With the help of spectacular footage shot around the world and detailed digital reconstructions that can reproduce the risks lying ahead, Bowman accurately portrays one of the worst threats facing us today: global warming. The film is based on the book, "Six Degrees", by Mark Lynas, British journalist, environmentalist, activist and TV commentator who collaborates with the "Guardian", the "Observer", "National Geographic", "New Statesman", and "Granta". A brief outline of Lynas' hypothesis is that: +1 degree: a rise in the ocean level would flood thousands of homes in Bengal; new plant species could be cultivated in the U.K.; +2 degrees: polar bears would become an endangered species; forests would begin to grow in the Canadian tundra; most of the tropic coral barrier would disappear;+3 degrees: many scientists believe this would represent a turning point for life on Earth; nearly all the snow on the peaks of the Alps would disappear;+4 degrees: countries like Bangladesh and Egypt would be devastated; Venice could go under; by 2035 the glaciers of the Himalayas would have melted; a billion people would be without fresh drinking water; +5 degrees: the temperate zones of the two hemispheres would become vast uninhabitable expanses; the aquifers supplying Los Angeles, Cairo and Bombay would dry up; +6 degrees: the Earth's climate would revert to that of the Cretaceous period; natural disasters would become routine events; some of the largest cities would be abandoned or submerged by water.
