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National Geographic: Six Degrees Could Change the World | 
 enlarge | Director: Ron Bowman
Actor: Alec Baldwin
Studio: National Geographic Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $12.96
You Save: $7.02 (35%)
New (38) Used (10) Collectible (1) from $12.96
Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 5780
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd-video, Widescreen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 90
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: WARDG36970D
UPC: 727994752837
EAN: 0727994752837
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: April 8, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW, FACTORY SEALED, WE GUARANTEE OUR PRODUCTS, SHIPS SAME OR NEXT DAY
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Product Description
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 04/08/2008 Run time: 90 minutes
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 Blu-ray | 
More DVDs About Global Warming and Climate Change | 
More National Geographic DVDs | Stills from Six Degrees Could Change the World (click for larger image)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 Spectacular. Professional. Visually Powerful. Life Changing. April 13, 2008
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
This is a spectacular piece of professional work and so compelling as to be inspirational.
I watched this with my wife with no lights, and decided to take no notes. Here are the highlights from my memory.
1) Brilliant, utterly brilliant, history, photography, personalities (such as the Indian guru that has photographed the source of the Ganges for 50 years) and sequencing. I don't want to overdo it, but this may well be the single most important DVD of the century, and so worthy of both buying, showing to groups, and giving as a gift to others.
2) We are well on our way to 2-3 degrees rise, and if we do not begin to act sensibly now, toward six degrees. I absolutely loved the way this film developed, showing the changes one degree at a time. My wife had to point out the computer simulations, the producers and editors of this film are world class--they should share the Nobel with Herman Daly, Lester Brown, Paul Hawkin, and Anthony Lovin, Gore's Nobel was an ill-advised politicized award, he is in the fourth grade compared to this film and the serious people it focused upon.
3) Oceans as the critical carbon absorbing element, and coral as the "canary in the coal mine" really grabbed me The overall screenplay, photography, voice overs, everything about this is spectacularly professional and rivieting.
4) Amazon as the next most critical element, with riveting views of the Amazon river drying up in 2005, and the potential scenarios of drought, fires, more drought.
5) Increasing destructiveness of weather. Katrina as the first of what could become every month storms, instead of 100 year storms. In passing, the film shows the world-class levies built by the Europeans, and they do not show the downright retarded cement levees of the US Army Corps of Engineers, levees that are the laughing stock of the rest of the (sophisticated) world.
A highlight of the film was its focus on the one man that has figured out the total carbon footprint of the cheeseburger, to include the methane farts of the cows. I am not making this up. This film is AMAZING, it is spectacular, it is professional, it is precisely the kind of well-crafted material that We the People need to begin self-governing rather than entrusting war criminals and and cronies (both parties) who sell us out.
Here are ten links that augment the deep insight and value that this DVD provides to anyone able to see it.
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
The Future of Life
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
The Philosophy of Sustainable Design
Running On Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
Apart from these, allowed by Amazon, I recommend the many books on climate, catastrophe, etcetera. See my many lists.
Follow the Science February 15, 2008
18 out of 22 found this review helpful
Dido Eastsideenzo's comment. Buy Six Degrees, watch, learn, research and act. The science it contains is accurate and the consequences it presents range from probable to speculative, and is clearly stated so. Obviously, reviewer Scat Savoy does not give a hoot about science and did not read the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report nor the 2005 Joint science academies' statement: Global response to climate change in which the U.S. National Academy of Sciences joined 10 other national science academies in calling on world leaders to acknowledge that the threat of climate change is clear and increasing, to address its causes, and to prepare for its consequences. The statement says sufficient scientific understanding of climate change exists for all nations to identify cost-effective steps that can be taken now to contribute to substantial and long-term reductions in net global greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. (and this was based on IPCC 2001 data!) These documents are a simple Google search away. Nations are made up of individuals. This documentary helps to educate the individuals, all of us, who need to understand this issue and be moved to act...if not for yourself, then for your children and grandchildren.
The truth is hard to swallow February 15, 2008
26 out of 34 found this review helpful
Instead of listening to the blather of Savoy Scat in the only review to date. Just buy the dvd, watch and learn. With over 2500 scientists world wide validating global warming as a man made caused event it at times is alarming which I'm sure it is supposed to be. Maybe Savoy Scat is better at reviewing pizza, burgers and sandwiches which is mostly what has been reviewed so far.
National security issue. April 16, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
It's a shame how militarists have so narrowly defined "national security" as an issue to focus us on war-making. But as ample evidence shows, we have security issues that involve building a sustainable economy, renewable energy, sensible transit, green architecture, new urbanism and much else.
I saw "Six Degrees" on the National Geographic Channel, and the author of the book was recently interviewed on C-SPAN's BookTV. As impactful as these media efforts have been, social change is being stalled by reckless voices on radio stations around the country (Limbaugh alone is on over 700 stations) who are misinforming millions of politically engaged people. These same people insist that we spare no expense when it comes to threats from foreign policy blowback, but they refuse to acknowledge the potential catastrophe of double-glazing the planet in carbon dioxide.
"Security" does not have to mean more profits for weapons contractors Why We Fight. Security can come to mean more profits for businesses that work on wind, solar, and tidal power; as well as efficiency and conservation innovations Sustainable Industries.
Many of our energy "needs" have actually been manufactured and marketed by industries that want to maximize the use of their commodity. Overcoming the "perception management" campaigns of those entrenched business interests is a daunting task, but so much progress has already been made that corporatists are increasingly desperate in their media efforts. The general public may not have PR firms funded by Exxon to advocate for their interests Everything's Cool, but we do have countless people who can write letters to editors, blog, call into talk radio (progressive and right-wing shows), post on message boards, share DVDs Refugees of the Blue Planet, subscribe to magazines Plenty Magazine, teach Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, preach A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet's Future and invest green Green Investing: A Guide to Making Money through Environment Friendly Stocks.
True security doesn't mean designing evermore destructive weapons of war; but, rather, designing evermore constructive methods of sustainability e2: Design Season 2.
"Humanity has entered into a condition that is in some sense more globally united and interconnected, more sensitized to the experiences and suffering of others, in certain respects more spiritually awakened, more conscious of alternative future possibilities and ideals, more capable of collective healing and compassion, and, aided by technological advances in communication media, more able to think, feel, and respond together in a spiritually evolved manner to the world's swiftly changing realities than has ever before been possible."
-Richard Tarnas, quoted in Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beau
Very depressing... November 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Don't just change your light bulbs. Don't just recycle. You have to stop using oil, you have to stop eating hamburgers, you have to stop cutting down trees. Not tomorrow, not next year, right now. The idea is not just to save money, which we would, and also save nature, which we would, but we have to save ourselves. We have to change the way we live. We have to get away from plastics, coal burning, roads, cities, and beef. To just name a few things. In other words, we're pretty much doomed. But Alec Baldwin has a great voice, the packaging is a green-product and the extras really help you save money. Too bad the packaging sucks when it comes to HOLDING the DVD in place but you can't have everything.
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