“Fossil fuel emissions from human activity are driving up Earth’s temperature—yet something else is at work. The warming has set in motion nature’s own feedback loops which are raising temperatures even higher.”

A new series of short films titled Climate Emergency: Feedback Loops examines the life threatening risks of earth’s natural warming loops and the uncertain timeline humans have to reverse their impact on the environment. The series contains five short films: an introduction followed by four films that focus on feedback loops in forests, permafrost, the atmosphere, and the ice caps.

The series provides context for the accelerating timeline of global climate change and its threat to humanity. One of the focused films, permafrost, details the dangerous climatic implications of melting permafrost. As it melts, it releases long-stored carbon and methane that warms the atmosphere and further accelerates global warming - including the accelerated melting of more permafrost. However, this cycle also contributes to a variety of other factors affecting the globe and humans including crop failures in the Midwest, droughts and flooding in Africa, and record heat waves in India. As science paints a clearer and clearer picture of how our cumulative human impact will affect the future of earth, the films warn that we must begin to reverse our ecological footprint before we find it is too late.

Together, the films facilitate the public’s understanding of the scientific roots of how the cycle of global warming will begin to feed on itself while emphasizing the importance of reversing human-induced climate change to create a livable future on earth. The films pair accessible vocabulary and graphics for people who may not interact with climate science in their day-to-day lives with interviews from reputable climate scientists for those with a more advanced level of understanding. By using both of these techniques, the series is a helpful communications tool for climate change novices and experts alike.

Climate Emergency: Feedback Loops also capitalizes on a central understanding of the climate justice movement: humans’ fate and the future of our planet is not a question of accessibility to knowledge or technology to reverse our wrongs, but rather, whether we have the leaders and the people to allow for this reversal to happen.