Emission Impossible

Producer: Ian Henschke

Executive Producer: Christopher Jeans
Series Editor: Robert Lamb

Year: 1999

Genre: Documentary, Educational

Region: United States of America, Costa Rica, Australia

Duration: 24'

Language: English

Earth Report asked Australian filmmaker, Ian Henschke, to give a Southern Hemisphere view on global climate change. Henschke's film starts in the United States where a fraction of the world's population contributes a quarter of the greenhouse gasses. In South Carolina, Emission Impossible finds that climate change is already having a devastating impact on a poor - mostly African-American - community. But Henschke discovers that the majority of Americans accustomed to cheap energy appear to care little about global warming. He contrasts their attitude with those of Europeans and Latin Americans. The Australian finds that the latter have become the leaders in carbon trading, a step towards a global solution to the problem. In Costa Rica he finds farmers are already trading carbon in a global market. And when Henschke returns home to Australia he casts a jaundiced eye on his fellow Regionmen - person for person, the biggest contributors of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.