The Uncertainty Has Settled - A deadly earnest search

Critical climate change, agriculture and Energy documentary

The title of this brand new and excellent climate change documentary is immediately the best reason to go to see it. Is the story of global warming true; that science has proved its point and there is no longer any need for debate? This is what Marijn Poels, a seasoned documentary filmmaker and journalist par excellence, wanted to find out. He’s driven and socially conscious, with his heart in the right place. This is how Marijn was raised by his socially aware parents. He describes himself as left and progressive. In addition, this documentary was entirely self-financed.

Marijn Poels is aware of how sensitive and polarising the subject of climate change can be. Any hint of bias or conflict of interest had to be avoided. The quality of the film is extremely high and this has not escaped the attention of international expert juries as Marijn has already received two awards for Best Documentary; one in Berlin and one in Los Angeles.

What is so beautiful and compelling in this documentary is the ignorance of the maker. Marijn stumbles from one surprise to another. You can see his disbelief and amazement and sometimes even read the despair in his face. The beautiful images and transitions, along with the necessary rest points, provide the viewer with the necessary breaks but at the same time evoke a desire for more information. The way in which the issue is addressed, the words used to interpret the information, make the film extremely suitable for all and sundry. Even for those who thought there was only one opinion on the subject of climate change and CO₂.

For Marijn this deadly earnest search proves to be a revelation. All certainties concerning climate doom and gloom and the CO₂ risk vanish one by one, hence the title "The Uncertainty Has Settled". Also because Marijn has an open mind when he talks to world-renowned scientists such as Freeman Dyson and Piers Corbyn. These two are so-called sceptics in the climate debate.

"They also didn’t appear to have the hooves and tail of the devil". 

Sceptical scientists are people to be avoided when it comes to climate debate, especially if you are from the world in which Marijn grew up. After all, these are climate negationists. At least, that is the basic view of the politically-correct progressive environmentalists; a group that Marijn thought he belonged to. Until he went to talk to those so-called climate negationists and had to conclude that they don’t spit fire and brimstone nor do they eat small children. They also didn’t appear to have the hooves and tail of the devil. That can make you question your faith alright.

Marijn contacted as many as 53 scientists who defend the so-called consensus on the climate. You know, the people who adamantly insist "the debate is over and the science is settled". Only two of them were willing to talk to him. That was a shock for the filmmaker. Why do scientists not even want to talk to a journalist who actually doesn’t know much about the subject?

Ordinary people

There are also the conversations with ordinary people, who are victims of the remote and detached politics in Europe, which add so much more to this documentary than just a collection of facts to show that you are in the right. The human factor is ever present; the painful exposure of failed politics aimed at reducing human CO₂, the devastating consequences for the landscape and nature, the income of entire populations that disappears and farmers who are busy producing energy instead of food. It eats away at the sense of justice of a man such as Marijn Poels.

The statement by Richard Lindzen, the climate scientist at MIT in Boston, comes to mind “ordinary people see trough man-made climate fears - but educated people are very vulnerable”. I’ve seen all the climate change documentaries – New Ice Age with Leonard Nimoy from 1976, The Greenhouse Conspiracy, broadcast in 1990 by Channel 4, The Inconvenient Truth, The Great Global Warming Swindle, The Boy That Cried Warming,  Climate Hustle, The Year Of Living Dangerously, Blue – but what Marijn has created beats them all, at least in my opinion. Only Blue comes close.

Just like Pandora's Promise from Robert Stone caused a nuclear renaissance in progressive circles in the US, this documentary has all the ingredients to become a milestone in the debate on climate change and the current welfare destructive politics surrounding that.

Mind you, many climate scientists and ecologists are beginning to quite openly turn against the big eco-bullies like Greenpeace, WWF and other multinational extremist ecological groups. According to those scientists, these environmental organisations are enemies of mankind; they stop economic development and slow down progress. Without realizing it, these organisations and their naive helpers are actually helping the multibillion eco-companies and major banks.

European politicians still do not realize that they are the spokespersons and implementers of this small but very well organised group of subsidised extremists. The day politicians realise this and turn off the money tap is the day their empire will crumble. Documentaries such as this one can be a catalyst for this to happen. The day the established press wants to recognise that deliberately withholding information only helps to promote populism and extremism may not be far away.

Written by: Jan Jacobs, politics and science journalist - The Post Online