Abrupt Climate Change

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Call for Entries

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Dear Colleague,

I hope this message finds you well. I am reaching out to connect with you regarding New York University’s 
Third Annual Climate Change Film Festival.

NYU has recently become a member of UArctic, a collaborative network of institutions across the eight Arctic states and beyond. With fifteen global academic sites—and a sixteenth opening later this spring in Bombay, India—our combined academic community is uniquely positioned to foster a diverse and sustained global dialogue on the climate crisis, both today and in the years to come.

Leveraging this global network—together with the reach of the internet and the accessibility and immediacy of cell phone filmmaking—we have an unprecedented opportunity to develop a worldwide forum showcasing student experiences, visions, and voices from across our rapidly changing planet.

We would be most grateful for your assistance in sharing our call for entries with your community.

In addition, we are seeking two volunteer judges from each country to review submitted films. Selected entries will be made available for review beginning April 15 at midnight Eastern Time, and we kindly ask that evaluations be submitted by April 18 via a shared Google document. If you are unavailable to serve as a judge but know someone who might be interested, we would greatly appreciate your referral.

We believe that storytelling holds the power not only to engage hearts and minds, but also to inspire meaningful transformation.

By featuring films from the Arctic and beyond, we hope to expand our students’ perspectives and underscore that climate change is a shared global reality—that they are not alone.

Given current and anticipated climate-related events, your support would mean a great deal to us. If you have recommendations for other faculty members I should contact, I would be happy to reach out to them as well.

I sincerely hope you will encourage your students and colleagues to participate.
Please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions.

Warm regards,

Prof. Peter Terezakis

Please distribute and post to UArctic colleagues, alumni, and students:

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You are invited to submit your short film to 
The Third Annual NYU Climate Film Festival.

This festival is a showcase of science-driven, climate-focused films aimed at raising awareness, presenting solutions, and promoting positive change. 


🎬 Submission Details:

Films must be 1 to 3 minutes in length.
Can be shot on a cellphone.

Open to currently enrolled students and alumni from NYU and UArctic 

Multiple entries permitted • Cash prizes are awarded!

Open to all genres, including documentary, experimental, and more.
Winning entries from 2023 and 2024 are available as examples.


📅 Key Dates:

The submission window will open on: April 1 and close on April 15th
Festival Date: April 21, Eisner & Lubin Auditorium, 4th Floor
📍 NYU Kimmel Center for University Life, 60 Washington Square South, NYC, NY
– This event will be livestreamed and a recording will be available. Winning filmmakers will be contacted. – 

🏆 Winning Films Will Also Be Screened At:

Marché du Film, Cannes – May 15
Icefjord Center, Ilulissat, Greenland – June 6


🔗 Click here to learn more and submit your film on April 1!

Join us in amplifying climate stories that matter. We look forward to promoting your vision!

 

Abrupt Climate Change

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Abrupt Climate Change is offered to students who are interested in understanding the impact of radically altering climate upon their lives and communicating this information to society through artistic media of their choice. To better prepare for their success in an increasingly uncertain future, students will hear from academic experts in business, law, mathematical, physical and social sciences and then create artistic responses to humanity’s greatest existential threat.

Abrupt Climate Change is open to undergraduates at New York University.


Course Description:
This lecture course is designed for students who are interested in developing a deeper understanding of the forces that contribute to a changing planet and in investigating the impact of a radically changing biosphere on their lives and on their communities. The course supports student efforts to link scientific research with creative practice to find innovative responses to the issues presented in class.


There are no prerequisites for this class. Students with an interest or background in mathematics and/or physical sciences are welcomed as are story-tellers of all disciplines.  Working knowledge of any personal computer video editing system is suggested. Students wishing to learn video editing will find step-by-step instructions within NYU’s licensed tutorials. 

Students are required to set up and maintain a web journal (using NYU’s WordPress portal) with weekly written assignments. Written work must include links to all referenced sources as well as to embed images and videos.  Weekly posts and creative responses to presentations, assigned videos, and articles are required.  

Final projects may either be sole or group authorship, use media of the student’s choice, and must be shared with the NYU community.  
Students are encouraged to use their cell phones as still and video cameras for data acquisition. Computers with video editing programs are available at a number of stations at NYU’s Washington Square campus as well as on many student computers.  In addition to free video editing software, trial and deeply discounted student licenses are also available for video editing.   

Statement of Purpose

The scientific community’s consensus is that Earth’s climate is changing and that the change is linked to the burning of fossil fuels due to the concomitant release of gaseous by-products into our atmosphere. What is the subject of continuing research is the rate at which climate changes will accelerate. What we do know is that the majority of peer-reviewed papers reference positive feedback mechanisms which will increase a warming climate for many years to come.

In 2004 as part of a $60 million dollar effort to study abrupt changes to our climate, a US Senate Committee defined abrupt climate change to be, “a change in the climate that occurs so rapidly or unexpectedly that human or natural systems have difficulty adapting to the climate as changed.” Studies in Greenland ice core samples have revealed that there have been at least twenty instances which would qualify where earth’s climate has changed 15˚ Fahrenheit (8˚ C) within a 10-year period.  



As of October 2019, atmospheric carbon dioxide measured 408.55 ppm (parts per million).  The last time there was this much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, trees grew in Antarctica, Greenland was largely ice-free, our planet’s surface was five degrees Fahrenheit warmer, and sea levels were thirty-two to sixty-five feet higher than they are today.

Governments and human beings neither possess the experience or technology to successfully sustain life as we have come to know it during a period of rapidly changing conditions whose sustained new global normal is simply without human historical precedent.  

 Scientists are not artists. Sanguine reporting of the painstakingly gathered information is the duty of the scientist. It is the artist who is able to — and who must — bridge the divide between science and the public through creative storytelling. 

— Peter Terezakis, October 2019