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Articles by Lisa Taylor

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Imagine a documentary featuring wild storms and dire predictions about pollution and rising seas. Sound familiar? Now add insight from Peruvian fishermen and Louisiana historians, mix in middle-school students, inventors, and religious leaders … and invite a global-warming skeptic to the movie.

The film, hosted by Alanis Morissette and Keanu Reeves, is called The Great Warming, and even before its Nov. 3 launch, it has helped spawn an alliance between Democrats and evangelicals trying to shake the administration out of its inertia on climate change. It is also the anchor for a broad, pro-active coalition ranging from Friends of the Earth to Union of Concerned Scientists to Churches of Christ.

Theater giant Regal Cinemas is releasing the film in its top 50 markets this weekend, making the launch three times larger than for any other film of its kind, and highlighting the growing currency of the climate change issues in the mainstream.

Featuring elements of the 2005 PBS special Global Warming: the Signs and the Science, The Great Warming talks to key researchers and reports on social justice and day-to-day impacts as well as emission st... Read more

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  • The Great Warming goes to God

    My dad, Mike Taylor, has spent most of his adult life running a small production house in Montreal. High production values, integrity, and so on, but no glory, no glamour. Actually, the studio, like so many others there, used to be between the hooker district and the gay village, so I guess there was a certain showbiz air ...

    Anyway, the business was what he knew, and he felt a duty to employees to keep it going. Now, the success of the company's first documentary, The Great Warming, may screw all that up -- but it's really his own fault.

  • They’re on board

    I read the statement below after a round of knocking on church doors to pitch a local screening of The Great Warming to pastors and priests -- yes, thank you, I did feel a bit silly. Anyway, Moab's 8,000 residents are served by 19 official houses of worship (you can find the less-organized believers at the co-op). By and large, churchgoers here vote, and they're pretty pro-active, especially when it comes to the health and welfare of the canyons.

    Rick Sherman, a Catholic priest who's written on stewardship for a few newspapers, was quick to point out that his church has been on the environmental ball for years, and handed me a few pamphlets on the subject. Not having read many religious tracts lately, I was impressed -- and not scared a bit! This is from Global Climate Change: a plea for dialogue, prudence and the common good, a statement from the U.S. Catholic Bishops. Yes, it's a serious read, but it's not Latin and there's no math.

  • The Great Warming pops up in Moyers’ special

    It may only have been a couple of establishing shots, but when America's great documentarian gives you the nod, baby, that's legit. This brief brush with fame came during the PBS Moyers on America special Is God Green?, when "Courtesy of The Great Warming" flashed across the screen -- twice! I dropped my fork and called the folks.