Toxic Comedy Pictures' Documentary on Global Warming Premieres at UCSB

A new film addressing the gap between scientific understanding of global warming and the public's perception of the issue will have its local premiere at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The film, "Everything's Cool," will screen at 7 p.m., July 30, in the UCSB MultiCultural Center Theater. A question-and-answer period with filmmaker Judith Helfand will follow the screening.

A production of Toxic Comedy Pictures, "Everything's Cool" chronicles a group of self-appointed global warming messengers on their cross-country quest to find the iconic image, proper language, and points of leverage that will bring the general public--and their elected officials--from a point of understanding the urgency of global warming to one of creating the political will necessary to demand a new energy economy.

The film includes commentaries from several global warming experts. Among them: author Bill McKibben, whose book "The End of Nature" is often cited as a classic work on the environmental crisis; Heidi Cullen, the climate expert at The Weather Channel who was previously a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction; and Rick Piltz, the former senior associate with the Climate Change Science Program and the United States Global Change Research Program who resigned over what he considered the intrusion of politics into the scientific arena and a questionable scientific review process overseen by top White House officials.

The screening of "Everything's Cool" is being presented by the UCSB's Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television, and New Media as part of the Blue Horizons Summer Program for Environmental Media. The Blue Horizons program brings together student environmental scientists and filmmakers to explore important issues affecting the global ocean and to make compelling short films communicating these issues to general audiences.

"The film is all about solutions to climate change problems and the messengers who have been working on creating those solutions for a long time," said Constance Penley, a professor of film and media studies who teaches the Blue Horizons course on the history and theory of environmental media. "We are also excited to bring Judith Helfand to our community for this screening. As co-founder of Working Films, Judith is a leader in combining the power of filmmaking with grassroots activism on behalf of the planet."