Rising Waters: Global Warming and the Fate of the Pacific Islands 2000
Distributed by Bullfrog Films, PO Box 149, Oley, PA 19547; 800-543-FROG (3764)
Produced by Andrea Torrice of Torrice Productions
Directed by Andrea Torrice
VHS, color, 57 min.
High School - Adult
Environmental Studies
Date Entered: 11/09/2018
Reviewed by Barb Butler, Oregon Institute of Marine BiologyScientists believe that an increase in gasses such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere can contribute to a “greenhouse effect” because they absorb long-wave energy emitted from the Earth’s surface. While not everyone accepts that global warming does occur, we do know that during the last century carbon dioxide has increased from 280ppm to 360ppm and global temperatures rose by two-degrees Fahrenheit.
A two-degree change may not sound like much, but by some predictions carbon dioxide will double by the year 2100. Climate and weather are interdependent and global warming may result in severe weather events such as cyclones, hurricanes, storms, droughts and floods. While it is difficult to predict where and when these weather events will occur, we can begin to predict what some of the consequences will be.
Rising Waters examines how global warming will affect the Pacific Islands. The video makes use of interview footage with a Samoan climatologist, a policy analyst from Fiji and a variety of noted scientists. A clip showing the “lost island of Bikeman” which is already under water, and footage of eroded ancestral graveyards lends a human face to the global warming issue. The video is well constructed and leads the viewer through the decisions that were reached at both the Rio and Kyoto conferences on global warming. The sad fact of the matter is that the goals themselves may not be stringent enough to produce the needed change and very little has been done by nations, including the United States, to meet the goals that were established during these two conferences.
There are many videos that address the problem of global warming. Rising Waters is geared towards junior-high, high school and college audiences. It will be a successful tool to illustrate the effect of industrialization on our global ecosystem and could be integrated into a curriculum on the subject. It will be well understood by laypersons and is thorough in its treatment of the subject. Rising Waters is the winner of a Special Jury Award from MountainFilm, Telluride and is recommended it to school, college and public libraries.