Why it matters
A global warning
10th January 2010
"This is one of the few climate change documentaries that actually gives you reason to have hope"
Terry and crew shooting on location. Photo Courtesy of Polar Cap Productions.
Mark Terry, director of Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning, was one of a handful of filmmakers invited to screen inside the official UN conference on climate change, COP15 in Copenhagen last December. His film is the very first to document warming on the last continent.
But isn’t Antarctica warming very slowly, much more slowly than the rest of the world?
No. The continent is melting much faster than anyone thought possible. And the melting of ice that currently sits on land into the oceans could cause sea levels to rise more than any other global factor.
Damn. So is this another doom and gloom doc meant to scare the pants off us?
No. Most environmental documentaries are a bit preachy and say “look at what you’ve done, we’re all going to die.” People want to be entertained, not lectured to. But we are just providing information – new findings from the research station there. Our goal is to educate, and to show the film to as many people as possible. It’s essentially a communication tool for scientists to reach the public and politicians.
What was it like showing it at the Bella Centre in Copenhagen?
Very exciting – though difficult with so many people running around. When a few delegations put resolutions for building flood defences into preliminary drafts [though these were removed from the final accord], it was very encouraging to see a film take part in the process.
What did you make of the whole circus?
Some of the NGOs inside the Bella Centre were pretty silly, dressed up in costumes, chanting, singing. They just added to the chaos, along with the protesters outside. Though I think the police did a good job overall, I did personally get involved with one altercation. I was talking with a delegate from Kenya outside while the police were holding back the crowd nearby. One of the cops assumed he had jumped the barricade, because he was dressed like the demonstrators, and forced him right down to the ground. I had to forcibly grab the delegate’s badge and show it to the cop.
Intense. What was it like down in Antarctica?
I felt more attached to the earth than I have anywhere else on the planet – and I’ve visited every other continent. The Antarctic summer was amazing – we had incredible energy, needed only to sleep three hours a day. I had strength I’ve never had before in my life. I could lug 200 pounds of equipment up a mountain and not even feel tired. We felt like we were 18 years old.
Did anything cool happen?
We shot some time-lapsed footage of a melting glacier breaking up – that was amazing. We captured on film some of the [newly discovered] “suicidal” penguins wandering into the centre of the continent away from the sea. We saw new vegetation that had been lying dormant for thousands of years under the ice, now brought back to life by climate change. It was like Jurassic Park, but for weeds.
But we witnessed something extraordinarily positive as well. Scientists announced last year that the holes in the ozone layer [one over each pole] had stopped growing. And while we were there measurements from the station indicated the Antarctic one is finally shrinking. We all went to the station bar and threw back shots of vodka to celebrate – made with Antarctic ice.
Sounds tasty.
Yes, but there is also a lesson to be learned: the hole in the ozone, which threatened all life on earth, is healing thanks to the Montreal Protocol [a 1987 UN decree that phased out ozone-destroying chemicals – the first global environmental victory]. This proves that no matter how insurmountable an environmental crisis seems to be, we have proven that we can handle any challenge. We can’t just throw up our hands in the air.
That’s what sets our film apart: ours is one of the few climate change documentaries that actually gives you reason to have hope.
Terry’s film screens today at the Explorers Club in New York.
Explorer Mark Terry, visiting the last continent. Photo Courtesy of Polar Cap Productions.
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