In the autumn of 2004 I was sitting on a train with a friend of mine, Karen Jepp, and we were discussing climate change. We’d both been reading about it (Bill Bryson started the whole thing as I recall) and had both, unbeknownst to each other, been going through a whole range of emotions about the subject: interest, fascination, amazement, incredulity, anger, disgust and fear. We were both clear about one thing: it was not the latest fad, it was not hysteria. We (by which I mean ALL of us) were sleep walking into the biggest disaster the human race had ever faced – Climate Change.

You see even re-reading that sentence somewhere I cringe. Talk of disasters, sleep walking, even “the human race” somehow sounds over dramatic, an exaggeration. Yeah, yeah, another global threat, another disaster. It’ll be fine. It always has. Except this time it is highly likely that it just won’t be fine at all.

The basic problem is this: how we live is not sustainable. How we consume and discard in ever greater amounts has caused us to draw ever increasing amounts of energy out of the ground and convert in order to sustain our amazing growth (the human population has increased 6 fold in around 200 years).  And doing that has put A LOT of so-called Greenhouse gases into the atmosphere very quickly. So it’s getting warmer. And that’s probably the least of our problems. You see, we (yes, that’s ALL of us again) are just not aware of the cumulative effect of our consumption.

And so there we are, Karen and I on a train on a lovely autumnal day (weather looks fine to me) we decide that we want to DO something. We have to help make people aware because then THEY might want to do something. Karen says “Let’s make a film.”

“Excellent idea”, say I. “Do you know how to do that?”
“No”, says she. “You?”
“Not a clue”.
“Right”.

At which point, we both realise that whilst we don’t know the first thing about making a film, we both knew someone who did: Lily Murray. An experienced documentary film maker who was nuts enough to say yes to helping us.

And 3 months later we had a film, SOS Climate Change. You can view it online at I’m so proud of it. We interviewed activists, campaigners, industry leaders, designers (Katherine Hamnett was a coup) and even got an actor from Home and Away to front it for us (thank you, Mick). We worked day and night (mostly editing – how hard is THAT!) and at times we gave nearly gave up. But it’s done.

So, I hope you enjoy it. And I hope it makes you think. You see we didn’t make it for sentimental reasons. It’s not about saving the Whale or the Rhino or even the Rainforests, as beautiful as those things are. The truth is that Climate Change is not new to the Earth – it’s spent most of its 4 billion year history an awful lot hotter or an awful lot colder than it currently is. And species come and go – sometimes up to 95% get wiped out and the cycle starts again. What’s different this time is for the first time in the Earth’s history there is a species who can see it coming – and do something about it. And you never know, they might just save their own skins.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mUpVZwReoic