| Participants | |
|---|---|
| Thomas L. Friedman | (3 episodes) |
| Mark Bittman | (2 episodes) |
| Harrison Ford | (2 episodes) |
| Chris Hayes | (2 episodes) |
| M. Sanjayan | (2 episodes) |
| Jessica Alba | (1 episode) |
| Don Cheadle | (1 episode) |
| Matt Damon | (1 episode) |
| America Ferrera | (1 episode) |
| Michael C. Hall | (1 episode) |
| Olivia Munn | (1 episode) |
| Arnold Schwarzenegger | (1 episode) |
| Daniel F.Q. Smith | (1 episode) |
| Ian Somerhalder | (1 episode) |
| Leslie Stahl | (1 episode) |
| MPAA Rating: | TV-PG |
| Production Company: | The Years Project |
| Distributor: | Showtime |
| Release Date (US): | 4/13/2014 |
| Domestic Box Office: | N/A |
| Foreign Box Office: | N/A |
| Production Budget: | N/A |
| Crew | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PRODUCED BY | |||||||||||
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| Series Music: | Richard Marvin | ||||||||||
| Cinematography: | Lucian Read; Wolfgang Held; Ronan Killeen; Rick Rowley; Maryse Alberti; Ben Bloodwell; David McFarland; Paul Atkins; Conny Fridh; Nick Higgins; Joseph Hudson; Tjitte Jan Nieuwkoop; Jato C. Smith; Adam Stone; Diana Wilmar; Mark Moormann | ||||||||||
| Film Editing: | Adam Bolt; Paul Frost; Dan Madden; M. Brennan; Alison Amron; Federico Rosenzvit; Cindy Lee | ||||||||||
| Dialogue Editor: | Esther Regelson | ||||||||||
| Sound Mixer: | Mark Roy | ||||||||||
| Re-recording Mixer: | Tom Paul; Erc Milano | ||||||||||
| Casting: | Lois J. Drabkin | ||||||||||
| Production Manager: | Christine Canedo | ||||||||||
| Audio Production: | David Goodheart | ||||||||||
| Science Advisors: | Heidi Cullen; Joseph J. Romm | ||||||||||
Each hour-long episode in this series of nine examines two or three issues related to the continuing complex of phenomena comprising of human-caused (or anthropogenic) climate change. Released in 2014, the series has two goals: to convey the larger impacts of climate change — longer fire seasons, pine-bark beetle infestations in northern forests, persistent drought, sea-level rise, other changes — in accurate but non-wonkish fashion, and to show us the faces of those who are bearing the brunt of the damage. Those people are mostly in less developed countries, although climate change is striking home in some fashion everywhere on the planet.
Each episode interleaves two or three stories. I summarise the structure of the nine episodes in the following table.
| EPISODE 1: Dry Season | ||
| Harrison Ford | Sumatra & Borneo, Indonesia | What will coming atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and methane mean for agriculture? |
| Don Cheadle | Plainview, TX | How is climate change linked to the 3-year drought, and the closure of the Cargill meat-packing plant? |
| Thomas L. Friedmann | Turkey & Syria | Are the roots of Syria's civil war in a long drought related to climate change? |
| EPISODE 2: End of the Woods | ||
| Harrison Ford | Indonesia | How is the demand for palm oil driving deforestation? |
| Arnold Schwarzenegger | California & Montana | How has climage change affected fire seasons in the western U.S. and the resources needed to fight wildland fires? |
| Harrison Ford | Borneo & Sumatra, Indonesia | What will Indonesia's government do about palm oil plantations in the country's national parks? |
| EPISODE 3: The Surge | ||
| Chris Hayes, MSNBC | Staten Island, NY | Will Cong. Grimm understand what made Superstorm Sandy so devastating? |
| M. Sanjayan, conservation scientist | Christmas Island | Is climate change affecting El Niño? |
| EPISODE 4: Ice & Brimstone | ||
| Ian Somerhalder | Louisiana Gulf Coast? | Will Etta Jane bring her father Rick Joyner around? |
| Leslie Stahl | Greenland | What's happening to the ice? |
| EPISODE 5: True Colors | ||
| Mark Bittman | Union Beach, NJ | How has Gov. Christie handled the recovery from Superstorm Sandy? |
| Olivia Munn | Olympia, WA | Will Gov. Jay Inslee win his fight against coal exports? |
| EPISODE 6: Winds of Change | ||
| America Ferrera | Kansas | Why does David Crane, CEO of NRG, push wind & solar and why doesn't the U.S.? Could HI's James Taylor have something to do with it? |
| Mark Bittman | Washington, DC & Lupton, CO | What's wrong with natural gas as a "bridge fuel"? |
| EPISODE 7: Revolt, Rebuild, Renew | ||
| Jessica Alba | Las Vegas | Will Climate Corps succeed in cutting corporate energy use? |
| Chris Hayes | Far Rockaway, NY | Why has Superstorm Sandy left the people here without power for months? |
| Thomas Friedman | Cairo, Egypt | How is wheat related to the Arab Spring and climate change? |
| EPISODE 8: A Dangerous Future | ||
| Matt Damon | Los Angeles | Can heat waves be killing more people than we think? |
| Thomas Friedman | Yemen | Could Yemen run out of water? |
| Matt Damon | Bangladesh | Why is Bangladesh so vulnerable to sea-level rise? |
| EPISODE 9: Moving a Mountain | ||
| Matt Damon / Michael C. Hall | Southern Bangladesh | What are the threats driving these people off their land? |
| Thomas Friedman | Washington, DC | How does President Obama feel about what's happening? |
| M. Sanjayan / Dr. Paul Mayavsky | Tupungatito Glacier, Chile | What can these ice cores tell us about the likelihood of abrupt climate change? |
The series makes good use of some big names, such as Harrison Ford and Jessica Alba, who put aside their celebrity personas out of genuine committment. Coupled with superior production values and skillful writing and editing, the episodes get their messages across very effectively. It was a complicated production involving some 243 people in addition to the on-camera participants, most of whom worked without makeup in what was clearly a labor of love.1 Showtime won a well-deserved Emmy for best non-fiction series of 2014.
My Rating:
10 out of 10
Capsule review: Showtime's Years of Living Dangerously is a brilliant series of documentaries. Well produced and skillfully edited, it conveys the larger facts of climate change clearly and accurately without jargon while showing us the faces of those bearing the brunt.
| IMDB Rating: 8.5 | Raters: 532 |
To contact Chris Winter, send email to this address.