Cool It

Premiered Toronto International Film Festival

Premiered Hamptons International Film Festival

Winner Golden Starfish Award Documentary Feature – Hamptons International Film Festival

COOL IT is a feature-length documentary produced in an attempt to blast through the polarizing logjam of the climate change debate to bring a solid plan for solutions. Widely known as “the skeptical environmentalist,” Danish scientist and economist Bjorn Lomborg has been vilified, and perhaps misunderstood for his views on climate change. The controversy surrounding him is outlined in the first few minutes of the film, so that the audience can lean in and join the debate that follows, coming to their own conclusions as opposed to being spoon-fed what they are supposed to believe. The film follows Lomborg as he travels the planet visiting scientists in their labs to uncover pragmatic solutions to counteract the warming of the planet, which his consortium of Nobel-laureates, The Copenhagen Consensus, have identified as deserving of R&D funds. The film also exposes how wave energy was invented decades before it was adopted due to a conspiracy by the nuclear energy council, illustrating how vital progress can be thwarted for private financial gain. Lomberg also focuses at the policy level, promoting a broad spectrum of changes that will affect global warming — which he believes is a real threat. The cap-and-trade energy policy which is debated to the point of non-action in government, he points out is extremely expensive and thus will never be widely adopted. He supports a carbon tax and illustrates why. Towards the end of the film, he creates a budget & plan to address some of the things that can be done now, such as painting urban centers white & funding geo-engineering research to brighten the clouds. The alternative energy suggestions are equally intriguing & in development: Algae farms that eat carbon dioxide & emit energy; a water-splitting process that mimics photosynthesis to help store solar power. COOL IT is a solution-oriented film, which takes the very real fear inspired by the powerful eye-opener “An Inconvenient Truth” and transforms that into positive plan of action.