A viewer at the screening I attended remarked that Carbon Nation should be shown in schools. Indeed it might, with its tag line, “a climate change solutions movie (that doesn’t even care if you believe in climate change)” and dedication to Dann C. Byrk, 1936-2009, who muses about the future of sequoias (and the planet) in closing frames with his son. That director, cinematographer, co-writer and –producer son Peter Byrk aims for an eighty-two-minute “big-tent [where] folks of all political stripes could find common ground.” “Optimistic,” “celebration,” “engaging and endearing” are keywords, in contrast to many an urgent doomsday treatment.

The booster spirit may make for enlightening the young ‘uns. Trouble is, adults will not warm to the Pollyanna mood and simplified text, complete with printed individual solution tips. To a point, yes, it is refreshing to listen to positive talking heads in fields and factories. But there are so many faces that one cannot keep track of who’s who and what’s what. Too much is covered and too many “logical” remedies offered, so that whereas windmills and solar panels are not really open to question, the logistical problems they pose are considered too breakneck for digestion and unfamiliar tidbits of interest like CO₂ soil root fungi receive insufficient play.

The underlying assumption is that, global warming debate aside -- though included graphics, maps and statistics come down foursquare on the side of warming and catastrophic results -- mankind can make it more than enjoyable, comfortable and aesthetically/ecologically pleasing to cut the Carbon Footprint. The bottom line, dollars and sense, can be multiplied manifold by sane stewardship, .i.e., the profit motive is invoked in appeal to even naysayers.

One need not be cynical to question the workability of systems and techniques which these enthusiastic cheerleaders outline. There are initial difficulties, they say, but in the long run take our word for it . . .

Close on two-and-a-half millennia have not borne out Socrates’ calculated innocence that, if educated by clear-thinking others in what is best for his surroundings and therefore himself, self-interested man will naturally reform for the good. As is suspect and self-defeating in much non-fiction, in this film’s barrage one “has no way of knowing whether other data has been overlooked or minimized to support the author’s point.”

Thus, leaving aside Bill Kurtis’ bland sincerity reading on-screen figures, icons, graphs and arrows that are nevertheless too fleeting to grasp, the whole is monolithically one-sided, prompting the response that, wait a minute, it can’t be that easy, there must be catches, glitches, side effects, other voices.

Generating geothermal power from naturally occurring hot groundwater, Alaskan Bernie Karl flippantly cannot imagine why no one else has done it, and predicts riches from widespread employment of his setup. Some of the dozens included, from over two hundred interviewed, have a wry ecological-leftist sense of humor, but to a man, or woman, they are earnest and of the choir: a wind farmer and organic green farmers, an ex-U.S. army colonel, engineers, scientists, economists, columnists, CEOs, community self-help bootstrap organizers, a former CIA director. It is one thing when Virgin Atlantic founder-CEO Richard Branson touts biofuel (presently unfeasible at the frigid temperatures above fifteen thousand feet) as a future replacement for harmful jet fuel, but quite another when a long-distance trucker laments cabs idling overnight to warm sleeping drivers. With overkill arguments pro, some -- like the latter -- need to be pruned to avoid confusion and a watering down of the effort. Only so much fits.

Few would deny that for health and wealth, national security, safety and quality of life, we need to change our habits, consume less, conserve and respect more. The effectiveness of message, however, depends almost as greatly on the messenger as on the text -- witness the effectiveness of showmanship style in Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth. However admirable, upbeat or attractive, Carbon Nation’s succession of talkers is no more than a series of little lectures. Mere sincerity does not work well with grownups, certainly does not amuse or entertain them; and while schoolkids may like the idea, they will not be attracted enough to stay the course of individual if interlocking concepts. 

(Released by Clayway Media/Earth School Education Foundations; not rated by MPAA.)