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 statistics. It’s also populated with everyday people from all over the U.S. and the planet who are feeling the brunt of global warming, and/or finding innovative ways to tackle it.

“In the course of making this film, we were determined not to lose sight of our most important advocate, the person on the street,” said producer Karen Coshof. “We wanted to make this issue resonate in every household, everywhere. To engage not only the intellect, but most importantly the emotion and will of every person so that they feel empowered to act.”

The Great Warming has already attracted an unprecedented coalition of leaders in science, religion, business, environmental activism, and education. “These ‘reds, blues and greens’ are bridging historic gaps to support the message of this film,” said Coshof. “The biggest reason they give is a belief in our individual and collective moral responsibility to reverse the growing threats to the environment, and to our health and quality of life.”

The effort goes beyond the documentary: with a release timed just before the mid-term elections, the website features a Questions for Candidates link where voters can send a questionnaire on energy, environment, and taxation to their federal and state candidates. The campaign also includes a Call to Action signed by leaders from every arena of public life, and which can be signed online by anyone who chooses. Advance DVD screenings at schools, churches, and town halls across the country have already mobilized thousands of people to change personal habits and demand action, and coalition members are working to track the effort.

Information on the film and coalition, as well as resources for teachers, students, voters, and faith leaders, can be found at TheGreatWarming.com.

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.

The 6-year odyssey that’s resulted in The Great Warming (set for theatrical release Nov. 3) has had a life-changing impact on my family. To say the climate-change documentary aired on Discovery Canada and then on PBS is to leave out the long and excruciating hunt for funding, the ugly legal wrangle with a Hollywood entourage, the marriage-grinding stress and financial hardship, the amazing people who got on board, and the growing acknowledgement that this is a subject that must be talked about, and a film that covers it well.

People familiar with TV or movie production will probably say, “Big deal — everybody goes through that.” Well, nobody told my dad. He was the head writer, director, and interviewer (like I said, a small company), and he was the idea guy. He’d worked with CEOs for decades, but Hollywood freaked him out, and often disgusted him.

As the production and distribution stage kicked in and my wicked (as in wicked-good) stepmother hobnobbed with celebrities, broadcasters, and financiers — for better and for worse — my dad was benched, and came to spend most of his time scanning books, magazines, and the web for ideas none of us had time for. The damn thing was done — why tinker any more?

That tinkering resulted in the one reason most people in America have heard of The Great Warming — the “religious green” content. This isn’t about faith groups “co-opting environmentalism” as a neighbor grumbled yesterday; that’s certainly not what happened here (and personally I think that’s a really counterproductive mindset). In fact, the coalition around the film started in a very different place. This is the email he sent when I asked him to track the idea:

This is the article that triggered everything, called The Death of Environmentalism. It’s quite negative about the environmental movement, but justifiably so in many places. I believe I read it around the same time that the NY Times article about Rich Cizik and the Evangelical “creation care” movement came out … and somehow they clicked together in my head, and I thought that this was the missing element in TGW. (My dog park friends thought I was completely nuts to do this Evangelical story, as did both our film crews … but I think I’ve been proven correct.)

Both movements have wonderful but slightly (sometimes very) blinkered people driving them … but when they’re put together, which we’re doing (i.e., Karen, plus Brent Blackwelder of Friends of the Earth and Richard Cizik of the NAE were the real instigators), you get a pretty wonderful coalition. In that regard, we are much, much closer to bringing an understanding about climate change’s implications to a very broad audience in the States.

So there you go…

Kinda reminds me of that scene in Working Girl where whatsisname asks Melanie Griffith where she got her idea to put Trask and radio together. You too?

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.

As Catholic bishops, we make no independent judgment on the plausibility of “global warming.” Rather, we accept the consensus findings of so many scientists and the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a basis for continued research and prudent action. Scientists engaged in this research consistently acknowledge the difficulties of accurate measurement and forecasting. Models of measurement evolve and vary in reliability. Researchers and advocates on all sides of the issue often have stakes in policy outcomes, as do advocates of carious courses of public policy. News reports can oversimplify findings or focus on controversy rather than areas of consensus. Accordingly, interpretation of scientific data and conclusions in public discussion can be difficult and contentious matters.

Responsible scientific research is always careful to recognize uncertainty and is modest in its claims. Yet over the past few decades, the evidence of global climate change and the emerging scientific consensus about the human impact on this process have led many governments to reach the conclusion that they need to invest time, money, and political will to address the problems through collective international action.

The virtue of prudence is paramount in addressing climate change. This virtue is not only a necessary one for individuals in leading morally good lives, but is also vital to the moral health of the larger community. Prudence is intelligence applied to our actions. It allows us to discern what constitutes the common good in a given situation. Prudence requires a deliberate and reflective process that aids in the shaping of the community’s conscience. Prudence not only helps us identify the principles at stake in a given issue, but also moves us to adopt courses of action to protect the common good. Prudence is not, as popularly thought, simply a cautious and safe approach to decisions. Rather, it is a thoughtful, deliberate and reasoned basis for taking or avoiding action to achieve a moral good.

In facing climate change, what we already know requires a response; it cannot be easily dismissed. Significant levels of scientific consensus – even in a situation with less than full certainty, where the consequences of not acting are serious – justify, indeed can obligate, our taking action intended to avert potential dangers. In other words, if enough evidence indicates that the present course of action could jeopardize humankind’s well-being, prudence dictates taking mitigating or preventative action.

This responsibility weighs more heavily upon those with the power to act because the threats are often greatest for those who lack similar power, namely, vulnerable poor populations, as well as future generations. According to reports of the IPCC, significant delays in addressing climate change may compound the problem and make future remedies more difficult, painful and costly. On the other hand, the impact of prudent actions today can potentially improve the situation over time, avoiding more sweeping action in the future.

The scenes were during an interview with evangelical Christian leader Rev. Richard Cizik, who broke from the conservative mainstream to start preaching that Christians could be environmentalists and still be true to their faith — truer, in fact, since Cizik considers the degradation of the planet akin to sin.

In The Great Warming, coming out in early November, Cizik talks about the political muscle his group (63% of whom say they’re concerned about global warming) can bring to bear on Republicans, but in its short segment, the religious scenes also look at human health, social justice, and the planet the next generation stands to inherit.

The film was never intended to be a faith voice or resource, but it turned out that its secular partners — e.g., New American Dream and Friends of the Earth — agreed with the religious groups that there is a moral as well as an ecological and sociopolitical imperative to stop the damage we’re causing, and everybody shook hands.

This is a fine line for a film to walk these days, though. The press The Great Warming has received in the U.S. has been almost exclusively on the 8 out of 82 minutes that discuss religion, and on how faith groups have adopted the film in their (extremely effective) awareness campaigns — the issue’s even got attention overseas. The media focus appears to have scared off at least one sponsor, and it’ll be interesting to watch the reaction of fellow liberals uncomfortable with organized religion’s beliefs or power. Can we actually get past where we came from and focus on where we want to go?

After struggling for months to get a toehold in the media mainstream (2006 is not a great year to release a global warming movie on a shoestring), it was pretty gratifying to see even a walk-through in a Bill Moyers show. They’re always good, but I may have to buy my own copy of this one.