Film Reviews

Reviews from Science staff.

Merchants of Doubt
Reviewed by Laura M. Zahn

“I'm not a scientist, although I do play one on TV occasionally,” says Marc Morano, founder of the climate-change-denying website ClimateDepot.com. This statement summarizes the premise of Merchants of Doubt, a film that exposes the public relations tactics that are employed to cast doubt on science. Based on Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway's 2010 book of the same name (reviewed in Science, 4 June 2010, p. 1230), the film explores the early groundwork laid by the tobacco companies to sell “doubt [as] our product” and examines how tactics to deny science have been, and continue to be, applied to flame retardants and, most prominently, climate change. 

The film features interviews with players on both sides of these contentious issues. With some notable exceptions, most of those on the “science side” of the debate are scientists, whereas their counterparts appear to be people with no scientific expertise who are hired to seed uncertainty among nonexperts by those with interests contrary to scientific results. Interestingly, these individuals often function as publicists across a slew of topics, writing letters to Congress discouraging stricter cigarette laws one day and op-ed pieces questioning global warming the next. 

Despite the fact that there is almost no debate in the scientific community regarding human-caused climate change, a small but well-funded group of individuals is succeeding in spreading misinformation and creating skepticism in the American public. If we as a scientific community choose to ignore this reality, we're only making their jobs easier.

Merchants of Doubt Robert Kenner, director. USA, 2014, 96 min.

How to Let Go of the World
Reviewed by Julia Fahrenkamp-Uppenbrink

This unusually uplifting film about climate change starts and ends with a dance. At the start, filmmaker and narrator Josh Fox dances with joy because local protests have prevented oil and gas exploration in Delaware—only to realize that this local victory is not enough: The warming climate is allowing parasites to spread north, destroying hemlock forests in their wake. 

Interviews with climate scientists and activists follow, painting a bleak picture, and Fox almost gives in to despair. As the camera zooms out on him lying on the snowy ground, he looks up into the sky at “all those greenhouse gases hanging there like a century of human regret." 

Yet at the end of the film, he is dancing with joy again, having found hope in human courage, resilience, ingenuity, and civil disobedience around the world in the face of climate change. He has seen climate scientists lost for words at the scale of the challenge; he has watched an activist reduced to tears as his ancestral land is washed away by sea-level rise. But he has also joined local activists cleaning up oil spills from rotting pipelines in the Amazon, interviewed indigenous people in Ecuador who prevented oil exploration on their lands, blocked coal tankers from leaving port with the Pacific climate warriors, and met a tribal leader who is helping to bring solar power to one of the poorest regions in Zambia. 

What unites these people is that they imagine a different world; that they believe they have a choice and are taking responsibility. Told in a highly personal and idiosyncratic style, How to Let Go of the World does that rare thing: inspires hope in the face of climate change.

How to Let Go of the World (And Love All the Things Climate Can't Change) Josh Fox, director. USA, 2016, 125 min.

Ice and the Sky
Reviewed by Brent Grocholski

Claude Lorius arrived in Antarctica for the first time in 1956 on a trip that lasted 16 months but hooked him into a life dedicated to returning to the bitter cold.Ice and the Sky is a film that traces the French glaciologist's life and discoveries. Director Luc Jacquet combines Lorius's commentary with archival footage of his scientific expeditions that range from the bare-bones three-man operation in 1956 to the much larger international deep-ice-drilling collaboration at the Vostok research base decades later. Interspersed are more recent scenes depicting the bright and brilliant landscapes of Antarctica as Lorius, now in his 80s, makes what may be his final return to the continent. 

Lorius's discoveries had a profound impact on our understanding of climate change. He was the first to recognize that tiny gas bubbles trapped in ancient ice tell a story of our planet's temperature in the deep past. The film succeeds in demonstrating the strong tie between greenhouse gases like CO2 and temperature, making the connection between humans and global warming obvious. Surprisingly, it was the discovery of radioisotopes from an atmospheric nuclear test, not the results of his own research, that eventually shocked Lorius into the realization that no place on Earth has escaped the imprint of humanity. 

Despite having recognized and raised the alarm about human-induced climate change decades earlier than most, Lorius strikes an optimistic tone about the potential for humanity to avert disaster. “Man is never so sublimely in his element than when faced with adversity,” he maintains near the end of the film. Perhaps we should expect nothing less from a man who knows the power of teamwork to overcome what seem to be insurmountable obstacles.

Ice and the Sky Luc Jacquet, director. France, 2015, 89 min.

Catching the Sun
Reviewed by Marc Lavine

Would a switch from fossil fuels to solar power create or destroy more jobs? Would the installation of solar panels on houses and businesses empower individuals and communities? Would it truly shift wealth from megacorporations to the less wealthy? Although not directly asked, these questions emerge from the stories told in Catching the Sun from filmmaker Shalini Kantayya. The documentary begins by detailing the health and environmental consequences of the 2012 Chevron fire and explosion in Richmond, California. The disaster became a catalyst for the environmental movement and shined a spotlight on the close relationship between Chevron and the local government, as Richmond's mayor at the time, Gayle McLaughlin, describes in the film. 

Against this backdrop, Kantayya proceeds to focus on companies, entrepreneurs, activists, and nonprofits in the United States and China who are trying to advance the solar revolution. A key theme emerges through interviews with Van Jones, author of The Green Collar Economy, who sees solar energy as a way to be more environmentally responsible while also creating jobs, particularly in low-income communities. We see the potential for the latter in the work of Solar Richmond, a nonprofit that offers training and green business ownership opportunities for low-income and underemployed residents. One would think that this sort of win-win situation would be politically appealing, but many barriers prevent widespread adoption, particularly in the absence of a clear national policy. 

In contrast, Wally Jiang is able to grow his Chinese solar business by 50% a year through the support of the government. In the film, we see his attempts to advance his business as he pursues a range of international partnerships. Catching the Sun is thin on numbers, from how much solar technology really costs to how well it might integrate into the electricity grid on a large scale to a proper comparison of the successes of different countries in implementing renewable energy. But it does show the personal side of solar energy and is thus an important part of the broader story.

Catching the Sun Shalini Kantayya, director. USA, 2015, 74 min.