Revolution

An educational and sometimes eye-opening movie event was enjoyed by around 100 attendees last Wednesday at Salem's Southern New Hampshire University. NextGen Climate – NH and Regional Field Director McKenzie St. Germain hosted a full evening that included refreshments, a showing of the independent movie REVOLUTION, an entertaining, interactive talk by New England Aquarium Education Director John Anderson, followed by informal discussions by the audience. The evening's topic centered on the worsening problem of climate change/global warming, and steps we all can take to become more aware of what we, our families and friends can do to mitigate it.

The ridiculing and goofy bumper sticker days are over, as anyone who has the slightest inkling of what is happening right in front of us already knows. This fact was pointed out in both visually beautiful as well as unnerving ways by REVOLUTION,the 85-minute documentary directed by Rob Stewart that opened the evening. Stewart also directed an earlier doc, SHARKWATER, and it was while he was filming that movie that he received one of those epiphanies that we all get sometimes that there was an even bigger situation occurring than what he was then concentrating on.

One of the problems with climate change is the fact that until the last couple decades its deleterious effects weren't obvious to most people in their day-to-day lives. Those of us who peruse cutting-edge books, online informational studies, etc. were onto the problem long before warming became routinely accepted. But there are still many people whose only knowledge of this universal concern is the well-known plight of the polar bears up in the Arctic, mainly because this piece of information went viral years ago in TV and print.

REVOLUTION's excellence rests on the incredible job that Stewart and his team did in shooting hours and hours of the underbelly of the ongoing predicament, including close-up shots of the world's rapidly dying coral reefs, various fish/crustacean species in their natural habitat (many on the endangered list), amusing and poignant views of monkey-like lemurs living, loving and playing together, the director and team swimming underwater intermingling with schools of sharks….all fascinating.

Stewart's narration complements the visuals perfectly, as instead of the typical professional and analytical tone taken by most scientists in nature documentaries we get to listen to a younger voice (32 years old at time of filming) whose awe and fear of what he was discovering as the cinematic process commenced comes through loud and clear. His friendly and personal style seems to be saying that he's "one of us" despite his superior knowledge about his subject, and we get more of a kinship with what he is imparting than we would from someone dryly talking over our heads.

Stewart cites a wealth of statistics: the Great Barrier Reef's 38% reduction of coral over the past 25 years; 44% of America's electricity still coming from coal despite all the knowledge we've gleaned over the past half-century about the unquestionable warming effects of CO2 emissions; ocean acidification that is happening faster and faster, destroying our seas' ecosystem; Canada, China and many other nations being willful partners with the United States in mostly ignoring the ongoing threat, and man's continuing deforestation around the world (his sidebar animal species/forest scenes filmed in Madagascar are simultaneously comical and tragic).

Much of this data is already available and has been for some time to the interested. What Stewart's movie is attempting to do is to make this knowledge more mainstream to the thankfully slowly-dwindling number of people and governments around the world still denying the obvious. The director attended a number of world conferences on the subject, and in REVOLUTION he shares some of the speeches by leaders, politicians and scientists at these affairs, as well as encouraging shots of young activists before and after the events, all of them galvanized about making other nations aware of our responsibility to lower our burning of fossil fuels and lessen our reliance on automobiles.

What we all have to realize is that only 10% of the ongoing warming the earth is experiencing is happening in our air – 90% is occurring in our oceans. Our upper atmosphere has become a heat-trapping blanket over the near-two centuries since the Industrial Revolution, a simple fact that anyone with an aquarium and a little fuel and tinder can experimentally recreate at home. And despite being cyclical, the (literally) countless tons of pollutants and hot emissions that have been spewed into our air over those years have made warming increase exponentially, with thousands of instances including the 4-year drought in California, many Arctic ice caps becoming mostly lakes, numerous animal species dying off : all making the necessity of human intervention crystal-clear.

Please GOOGLE NextGen Climate for more information on what you can do to both learn more about something we ALL should be aware of, and to hopefully start changing the mindsets of our acquaintances who may still be stuck in the past. We're all in this together, and for anyone who cares about the world we're going to leave to our children's children's children, as well as the health and continuance of our animal species, forests and natural wonders, this is all necessary knowledge.

I am a big fan of Rob Stewart's work. He had me at Sharkwater. His latest film shows beautiful footage of some of the world's amazing living things, and then the not so beautiful as well, such as Alberta's oil sands. Stewart is very humble in his approach, acknowledging the importance of holding yourself accountable for environmental impacts, and he definitely does not leave his own impact out of the equation.

The best feature of this film is that it is highly empowering for youth. As an educator, I highly recommend taking your students to see this film. Our school took every kid from grade five through eight to see it before it even hit theatres. It is potentially in theatres for only a few weeks so go now before it is too late.

This film will open your eyes to the destruction of the planet, and hopefully inspire you to take action. I found it very emotional and motivating.

The graphics in this movie are exceptional. Not to mention the audio throughout the film is amazing. It enhances the beauty of the shots taken.

The efforts put forth by the director Rob Stewart to capture all aspects of environmental issues was well presented. He captured a wide array of footage from different countries, underwater and even during the midst of protests. Especially the underwater filming which makes you as a viewer feel as if you are there with Rob in the ocean.

Conducting interviews with environmentalists, scientists and most inspiring children he provides in-depth information on the issues. The parts of the movie where Rob talks to children who have already started to slowly make a difference is very moving.

The movie makes you realize the danger our future is in and gives motivation to actually do something about it.

Overall a great documentary that everyone that everyone must watch!

Rob Stewart grew up as an animal lover and became a filmmaker. In 2007, he released Sharkwater to tackle the shark finning industry. He is then forced to face a much greater threat to the global environment. It starts with the lost of coral due to ocean acidification and the movie closes with the fight against the tar sands in Canada.

The first half has some interesting underwater filming and a healthy helping of environmental diatribe. It gets a little unbalanced as it concentrates more on the tar sands and railing against Canada at an environment conference. It's not as pretty as underwater life and it is very much tilting at windmills. I'm not convinced of the effectiveness of these environment conferences. There is a naivety to the world that is rather pathetic. They're going to war against powerful forces and their only weapon seems to be shame.