CLIMATE: A Time to Choose

Abstract: 

Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Charles Ferguson explains the dire threat that Latin America and the world face as a result of climate change and the options available to avoid ecological catastrophe.

Global climate change, its causes, consequences, and solutions, is the subject of a profoundly disturbing, yet deeply optimistic new film, “A Time to Choose.” The race against time that the planet is facing — and the tremendous stakes involved — dramatically open the film. Set against stunningly beautiful natural panoramas filmed all over the world, the opening montage movingly illustrates just what is at risk if nothing is done to change the current trajectory. Noting the warming that has already taken place in the last several decades, the threat of further climate change causing a major rise in sea levels is the first sobering reality addressed in the picture. If this effect is not soon mitigated, the film warns, with the skylines of some of the world’s largest and most important cities cascading in the background, major metropolises around the globe could be submerged within the lifetimes of many in the audience. New York City, London, Saint Petersburg, Mumbai, Singapore, Beijing, and more appear on screen with their respective population totals. The narrator, noted actor Oscar Isaac, informs the audience that up to 600 million people could be affected by this displacement...

Author: 
James Gerardo Lamb
Publication date: 
August 19, 2015
Publication type: 
Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies Article