Product Description

In a special broadcast event, National Geographic explores the startling theory that Earths average temperature could rise six degrees Celsius by the year 2100. In this amazing and insightful documentary, National Geographic illustrates, one poignant degree at a time, the consequences of rising temperatures on Earth. Also, learn how existing technologies and remedies can help in the battle to dial back the global thermometer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11140 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-04-22

Amazon.com
In the 2004 eco-thriller The Day After Tomorrow, director Roland Emmerich dramatized the potential consequences of accelerated global warming. By combining stock footage with computer-generated imagery, the National Geographic special Six Degrees Could Change the World serves as a sort of nonfiction counterpoint. As NASA climate scientist James Hansen cautions, even two degrees Celsius represents a tipping point (from which there is no return). Based on Mark Lynas's Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet and narrated by Alec Baldwin, the program roams from the bushfire-ravaged suburbs of Southern Australia to the drought-stricken farmlands of Nebraska to the rapidly melting glaciers of Greenland. In the process, aerospace engineers, marine biologists, and ordinary citizens share their experiences and predictions. In the end, it's the actual events--rather than the speculative scenarios--that prove most alarming, like the 30,000 deaths that resulted from 2003's European heat wave. While a skeptic might dismiss that tragedy as a statistical anomaly, every continent bears the scars of climate change, like the deforestation of the Amazon and the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. In order to inject some levity, Six Degrees detours to look at a British grape grower who has actually benefited from his country's drier environment and the carbon footprint involved in the creation of that all-American favorite, the cheeseburger (suffice to say, it's considerable). While some of the special effects are hokey--Hansen sitting at a floating desk, for example--the preponderance of compelling data helps to compensate for such lapses. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Also of Interest

Six Degrees Could Change the World on DVD

More DVDs About Global Warming and Climate Change

More National Geographic DVDs

Stills from Six Degrees Could Change the World (click for larger image)

Customer Reviews

A good 30 minute doc in two hours.
Very well done, great animation. But don't worry about missing anything, the points and the animation are seen over and over and over. It teaches well, it is very important information, everyone should see it. But after the first thirty minutes it is like watching paint dry. Alec Baldwin is an outstanding narrator and should do more like this, at time he sounds much like Frank Sesno of CNN.

Good Entertainment
This program a well edited and visually well executed. It makes for good entertainment. The points made in the film are speculation and not solid science, but this is understandable as the film is based on a book authored by Mark Lynas, who has a formal education in history and politics. His interpretation of statistical climate models is simplistic at best as would be to the lay person.

Overall good viewing to be had if your not a skeptic and uninterested in an unbiased and objective discussion on climate change.

informative but questionable
I think a break down of the ratings speak for themselve a bit.

One person put a 1 because they found it offensive(perhaps they don't like the idea of spending money to find an alternative to dumping their company's waste in the river.)

The other person put a 5 (perhaps they bought everything this propa-documentary said and hate selfish people that are too profit motivated or believe everything the powers that be try to sell them.)

Well I thought it was informative. But I also noticed some things that attempted to manipulated the viewers thoughts and opinions, like showing the nuclear plant's exhaust while talking about carbon dioxide and fossil fuels. That exhaust is water vapor from cooling towers, not smoke plumes.
Same with the catasrophic weather and katrina. Yes it was a catasrophic storm, but a lot of the suffering in N.O. was partly to blame on gross negligence of the powers that be.

I did notice it had high production values. Which is also what annoyed me with the manipulative information. If you are going to invest that much time and money into a film why do you have to shape the truth? Can't we ever get documentaries that are only moderately biased so that we can decide for ourselves? These films just fall on deaf ears to some and make others look like tin foil hat wearers. Integrity was compromised.

I still learned a lot however.