The Last Glaciers, a powerful new documentary, sheds light on one of the planet’s most pressing environmental crises.
Through their 2017 documentary, the cinematic feature film A Plastic Ocean fundamentally changed the way humanity perceives single-use plastic products, casting light on the issue of human addiction to single-use plastic and the detrimental effects this has on the environment and human health.
Now, the director of A Plastic Ocean, Craig Leeson, and Plastic Oceans Foundation board members Malcolm Wood and Matt Reid, have teamed up for a new environmental feature film, called The Last Glaciers, in which filmmaker Craig and Malcolm aims to bring the same level of awareness to what might be humanity’s biggest challenge yet – climate change.
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Screened in over 70 countries and translated into more than 20 languages, A Plastic Ocean was one of the most awarded environmental documentaries in 2017 – Sir David Attenborough called it “the most important film of our time.”The film’s important message and unequivocal, science-based research have been effective in changing environmental policy among governments, businesses and organisations, including the United Nations. It is supported by a long list of health organisations, educational institutions, and environmental leaders.
The Last Glaciers aims to bring the same awareness to climate change by embarking on an extreme journey to where climate change is most visible – the mountains and the polar ice caps. Here, the team investigates the effects global warming is having on planet earth through a disappearing environmental icon – glaciers.
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As the ice melts at an unprecedented rate worldwide, scientists are becoming increasingly frustrated that their data is largely being ignored by governments around the world. Their message is turning to panic. If we don’t address global warming now, we will not survive the changes that will occur on earth.
Through the eyes of scientists from NASA to France’s Ice Memory Project to the studies being done by INAIEGM in Peru, the team looks at how ice, particularly glaciers, tells us the story of past climate change, and how man is affecting the future.
The messages contained in the film are a wakeup call; what the team discovers on their journey is beyond shocking. Entire communities already face uncertain futures as the relationship between earth, water and our changing climate severely impact ecosystems, agriculture, water systems, infrastructure and human health. The very life support systems we all rely on for daily survival are beginning to collapse.
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In October 2018, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a special report on Global Warming that claims research is showing we have only twelve years to urgently prevent a climate catastrophe. This comes at a time when the current United States President is determined to remove the United States from the Paris Agreement, ignoring the scientific data provided by his own institutions and the recommendations on solutions to the threat of climate deterioration.
By clarifying the multiple contradicting messages that have been presented to the public, The Last Glaciers team aims to remove doubt that climate change is real and is our single biggest threat to extinction.
To tell the tale first hand and to take the audience into the realm of climate change Malcolm, a famous adventurer and experienced para-alpinist, with the help of world-renowned climber and paraglider Dave Turner, trained Craig to overcome his greatest fears and scale some of the world’s biggest and most dangerous mountains to study glacier science.
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Already, they have successfully climbed and documented their findings on some of the most difficult summits in the world, including Mont Blanc, Illimani and Villanaraju through this journey. Craig and Malcolm have also just completed a trip to Antarctica, accompanying scientists from NASA on Operation Icebridge – a mission that surveys how climate change is affecting the huge expanses of snow and ice around Earth’s polar regions.
Many of the scientists, mountaineers and environmental experts the team worked with believe it is already too late to undo the damage being caused by climate change. The film The Last Glaciers is a call to action for the global community to come together and prioritize climate change as a real threat. The film aims to give scientists a platform to speak directly to the public and visually show their research, their concerns, and their solutions to the world.
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