Educational Media Reviews Online

This film concerns the scientific discovery by Russian scientist Sergey Zimov that melting arctic permafrost is threatening to release huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, potentially creating a feedback loop that will lead to runaway climate change. “Impatient with world’s slow reaction to this news Zimov has single handedly begun a controversial plan to mitigate melting permafrost by reverse engineering the ‘Mammoth Steppe’ ecosystem – a now vanished ice age grassland, complete with Serengeti-like herds of roaming herbivores, which once stretched from Spain to Canada.”

The film illustrates what one scientist can do to save our planet. Many people look at the words, climate change, and global warming like abstractions. If it doesn’t affect them directly in the immediate ‘now’, they show concern, but from a distance. Scientists from all over the world, including the United States come to witness and assist Zimoy to stave off this impending danger.

To better understand what Zimoy is doing is to be steeped in the relationship of the natural world and our sustained impact on our planet. He is not creating a zoo but trying to save our planet for future generations. The permanence of frozen ground in the Arctic is no longer guaranteed as Earth’s temperatures continue to climb. But how much the degradation of so-called permafrost continues to be debated.

In recent decades, permafrost has thawed, as Zimoy illustrates, because of global warming from heat trapped primarily by carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. Arctic warming is rising at twice the global average rate since 2000, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As that increase accelerates the thaw of permafrost, the organic carbon contained within it breaks down and releases carbon dioxide, exacerbating climate change. While the film can at times, drag, this is an important documentary that will impact mankind for centuries to come if we do not act now.

Awards:
Adana Golden Boll Film Festival 2022 (Turkey); Anchorage International 2022 (Alaska); Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam 2022 (Netherlands); Banff Mountain Film Festival 2022 (Canada)

Published and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Anyone can use these reviews, so long as they comply with the terms of the license.