''Cool It'' is a 2010

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

directed by

Ondi Timoner Ondi Doane Timoner is an American filmmaker and the founder and chief executive officer of Interloper Films, a full-service production company located in Pasadena, California. Timoner is a two-time recipient of the Sundance Film Festival's ...

. It is based on the book '' Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming'' by

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

statistician

Bjørn Lomborg Bjørn Lomborg (; born 6 January 1965) is a Danish author and president of the think tank Copenhagen Consensus Center. He is former director of the Danish government's Environmental Assessment Institute (EAI) in Copenhagen. He became internatio ...

. The film stars Lomborg, best known for authoring ''

The Skeptical Environmentalist ''The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World'' ( da, Verdens sande tilstand, lit=The True State of the World) is a book by Danish author and statistician Bjørn Lomborg. The book is controversial for outlining Lomborg' ...

'', and explores his views on

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

and criticisms of conventional mitigation approaches. It premiered in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

at the

2010 Toronto International Film Festival The 35th annual Toronto International Film Festival, (TIFF) was held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between September 9 and September 19, 2010. The opening night gala presented '' Score: A Hockey Musical'', a Canadian comedy-drama musical film. '' La ...

and had a theatrical United States release on November 12, 2010. Reception for the film was polarised, and it was criticised by the scientific community.

Content

The film focuses on Lomborg lecturing and brainstorming ideas to shift the focus of the

environmental movement The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse philosophical, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues. Environmentalists a ...

what he believes to be more realistic, which includes de-emphasizing efforts to mitigate

. In the film, Lomborg argues the actual and predicted

effects of climate change The effects of climate change impact the physical environment, ecosystems and human societies. The environmental effects of climate change are broad and far-reaching. They affect the water cycle, oceans, sea and land ice (glaciers), sea level ...

are exaggerated. Interviews include many scientists and activists both supporting and disputing Lomborg, including

Paul Ehrlich Paul Ehrlich (; 14 March 1854 – 20 August 1915) was a Nobel Prize-winning German physician and scientist who worked in the fields of hematology, immunology, and antimicrobial chemotherapy. Among his foremost achievements were finding a cure ...

Lester R. Brown Lester Russel Brown (born March 28, 1934) is an American environmental analyst, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, and founder and former president of the Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. BB ...

and

Bill McKibben William Ernest McKibben (born December 8, 1960)"Bill Ernest McKibben." ''Environmental Encyclopedia''. Edited by Deirdre S. Blanchfield. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009. Retrieved via ''Biography in Context'' database, December 31, 2017. is a ...

. It also explicitly challenges

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic Part ...

's Oscar-winning environmental awareness documentary, ''

An Inconvenient Truth ''An Inconvenient Truth'' is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate people about global warming. The film features a slide show that, by Gore's own e ...

'' (2006)."

Critical reception and box office

While many non-scientist critics welcomed the upbeat, positive nature of the film, some scientific critiques noted some scientific inconsistency and glossing over of facts, a summary of which can be found on the Yale Climate Media forum. The film received a media critic collective rating of 51% from

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

and 61% from

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

. ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'' review by

Clive Crook Clive Crook (born 1955 in Yorkshire, England) is a former columnist for the ''Financial Times'' and the ''National Journal''; a former senior editor at ''The Atlantic Monthly'', and now writes a column and editorials for Bloomberg News. For twenty ...

, who describes himself in the article as a "friend" of Lomborg and having taken "his side in the controversy that followed the publication of the ''Skeptical Environmentalist''--a terrific book," called it "An urgent, intelligent, and entertaining account of the climate policy debate, with a strong focus on cost-effective solutions." Jeanette Catsoulis described it as "an engrossing, brain-tickling picture", although criticised its use of animations and conclusion. Justin Lowe in ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' described the film as "A mix of interviews, location footage, animated sequences and archival material support Lomborg’s point of view, which Timoner treats without any noticeable skepticism, even including him as a co-writer on the script". At the box office, ''Cool It'' 's US release grossed $62,713.

References

External links

* {{Bjørn Lomborg 2010 films Documentary films about global warming 2010 documentary films American documentary films Films directed by Ondi Timoner Roadside Attractions films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films