Writer/Directors Alexis Barbier-Bouvet, Thierry Robert and Elena Sender’s documentary Climate Change: A Few Degrees Less centers on Jeffery Sach’s and his goal to limit the rise in average global temperature to only 2 ° by 2050. To do this, Sachs has gathered a team of scientists and experts to strategize how the world might reduce CO2 emissions that amount. Following this, we get a look at several promising technologies and industrial developments that could be implemented, but aren’t, due to a lack of market incentive.
The doc is direct and informative. Early on it cleanly lays out the situation, introduces the necessary jargon, and establishes its goal before jumping right into the “How”. I don’t know was used to shoot it, but it’s visually beautiful, with several rather impressive aerial shots of city and industry. Barbier-Bouvet, Robert and Sender interview experts, industry leaders and other smartniks and they explore the totally daunting task of changing how the world runs and how industry is carried out. Showcasing several new green technologies, the film, for all its bleakness (blame the subject matter) offers some hopeful solutions. In all, it functions as a sober entry into the ongoing cultural crusade for climate reform. That’s all it has to do and it does it well.
The doc is rather dry, however, though I appreciate that over a more doom-laden, alarmist take. Some of its creative choices, particularly the laser-tag techno musical underbed, I found uninspired, but these are minor complaints. If the filmmakers’ intent was to make a straightforward and clinical doc, and I imagine it was, they did a great job. But if the goal is to inspire interest in viewers that weren’t interested before, they may have missed the mark just a bit. This film seems mostly for those with a preexisting interest in the progress of this issue, not those who need to be roused from their daily lives to consider the issue’s importance.
All in all, Climate Change: A Few Degrees Less is a strong, if unarousing, showcase of some cool new developments in the effort to diminish our carbon output. It’s full of interviews with people who know what they’re talking about. It is not this reviewer’s favorite thing, but I certainly came out with some really interesting new information. If you’re interested in the state of affairs for climate change, check it out as part of The Enviromental Showcase at Anne’s Parish House, on Friday, April 1st at 2:00 PM
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