Heat

Again and again in the program, being broadcast on Tuesday on PBS, Mr. Smith sticks a government or business official in front of his camera and asks bluntly why obvious warning signs were not heeded or why obvious actions are not being taken. Again and again what comes back is a slippery refusal to acknowledge mistakes or to take responsibility.
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[Y]ou may conclude that with all that official evasiveness and with human beings in general showing no inclination for voluntarily scaling back their comfort levels, it's just going to keep getting hotter in here.

It's enough to make a person turn off all the lights, pull the covers over her head and weep. But that, of course, is the problem. This is exactly what Americans have done for far too long. Or at least this is what "Heat" argues, and it does so quite persuasively.

We as a nation have sat back on our haunches for too long, buying our SUVs and deriding Europeans for not having air conditioning in every building, content to let a surprisingly wide range of special interests -- the Texas oilman and the Detroit car manufacturer, yes, but also the Iowa corn farmer and the anti-nukes environmentalists -- dictate what has passed for an energy policy.

This is simply infuriating, which is clearly what writer-director Martin Smith had in mind. Because after making the necessary arguments that the problem is real, dire and international, Smith turns his attention to his homeland. The hook for "Heat" is that, at long last, American businesses are taking the environment seriously.