Climate Change Gets Big Screen Treatment

With the ruinous aftermath of Hurricane Sandy still fresh in peoples’ minds, the cable network Showtime announced last Monday that they will be exploring the human impact of climate change in a 2013 documentary entitled Years of Living Dangerously. In a series of six to eight one-hour episodes, Years of Living Dangerously will reveal true stories of “heartbreak, hope and heroism” from those affected first-hand by climate change. These experiences will be empowered with an “epic and passionate collaboration” of Oscar winner, Avatar director and longtime environmental advocate James Cameron, producer Jerry Weintraub, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, 60 Minutes‘ Joel Bach and David Gelber and GameChange Capital founder Daniel Abbasi as executive producers.

“The recent devastation on the East Coast is a tragic reminder of the direct link between our daily lives and climate change,” said David Nevins, Showtime’s president of entertainment, in a press release. “This series presents a unique opportunity to combine the large-scale filmmaking styles of James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub and Arnold Schwarzenegger—some of Hollywood’s biggest movie makers—with the hard-hitting, intimate journalism of 60 Minutes veterans Joel Bach and David Gelber. I believe this combination will make for a thought-provoking television event.”

Actors Matt Damon, Don Cheadle and Alec Baldwin have also signed on to contribute to the series, with Edward Norton and other famous film stars expected to join in as well, the network stated. Reporting from the field will be a “dream team” of journalists including three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman and two-time Pulitzer winner Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, MSNBC host Chris Hayes and bestselling food writer Mark Bittman. Climate Progress blog editor Joe Romm will serve as Technical Advisor for the project.

“I could not be more excited to announce the upcoming Showtime TV event, Years of Living Dangerously,” Romm wrote on Climate Progress. “I am technical advisor for the first-of-its-kind series, which means I help advise the producers which scientists and experts they should talk to on a given story. Ultimately, I’ll be looking out for any technical mistakes in the final product…although we are assembling a science advisory board of A-list climatologists to help in that regard. The talent that has been put together for this effort is amazing.”