In case you hadn’t noticed, things aren’t fine with our planet. But as Greta Thunberg would say, some of us still aren’t panicking enough.
Earth is growing hotter by the year, with heat records being smashed around the globe. Extreme weather events are getting worse, and the Arctic is not looking good, even though nations around the globe have committed to keeping average global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius(opens in a new tab) above pre-industrial levels.
Sure, it can be hard to get your head around exactly how human-induced climate change is affecting our globe when each day we just go about our daily lives, scrolling through TikTok, and making weekend plans. But if you actually hear from those at the forefront of this emergency, along with scientists and researchers, you might be moved to realise it’s everyone's problem — and to act in ways that might help fix it.
Being informed about climate change and its very real consequences is crucial for all human beings. The truth is no easy pill to swallow, and anxiety about climate change is real, but our lives and the continued existence of our planet depends on people knowing what’s up. Maybe you don’t have the time or inclination to sit down with the studies, like Mashable science editor Mark Kaufman does for you in his series, Climate 101. No problem. You can turn to a handy documentary and get educated on what’s happening to the only Earth we’ve got.
We've rounded up the best climate change documentaries and where to watch them. Plus, we've added a tip on how to help in real life, after these films leave you wondering what the hell to do next.
1. 2040
What would the world look like in 20 years if we actually implemented existing technological solutions to tackle climate change? In 2019, Australian filmmaker Damon Gameau wanted to find out in order to write a visual letter to his 4-year-old daughter, Velvet. Rather than sitting in the grim reality of the present, Gameau travelled the globe to chat with people who are developing ways to reduce our emissions, sequester excess carbon from the system, and disrupt the economic system — in renewable energy, regenerative farming, marine permaculture, and electric, shared transportation. With knowledge of these projects in hand and a kickass animation team, Gameau presents optimistic, hypothetical landscapes of what our world could look like if we used them. He calls it "an exercise in fact-based dreaming,” and it is truly wondrous and hopeful to behold.
How to watch: 2040 is now available to rent/buy from Amazon(opens in a new tab), Google Play(opens in a new tab), Microsoft(opens in a new tab), iTunes(opens in a new tab), and others.
After the film: Create your own personalised action plan(opens in a new tab) for 2040 on the website, which lets you select preferences and generate manageable options. We don't all have $50K to donate, but there are things each of us can do!
2. Our Planet
Sir David Attenborough’s absolutely stunning 2019 Netflix series, Our Planet, explores Earth’s important habitats and the life they support, and shows how they’re being affected by rising temperatures and sea levels, ocean acidification, and subsequent wildlife population decline. Over eight episodes, you’ll wander through frozen landscapes, jungles, forests, coastal areas and reefs, deserts, grasslands, and down into the dark depths of the ocean to see the devastatingly real impact climate change is having on the animals and plants who live in these places.
Directed by Adam Chapman, Our Planet channels classic Attenborough, artfully and thoughtfully communicating a spectacular sense of how everything is connected, from food chains to weather patterns — and how climate change is affecting it all. “All across our planet, crucial connections are being disrupted,” Attenborough narrates. “The stability that we and all life relies upon is being lost. What we do in the next 20 years will determine the future for all life on Earth.”
Every single image in this series will make you gasp out loud. You won’t unsee the walruses.
How to watch: Our Planet(opens in a new tab) is now streaming on Netflix(opens in a new tab).
After the film: Check out the series website for five ways you can help(opens in a new tab).
While you're at it, check out Attenborough's most recent documentary, A Life on Our Planet(opens in a new tab), in which he charts his incredible career while urging legitimate, immediate action on climate change. For a strong climate change 101 documentary, you can also check out Attenborough's Climate Change: The Facts(opens in a new tab) on BBC iPlayer.
3. An Inconvenient Truth + An Inconvenient Sequel
In 2006, former Vice President Al Gore dropped An Inconvenient Truth on the world, with a data-driven presentation on the urgency of climate change that branded the need to tackle its human-made causes as a moral and ethical issue. Ten years later, he followed it up with a sequel, and both are worth your time. Though it delivers data (like the hottest years on record and ocean temperatures) only up until 2005, An Inconvenient Truth gives a sense of just how long we’ve been having this conversation, the trivial steps policymakers have made or not, and the frustration over a lack of concern from our leaders. The film outlines the basic science behind global warming, makes plain the connection between CO2 levels and global temperature rise, and hammers home the fact that today’s levels and those predicted by scientists are way beyond Earth’s natural cycle. The film also makes the link between rising global and ocean temperatures and extreme weather events like Hurricane Katrina, something that unfortunately finds a brutal update in the second film.
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, released in 2017, picks up 10 years later in the same presentation format with new, sobering data, and with Gore hitting the ground and travelling to key locations like Florida, where extreme weather events have gotten worse.
It's also well worth watching Gore speaking to climate activist, Earth Uprising founder, and Global Climate Strike organizer Alexandria Villaseñor for the Washington Post in 2021 for a deeper reflection on the impact of the films.
How to watch:
An Inconvenient Truth is now streaming from Kanopy(opens in a new tab) and Hoopla(opens in a new tab) in the U.S, and Prime Video(opens in a new tab) in the UK.
An Inconvenient Sequel is now streaming from Kanopy(opens in a new tab) in the U.S. and available to rent/buy from Amazon(opens in a new tab), Microsoft(opens in a new tab), iTunes(opens in a new tab) in the UK.
After the film: Check out Gore's nonprofit The Climate Reality Project(opens in a new tab) and see what they're up to near you.
4. Fire in Paradise
Extreme weather events like California’s raging wildfires are hard to comprehend unless you’re on the ground, like the residents of the small town of Paradise. Directed by Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari, Netflix’s Fire in Paradise details the experiences of residents who survived the 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County, California, which killed 85 people and caused $16.5 billion in damage.
The 40-minute documentary recreates this disaster through interviews with unfathomably courageous Cal Fire and volunteer firefighters, 911 fire dispatch operators, and residents who found themselves trapped by walls of flame on all sides. Combining these with news coverage and harrowing phone footage, Fire in Paradise takes you minute-by-minute through the disaster to show just how quickly these fires spread, engulfing houses, businesses, and roads. It also puts them in the context of the increasingly frequent and intensified wildfires California is experiencing due to climate change.
How to watch: Fire in Paradise(opens in a new tab) is now streaming on Netflix(opens in a new tab).
After the film: Read up on these charities detailed in a feature Mashable ran in 2018 after the fires. Check their websites to see what they need right now, and consider donating or volunteering. If you’re looking for further onscreen investigation into those affected by California’s fires, watch Derek Knowles and Spencer Seibert’s After the Fire(opens in a new tab), which follows residents of Sonoma Valley after the devastating wildfires there in 2017.
5. Lowland Kids
Isle de Jean Charles, a sinking island on the coast of Louisiana, is set to completely disappear one day in the near future thanks to rising sea levels. Lowland Kids, a 20-minute short documentary that premiered at SXSW in 2019, introduces you to Howard and Juliette, teen siblings who have grown up on the island and are soon to become America’s first climate refugees(opens in a new tab). With poignant direction from Sandra Winther, stunning cinematography, and frank, incredibly sad interviews, the film presents an intimate portrait of a family at the precipice of involuntary upheaval, exploring the idea of home and displacement due to climate change.
How to watch: Lowland Kids(opens in a new tab) is now streaming on Vimeo(opens in a new tab).
After the film: For more stories from this part of the world, watch the Smithsonian Channel’s five-part series, Last Call for the Bayou: Five Stories from Louisiana’s Disappearing Coastline(opens in a new tab).
6. Chasing Coral
If you don't know what coral bleaching actually means, what it looks like, and why it's an undeniable indicator of climate change, Netflix’s Chasing Coral will leave you in no doubt. (It's when corals, stressed by temperatures changes, expel algae that live within their tissues, causing them to turn white(opens in a new tab).) Directed by Chasing Ice’s Jeff Orlowski, the documentary follows a team of dedicated divers, photographers, and marine and coral reef biologists studying the loss of the world’s reefs.
Human-induced climate change is the biggest threat to coral reefs(opens in a new tab) — more so, even, than pollution and unsustainable fishing. Global warming, rising sea temperatures, and ocean acidification have devastated reefs in the Florida Keys, American Samoa, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Hawaii, New Caledonia, and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The film shows not only how these ecosystems are inherently connected to ours, but also how devastating it is for the team who sees the reef close up, diving every day to manually track its ecological collapse. There are plenty of archival comparisons throughout the film illustrating reef demise, but nothing will prepare you for the time lapse revealed at the end.
How to watch: Chasing Coral(opens in a new tab) is now streaming on Netflix.(opens in a new tab)
After the film: Check out the Chasing Coral (opens in a new tab)(opens in a new tab)website(opens in a new tab) for ways to take action.
7. The Condor and the Eagle
Directed by Sophie and Clément Guerra, The Condor and the Eagle examines a key contributor to climate change — the fossil fuel industry — and its disproportionate impact on Indigenous communities. In interviews with Indigenous leaders, activists, and organisers, the film makes plain the serious impact the coal and oil industry is having on First Nations communities, while heralding the need for inclusive solutions to the global crisis.
The documentary focuses on the work of activists Bryan Parras and Yudith Nieto in Manchester, Houston; Lubicon Cree activist Melina Laboucan-Massimo from Alberta, Canada, where the destructive oil extraction development known as the Tar Sands is; Ponca Nation activist Casey Camp-Horinek; and human rights defender Patricia Gualinga of the Ecuadorian Amazon Indigenous community Pueblo Kichwa de Sarayaku. The Condor and the Eagle details the lack of consultation with local communities from exploitive, unchecked fossil fuel companies, and how local groups are speaking to one another to figure out ways to resist development.
How to watch: The Condor and the Eagle(opens in a new tab) is available to rent from Films for Action.(opens in a new tab)
After the film: Check out the filmmakers' Impact campaign(opens in a new tab) for events, discussions, and workshops online or near you.
8. I Am Greta
You know who Greta Thunberg is. The young superstar activist has been campaigning for action on climate change since she was 15 years old, ditching school every Friday from August 2018 to sit outside the Swedish parliament and demand government action. Thunberg's action saw press swarming, politicians hand-wringing, and the emergence of the massive FridaysForFuture(opens in a new tab) youth-organised global climate strike movement. Since then, Thunberg's been twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, named TIME Person of the Year, and asked for less 'blah, blah, blah' and more honesty at COP26.
But I Am Greta is a quieter film than you'd think. Released in 2020 and directed by Nathan Grossman, the documentary offers a truly personal look at Thunberg's actions, closely following the 15-year-old activist and her father, Svante, from her "Skolstrejk för klimatet" demonstrations to her 2018 speech at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Poland, and meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in 2019. Most importantly, the film joins Thunberg aboard the Malizia II, the electricity-generating sailboat Thunberg traveled Britain to New York City in before she shamed apathetic grown-ups at U.N. Climate Action Summit in 2019.
How to watch: I Am Greta(opens in a new tab) is now streaming on Hulu in the U.S.(opens in a new tab) and Disney+ in the UK(opens in a new tab).
After the film: Follow Thunberg's work(opens in a new tab), and here are five more young climate activists to follow too(opens in a new tab).
9. The Great Green Wall
Africa's ambitious Great Green Wall is the focus of this stunning documentary, the 8,000-kilometre wall of trees cultivated by communities across the continent to restore land ravaged by the effects of climate change. City of God director Fernando Meirelles executive produced this one, with Malian singer and activist Inna Modja hosting. The documentary travels through the Sahel region(opens in a new tab) (encompassing Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and The Gambia), where temperatures are rising 1.5 times faster than the global average, according to a U.N. report(opens in a new tab).
How to watch: The Great Green Wall(opens in a new tab) is now streaming on Kanopy in the U.S.(opens in a new tab) and available to rent on Sky in the UK.(opens in a new tab)
After the film: Check out the Great Green Wall website(opens in a new tab) for more community initiatives.
10. Kiss the Ground
Woody Harrelson narrates this 2020 documentary that takes a look at a solution to climate change that the actor says "is right under our feet, and it's as old as dirt." It's soil, and "due to its vast scale and its ability to sequester immense quantities of greenhouse gases, it could just be the one thing that can balance our climate, replenish our fresh water supplies, and feed the world." The documentary initially plays to our more self-motivated tendencies, getting our attention by championing the health benefits of eating nutrient-rich food grown in healthy soil (with a fleeting cameo from Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen, why not), but for the most part, it hammers home soil's critical ability to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and stabilise Earth's climate.
It's unsettling to watch as the film unpacks the pressing threat of soil desertification (land that is turning to desert), the damage caused by industrial agriculture (the quick history of chemical pesticide use in America is alarming), and the fact that within 60 years, the U.N. predicts the world's remaining topsoil will be gone. But instead of resting on this doomscape, the film optimistically showcases those championing regenerative agriculture, running composting and sustainable waste management facilities, and fighting to restore balance to the planet through the dirt under your feet.
How to watch: Kiss the Ground(opens in a new tab) is now streaming on Netflix(opens in a new tab).
After the film: Check out Kiss the Ground's stewardship(opens in a new tab) and farmland(opens in a new tab) programs that support farmers and their adoption of regenerative agriculture, and check out the website's map(opens in a new tab) where you can find regenerative local farms.
11. How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change
If you’re looking for a straightforward, textbook look at the causes and impact of climate change, this is not it. Directed by Oscar-nominated Gasland director Josh Fox, How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change is as unpindownable and strange as its title. Summarising the globe's situation with overwhelmingly personal bluntness, Fox brings a colloquially relatable level of alarm to the film, saying after one particularly doomed montage, "I don't know about you, but I'm about ready to watch a few cat videos right now."
Nonetheless, he interviews climate scientists and environmental analysts and scholars, and joins those on the frontline in order to ask the question: What happens to human beings when our industrial development puts incredible stress on civilization, from coastal areas affected by rising sea levels to places plagued by extreme weather events like drought, hurricanes, tornados, and wildfires?
How to watch: How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change(opens in a new tab) is now streaming on iTunes(opens in a new tab).
After the film: Check out the film's website for ideas on how to take daily action(opens in a new tab).
12. Anote's Ark
Directed by Matthieu Rytz, Anote's Ark focuses on the Republic of Kiribati and the viewpoint of Anote Tong, the nation's former president whose work advocating for action on human-induced climate change and ocean conservation has seen him nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Sundance-premiered film explores the Pacific Island which, like many in the region(opens in a new tab), is facing peril from rising sea levels, with many attempting to migrate elsewhere. This includes Tiemeri, who was born in Kiribati but aims to move her family to New Zealand.
How to watch: Anote's Ark(opens in a new tab) is now available to stream on Prime Video.(opens in a new tab)
After the film: Check out the film's website(opens in a new tab) for further information on how to take action, and read Mashable's three-part multimedia project that spotlights the daily lives of Marshall Islands residents.
13. Before the Flood
If you’re not into climate change documentaries helmed by celebrities, this one might not be for you. However, even if you're not a fan of Hollywood actor, Before the Flood presenter, and U.N. Messenger of Peace Leonardo DiCaprio, his use of star power and sizable budget to draw attention to the climate crisis in this documentary is undeniably impactful, encouraging people to admit what they don’t know and make the decision to get educated. “The truth is, the more I’ve learned about this issue and everything that contributes to the problem, the more I realise how much I don’t know,” he says.
Released in 2016, Before the Flood covers many of the same areas as Al Gore's films, functioning as a strong primer on climate change, the damage we’ve done, and what’s likely to happen if we fail to act. DiCaprio spent two years traveling to key locations: the melting ice sheets in Kangerlussuaq in Greenland and Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic; flooding Florida with its electric flood pumps and raised roads; and the Sumatran rainforest, where deforestation is causing wildlife habitat destruction and increased industrial carbon emissions. DiCaprio also interviews a heck of a lot of people, everyone from world leaders, including then-President Barack Obama and Pope Francis (seriously, the Pope), to Arctic explorers and guides, climatologists, astronauts, scholars, economists, marine ecologists, and Elon Musk inside Tesla’s Gigafactory in Nevada.
Though it’s four years old now, the arguments are frustratingly the same today. The documentary was filmed in conjunction with the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement, and since then, things have happened. “You just have to take it on faith that these countries are going to follow through with what they say. How likely is that?" DiCaprio narrates. If you can get past the fact that DiCaprio learned his first lessons about the repercussions of thoughtless decadence from a painting that sat over his crib as a child (Hieronymous Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. Seriously.) then you can get into this.
How to watch: Before the Flood(opens in a new tab) is now streaming on Disney+.(opens in a new tab)
After the film: Check out the Before the Flood(opens in a new tab) website(opens in a new tab) for ideas on how to help.
14. Chasing Ice
Directed by Chasing Coral’s Jeff Orlowski, Chasing Ice focuses its efforts on visionary environmental photographer James Balog and the documentation known as the Extreme Ice Survey, which saw him and a group of adventurers hauling time-lapse cameras across the Arctic ("not the nicest environment for technology") to show the effects of global warming on glaciers. It’s this type of difficult, taxing, and dangerous time-lapse filming that has made communicating the effects of climate change to the public incredibly effective, and it’s the same strategy Orlowski’s team uses in Chasing Coral, to devastating effect.
Balog first captured images in the Arctic in 2005 on assignment for National Geographic, an experience that would change him from climate change skeptic to campaigner and evidence provider. As well as stunning cinematography from Orlowski, Chasing Ice includes footage from Balog’s history-making, 75-minute, time-lapse capture of the calving (when big ice chunks break off a glacier) of the Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland. It’s hard to forget, and impossible to dispute.
How to watch: Chasing Ice is now available to rent/buy from Amazon(opens in a new tab), iTunes(opens in a new tab), YouTube(opens in a new tab).
After the film: Watch Chasing Coral(opens in a new tab) (see above).
15. Thank You for the Rain
Kenyan farmer and climate activist Kisilu Musya filmed the experiences of his home and village with his wife, Christina, and demonstrated how climate change is making extreme weather events there more extreme, meaning very real consequences for his family and community. He teamed up with Norwegian filmmaker and activist Julia Dahr to make Thank You for the Rain, which delves into climate justice, climate refugees, and gender equality from a perspective not always seen in mainstream climate documentaries.
How to watch: Thank You for the Rain(opens in a new tab) is now available to rent on Vimeo.(opens in a new tab)
After the film: Check out the film's website(opens in a new tab) to see how you can demand climate action, host a screening, or support Musya's work.
16. Cowspiracy
Made in 2014 by filmmaker Kip Andersen, Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret investigates the relatively unchallenged livestock industry and its destructive effect on the planet, its catastrophic natural resource usage, and the major role animal agriculture plays in global warming. But hey, nobody wants to talk about it, right?
The film argues the main focus for many environmental groups combatting climate change is fossil fuels, while Andersen finds a lack of cooperation with leaders within the movement to discuss animal agriculture — although many tell him how dangerous it could be to speak truth to power within this realm. It will make you rethink what you eat, at the very least.
How to watch: Cowspiracy(opens in a new tab) is now streaming on Netflix(opens in a new tab).
After the film: Check out the film's website(opens in a new tab) for ideas on how to take action, primarily including ways to pick plants over meat.
17. Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
In 2016, an international group of scientists, the Anthropocene Working Group, declared the end of Earth’s Holocene epoch(opens in a new tab), arguing that we’ve entered what’s known as the Anthropocene epoch(opens in a new tab), in which human activity has irreversibly changed and now determines the planet’s natural systems. It’s this term that inspires this documentary, created by Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, and Edward Burtynsky, and narrated by Alicia Vikander. Self-described as(opens in a new tab) “a cinematic meditation on humanity’s massive reengineering of the planet,” Anthropocene: The Human Epoch takes a look at how much human activity has permanently impacted the natural world on a colossal scale.
How to watch: Anthropocene: The Human Epoch(opens in a new tab) is now streaming on Kanopy.(opens in a new tab)
After the film: Check out the filmmakers' favoured organisations to support on the website(opens in a new tab).
18. Racing Extinction
The rate of species going extinct is accelerating(opens in a new tab). (Here are all we lost in 2019.) The U.N. attributes this(opens in a new tab) to changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution, and invasive alien species, in that order, some of which The Discovery Channel's Racing Extinction digs into. Created by the Ocean's 11-style team behind The Cove(opens in a new tab),(opens in a new tab) the film uses plenty of clever filming techniques to dig into some serious truths about the human impact on wildlife. Using lab experiments and photo comparison, the team examines the effects of ocean acidification and rising temperatures on marine ecosystems, and employs high-definition infra-red cameras to reveal CO2 emissions from transportation and factories. As this is indeed the Cove team, the documentary also deploys undercover cameras and covert techniques to examine the other threat to species across the globe: the illegal wildlife trade.
How to watch: Racing Extinction is now available to buy/rent on iTunes(opens in a new tab) or Amazon(opens in a new tab).
After the film: Learn more about protecting the Endangered Species Act(opens in a new tab). It's important.
19. Paris to Pittsburgh
If you’re not sure what you can do on a local level to contribute to the goals of the Paris Agreement and aren’t happy to wait around for the federal government, check out this empowering documentary. Directed by National Geographic filmmaker Sidney Beaumont and documentarian Michael Bonfiglio, Paris to Pittsburgh follows Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement in 2017 (before Joe Biden's rejoining) and the Mayor of Pittsburgh's decision for the city to stay in. Citizens hit the streets, which drove a national movement(opens in a new tab) in cities around America that pledged to uphold the Paris goals and commit to using 100 percent renewable energy.
Narrated by The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel's Rachel Brosnahan, the documentary consults climate scientists, geologists, politicians, and local pioneers to understand what those cities are actually doing to achieve this. This includes renewable energy efforts in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, hammered by extreme weather events like Hurricane Maria, which caused widespread power outages, and Miami, Florida, affected by flooding from rising sea levels. Plus, it names and shames climate deniers within the American government, and points out shameful budget cuts to the EPA by the Trump administration.
How to watch: Paris to Pittsburgh(opens in a new tab) is now streaming on Disney+(opens in a new tab).
After the film: Check out the We Are Still In campaign(opens in a new tab) and read about how individuals can get involved(opens in a new tab).
20. Ice on Fire
Yes, this one has Leonardo DiCaprio's fingerprints on it too, but it's a strong enough film to make this list. Executive-produced and narrated by the actor, HBO's Ice on Fire takes a look at the devastating potential impact the melting Arctic ice caps will have on the Earth. Through interviews with scientists and experts, the Cannes-selected documentary investigates the fact that methane gases released into the atmosphere from the melting caps will have catastrophic repercussions on the planet. Making plain the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions, the film consults innovative scientists focused on strategies to pull CO2 from the atmosphere, as well as other renewable and sustainable projects, offering up a much-needed but time-sensitive glimmer of hope. Technology got us into this mess, maybe it can get us out of it.
How to watch: Ice on Fire is now streaming on HBO Max(opens in a new tab), HBO Now(opens in a new tab), HBO Go(opens in a new tab), and Kanopy(opens in a new tab).
After the film: Get readin' — there are a bunch of resources(opens in a new tab) on HBO's site worthy of your time.
21. This Changes Everything
Directed by Avi Lewis and inspired by Naomi Klein’s nonfiction book This Changes Everything, this documentary visits communities on the front lines of climate change. Filmed over 211 shoot days in nine countries and five continents over four years, and narrated by Klein herself, the film visits those demanding change from power: from First Nations communities around the Alberta Tar Sands to post-Hurricane Sandy New York; farmers in Montana’s Powder River Basin to anti-gold mine protesters in Halkidiki, Greece; and communities protesting coal plants in wetlands in Sompeta, Andhra Pradesh, as well as those living through air pollution in China’s cities.
This Changes Everything illustrates the effects of government inaction on climate change, examining the false benefits promised to local communities surrounding fossil fuel plants and the growth of only those exploiting natural resources at the top of the economic system. Klein offers some hope, suggesting that we could seize this current climate crisis to tackle our failed economic systems and create something better, and that change happens only through pressure from below.
How to watch: This Changes Everything(opens in a new tab) is now available to rent/buy on Amazon(opens in a new tab).
After the film: You could read the book(opens in a new tab) or check out the team's directory of those creating solutions to the climate crisis(opens in a new tab).
22. Climate Refugees
Directed and produced by Michael P. Nash in 2010, Climate Refugees is a documentary about the human face of climate change: how people, towns, and even whole countries are moving around the globe due to rising sea levels and following extreme weather events, and how increasing global temperatures affect food supply for populations. It's 10 years old now, and situations have sadly gotten worse for some in the areas Nash visits, but it's still an important film to consult.
About 40 percent of the world’s population lives within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of the coast(opens in a new tab), and these communities are at the forefront of the impact of climate change, including Pacific Island nations like the Maldives and Tuvalu, impacted by rising seas and severe storms. Nash travelled around the world for 18 months talking to people in those communities, as well as aid workers and activists, scientists, and politicians including Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, and Newt Gingrich.
How to watch: Climate Refugees is now streaming on Hoopla(opens in a new tab) and Kanopy(opens in a new tab) in the U.S. and Amazon Prime(opens in a new tab) in the UK.
After the film: Watch Lowland Kids(opens in a new tab) (see above) and read Mashable's three-part multimedia project that spotlights the daily lives of Marshall Islands residents.
23. Disobedience
If you’re feeling hopeless in the face of climate change and aren’t sure whether there’s anything you can do, check out Disobedience. Directed by Kelly Nyks, the film is a convincing presentation of what happens when people get sick of waiting for governments to act and unite to take things into their own hands, like the 50,000-strong human chain formed in Aliağa, Turkey in 1990, to protest the planned coal power plant. Featuring interviews with This Changes Everything author Naomi Klein, activist Lidy Nacpil, co-founder of 350.org Bill McKibben, online activist network Avaaz.org founder Ricken Patel, and other leaders in this realm, the film examines the power of climate activism and using your own resources to change things.
How to watch: Disobedience(opens in a new tab) is now streaming from the film's official website(opens in a new tab).
After the film: Read Mashable's article on how to become an activist, no matter your age, and check out Mashable's Social Good Series for more inspiration on how to get involved in the fight to tackle climate change.
Importantly, if all of this has triggered some severe climate change anxiety, here's how to cope.
