temperature). Subtitles do not always help and are sometimes simply incorrect. The final few minutes contain a few sentences about how loss of sea ice in the Arctic opens up more fuel-efficient paths for shipping routes and creates more opportunity for mining and ‘industrial development.’ People excited by these economic pluses promise vague ‘sustainable’ practices. “We have to act,” begins the last sentence in the program, with no suggestion on what that might mean.

Skip this disappointing presentation of a serious, complex subject. For an engaging look at what happens to polar ice year after year, go to Jeff Orlowski’s award-winning film Chasing Ice. For up-to-date statistics, explore NOAA’s many web pages, including its Arctic Report Card.