Another retrieved post from hacking attack:
I mentioned in an earlier post that the animated film Unchained Goddess unambiguously forecast anthropogenic climate change in 1958. I’d only seen a clip and couldn’t find the complete film in local video stores so bought a copy from Amazon. It is an outstanding, partly animated, documentary film by Frank Capra (he produced one of the greatest films of all times, It’s a Wonderful Life with Donna Reed and Frank Stewart). I haven’t enjoyed a documentary film more for years. Obviously designed for school kids it is a fascinating introduction to weather and climate that would entertain and inform any age group. The science is a little dated but includes a fascinating still of John von Neumann who, amongst his many talents, developed the early use of computers in meteorology*. The film closes with some prescient words “man may be unwittingly altering the world’s climate” by releasing pollutants. Then unambiguously the prospect of melting icecaps and rising sea levels is discussed. Fascinating stuff.
With the film came Hemo The Magnificent which is a biology film that discusses the human body’s blood plumbing system. Again by Capra, the film again includes animation and some amazing photography. Truly superb.
My son watched both films with me and he was as enchanted by the presentation as I was.
Also available is Our Mr. Sun and Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays which I will try to get.
These films were commission by AT&T (Bell Telephone) during the 1950s to develop school and general community interest in science. If I had been exposed to this approach to science in the 1960s I might not have become an economist! I can’t find any record of use of these films in Australian schools.
* Von Neumann of course invented game theory and made pioneering contributions to the multi-sectoral analysis of growth. His interest in meteorological prediction led him to propose manipulating the environment by spreading colorants on the polar ice caps in order to enhance absorption of solar radiation (by reducing the albedo), thereby raising global temperatures. It is also interesting to note that two of the most prominent economists initially worked in meteorology. Quote: “That might be a bit of a stretch, but meteorology and economics have a lot more in common then you might think. Both the youngest and oldest winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics were meteorologists before they were professional economists. Kenneth Arrow, the youngest to win, was a weather forecaster during his military service in World War II. Similarly, Leonid Hurwicz, one of this year’s winners, taught meteorology at the University of Chicago between 1942 and 1944 before entering the field of economics. At 90 years of age, he is the oldest person awarded a Nobel Prize in any field.”
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