Stephen Holden of the New York Times reviewed the new global warming documentary, “Everything’s Cool,” which opened in New York and Los Angeles on November 23.
The review leads with the following:
New York Times
November 23, 2007A Cold Look at Warming Mixes Pep and Despair
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Here is an idea worth pondering from “Everything’s Cool,” a breezy polemic about the politics of global warming: The fossil fuel industry doesn’t care who wins or loses the debate about the reality of global warming, as long as the public continues to feel that it is debatable.
To put it differently, doubt means delay. On television, where every issue is presumed to have two sides, shills from the fossil fuel industry glibly dispute the overwhelming scientific evidence for global warming. Casual viewers can thus reassure themselves that they don’t have to worry about climate change. Given the warnings that the world has a narrow window of opportunity to reduce carbon emissions drastically, who doesn’t wish that those oil and coal flacks and their well-funded political supporters were right?
“Everything’s Cool,” a documentary directed by Daniel B. Gold (who narrates) and Judith Helfand, and adorned with clever animations by Jeremiah Dickey and Emily Hubley, traces the politics of global warming politics back to 1987, when the phenomenon was more commonly called the greenhouse effect. According to the movie the issue didn’t become politicized until the oil and coal industries recognized a threat to their economic well-being and undertook a misinformation campaign that continues to this day.
Although the underlying outlook of “Everything’s Cool” is dire, the movie adopts a cheerful comic tone to avoid scaring audiences. Instead of the grand overview of global warming offered by Al Gore in “An Inconvenient Truth” it leans toward the Michael Moore school of activist filmmaking while avoiding Mr. Moore’s rabble-rousing stunts.
See the rest of the review here.