Green World Rising (2) Last Hours

The film “Last Hours” is the second film in the Green World Rising Series (the first one is "Carbon" that is available on this channel). Last Hours describes a science-based climate scenario where a tipping point to runaway climate change is triggered by massive releases of frozen methane. Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, has already started to percolate into the open seas and atmosphere from methane hydrate deposits beneath melting arctic ice, from the warming northern-hemisphere tundra, and from worldwide continental-shelf undersea methane pools.

Burning fossil fuels release carbon that, principally through greenhouse effect, heat the atmosphere and the seas. This is happening most rapidly at the polar extremes, and this heating has already begun the process of releasing methane. If we do not begin to significantly curtail the use of carbon-based fossil fuels, this freed methane threatens to radically accelerate the speed of global warming, potentially producing a disaster beyond the ability of the human species to adapt.

With this film, we hope to awaken people to the fact that the earth has experienced five major extinctions in the deep geologic past – times when more than half of all life on earth vanished – and that we are now entering a sixth extinction. Industrial civilization with its production of greenhouse gases has the potential to trigger a mass extinction on the order of those seen in the deep geological past. In the extreme, it could threaten not just human civilization, but the very existence of human life on this planet.

An asset for the climate change movement, “Last Hours” will be disseminated globally to help inform society about the dangers associated with climate change and to encourage the world community to chart a path forward that greatly reduces green house gas emissions. We encourage you to explore this website and the highlighted actions you can take to address climate change. We look forward to bringing you additional films about the challenges we face and the solutions that exist over the next few years, in the lead up to COP21, the 2015 UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris.

“Last Hours” is narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, presented by Thom Hartmann and directed by Leila Conners. Executive Producers are George DiCaprio, Earl Katz and Roee Sharon Peled. Last Hours is produced by Mathew Schmid and was written by Thom Hartmann, Sam Sacks, and Leila Conners. Music is composed and performed by Francesco Lupica. Last Hours is brought to you by the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and produced by Tree Media.

It is sobering, if not frightening, to think that we as a race are in the midst of another (sixth) major extinction.  The Permian-Triassic event, about 250 million years ago, was the largest extinction of life:  killing 57% of all families, 83% of all genera, and 90% to 96% of all species (rf. Extinction event).  The most recent major extinction - Cretaceous-Paleogene - is a mere 66 million years ago, with the following corresponding percentages of life devastation:  17%, 50% and 75%. What the environment experts warn in this episode is that the release of methane gas into the atmosphere promises to push exponentially the rate of climate change.  So we march ever faster toward that present day extinction.