Prepare to look at our future from a different perspective

What do you get when you mix a mounting global environmental crisis, several hundred billion dollars of investment and a nation determined to restore its historic place as the world’s most technologically advanced civilization? Solutions

After 200 years of industrial expansion, we have impacted our planet in irreversible ways.

Old models of development have hit an ecological brick wall, and nowhere on earth is that more apparent than in China. Driven by relentless demand for wealth and power, China has been forced to embark on a continent-sized science experiment to continue growth, while setting a billion lives on the path to sustainability. Can they become the first big player in the era of earth 2.0? No single story has greater implications for humanity.

Of course this race is far from won. Destructive practices fuel the economy, and few understand even where to begin with the task of building the ‘eco civilization’ that the Central Government speaks of.
Should China succeed, they are bound to dominate the global green technology industry – thus securing their place as the world’s pre-eminent superpower. If they fail, the building of the technological lifeboats of our future may simply come too late. As the immensity of the task at hand hits home, we ask a simple question: Can China be the world’s first green superpower?

“China’s genius is in it realizing that they don’t have to destroy their growth to curb emissions now, but they must prepare for the consequences.Because by the time the s*** hits the fan, they’ll be selling their solutions back to everybody else.” - - Julio Friedmann, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Green China Rising will convey motion and awe as we move from
sweeping landscapes to intimate portraits

Within each episode, our narrative will unfold through three interweaving but distinct stories – each leading us into a different aspect of the science, but together building on the central theme of China’s emerging green technology laboratory. Each story centers on one key personality followed at critical moments to their story (the shooting period is 8 months). The life of a secondary character, connected to the first but sometimes working to very different ends, is shown in juxtaposition - heightening the sense of intrigue.

A narrator is used to connect the dots within and between our three stories. Speaking over cinematic b-roll and computer generated imagery where necessary, this voice will guide viewers to understand the science, see the big picture and address the deeper questions.

Interviewees (high level and familiar voices) enter at strategic points in the story to discuss how these bold new ideas are set to shape the 21st century, sometimes to verify their success, and sometimes to introduce a more skeptical tone.

Alongside cutting-edge science, all the elements of a great story are present - personalities fighting against insurmountable odds or attempting something entirely new in their field, vast scale, inevitable surprises and global relevance. Taken together we will build a picture of hope and the pushing back of a new frontier, tempered by the depiction of the sheer immensity of the task at hand. A story to feed the senses, coupling cinematic visuals with dramatic audio, aerials, time-lapses and CGI, the plot develops through a journey of awe. Episodes can be viewed separately or together.

Episode 2

AIR: Can China’s energy laboratory save the world?

This episode is the story of how China’s skies turned grey, and the gargantuan and innovative efforts to turn them blue again.

Inner Mongolia has long been a cauldron of coal-fuelled heavy industry, but it is reinventing itself with clean technology. Cancer genes spliced with carbon-munching algae. Techniques that turn the coal to gas beneath our feet, or that burn coal with absolutely no emissions. Many of these experiments are world-firsts and on a scale that dwarfs the efforts of any other country.

We explore the rich mix of contrasting industries and focus on the most interesting, practicable and exotic new creations that this vast lab has brought forth. Electric cars, smart-grid technology, clean coal, wind and solar, as overseas partners flock to China to be part of the action, so China has begin expanding across the world building new factories and creating jobs. It is a brave new world, and this is an opportunity to meet those who are shaping it.

In a sub-plot that will be woven throughout the three part series, the issue of how Chinese cultural values mix with modern capitalism and consumerism bubbles up as we draw closer to our characters and understand what connects them beneath the surface.

China is now building a solar farm thirty three times larger the world’s current largest existing one. (Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association).

In three short years, China has become the world’s largest market for wind turbines, now behind only America in total capacity. (World Wind Energy Report).

THE SCIENCE WE'LL SEE >> Carbon Sequestration, Clean Coal, Mega Wind Turbines, Green Algae Power, Concentrated Solar PV.

Episode 2

WATER:  Why Is China Dragging Icebergs From the Poles?

A beguiling journey that takes us from the parched plains of Northern China to the massive icebergs of Antarctica, crossing lush African savannah and vast Tibetan glaciers. We map out terrifying scenarios for China’s future water crises whilst exploring giant engineering solutions that stretch the limits of the imagination.

For everyone from the glaciologists watching Asia’s water source melt away, to the water pollution campaigner fighting twenty thousand companies, the urgency couldn’t possibly be greater. What extreme lengths will the Chinese government dare to go to in order to have clean water again?

Within ten years, there could be upwards of 30 million environmental refugees fleeing Northern China for lack of fresh water. (The United Nations)

Within one generation, scientists predict that most of the Himalayan glaciers will have melted away.

THE SCIENCE WE'LL SEE; Geology & Ecology of China's Rivers, Pollution Clean Up & the largest water conservation project in the world.

Episode 3

LAND: Can China Be Green?

Land: The Plot The equivalent of two New York cities are built in China every year. And that’s just the start.

Urbanization on an unprecedented scale, a raw material mining program that strips the earth bare, transport and infrastructure projects that dwarf anything attempted in the West. China is using its command and control system to drive forward reforestation and cleaner technologies on a scale that can only be dreamed of elsewhere. But equally powerful are the patterns of runaway development, spiking consumption, corporate greed and weak urban planning.

In twenty years, one billion people will live in China's towns and cities. China's great building boom will be over and their consumption patterns will be locked into the rhythms of daily life. Yet the China we see in twenty years will be fundamentally different to the one we see today. Values – like everything else in China – are changing faster than anywhere else in the world.

By 2030, analysts say there will be one billion people living in China’s cities – and until then they will be building half of all the buildings expected to be constructed in the world. (McKinsey’s ‘Preparing for China’s Urban Billion’ report)

The use of disposable chopsticks in China alone requires the timber from roughly 330,000 trees every year. (New York Times)

THE SCIENCE WE'LL SEE: Building Science, Desertification & Extreme Agriculture, Ancient Alchemy.

We are aware of an intensely fascinating transformation taking place in China that most people simply do not know about. We expect some people to be excited about it and others to be down right scared. Both of these reactions are healthy – because on the one hand China needs help, and on the other - the world needs it to have motivated competitors.

Going into the making of this film, our driving question is genuine – can China make it in time? And what if it does? Until we undertake this journey, we cannot know the answer because nobody has answered it yet.

“Allow me to compliment you on a great idea – a race against time... well said. The environmental transformation of China is something the world doesn’t know about, but needs to. I also think you’re making the film at exactly the right time – as Copenhagen unfolds and as China rises to economic superpower status.”

Oscar-nominated director Mark Kitchell,

(20+ years in the industry)

Our Access

In China, relationship is everything.

• We are registered as a fully owned Chinese production company in China allowing us the rights of access to government bodies, aerial filming and sensitive subjects without the cost and time investment of needing foreign media access permits.

• Our Director of China Relations works within the cutting edge of China's clean energy circles, allowing her to meet a steady stream of China’s most influential sustainability leaders

• Our Development Consultant, Jonathan Watts, is the Environment Consultant for The Guardian Newspaper and has just completed THE book on this subject, 'When A Billion Chinese Jump; How China Could Save Mankind - Or Destroy It.'
  

• We are partnered and part-funded by one of China’s leading green real estate developers.

• We have a studio in Beijing and permanent team members based there so we can respond quickly to filming opportunities.