Ice on Fire

ICE ON FIRE emphasizes the importance of an immediate, two-pronged approach to reversing the crisis: reducing carbon emissions through traditional renewable energy sources and new ones, like tidal energy, and implementing “drawdown” measures, focusing on methods for drawing down and sequestering carbon, including direct air capture, sea farms, urban farms, biochar, marine snow, bionic leaves and others. While much of the political and economic focus has been on the energy sector, the film points out that drawdown (pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and oceans and sequestering it underground or into new materials) is perhaps the best hope for mitigating climate change. The film visits places suchas: the Usal Redwood Forrest Foundation in northern California, highlighting a carbon-storage project that focuses on reforestation and creates “biochar” to put CO2 back into the soil; Ron Finley’s urban farm in Los Angeles, where members of the community grow food that takes carbon out of the air and is nutritious; Climeworks’ nimble direct air capture machine in Zurich; and Thimble Island Ocean Farm off the coast of Connecticut, where owner Bren Smith grows shellfish and seaweed that soak up more carbon than land-based plants and can be used for food, animal feed and fertilizer. ICE ON FIRE finds that while the risks and urgency may be higher than ever today, there are also greater opportunities for innovative solutions, offering a realistic but hopeful perspective on a key global issue that demands our attention.