James Burke: After the Warming

A futuristic “documentary” from the author/presenter of Connections and The Day the Universe Changed that takes a look backwards at the climate change issue from the vantage of 2050. Made in 1994, many of Burke’ s assumptions are already laughably (and sadly) out of date in many respects, at least as far as the actions he imagined being taken by the industrialized nations of the world. For example, he foresaw the US signing onto a global initiative to tackle the greenhouse effect by the year 2000 and the establishment of an international agency, the Planetary Management Authority that would oversee a comprehensive carbon trading scheme. Nonetheless, it does provide a interesting perspective on the issue as well as an informative primer on climate change.