Telluride Mountainfilm: The New Normal 2017

06 Dec Telluride Mountainfilm: The New Normal 2017

Telluride Mountainfilm’s Moving Mountains Symposium will explore climate change adaptations, innovations, and actions.

An image from Chasing Ice, a film about climate photographer James Balog, who will speak at Mountainfilm’s 2017 Moving Mountains Symposium. [Image courtesy of Chasing Ice/Mountainfilm]

The daylong symposium, which kicks off the May 26-29, 2017 festival, will unflinchingly delve into the most advanced science and newest developments that are critical to understanding the challenging situation. The symposium will look at the worldwide climate adaptations that are already changing the way we live, probe promising technology and innovation, and offer direct steps for the audience to effect positive change.

Mountainfilm examined climate change at its 2013 symposium and, in some ways, every recent topic covered by the festival — food, water, population, the extinction crisis and Afghanistan — has been impacted by global warming. It’s even having a deleterious affect on the 2016 Mountainfilm symposium theme of the National Parks, as recently reported by National Geographic.

“Climate change warrants more attention because it’s not just a story of our time, it’s really the only story of our time. What we do today will have an enormous impact on the future,” said festival director David Holbrooke. “When we thought about what our remarkable audience of explorers and adventurers, thinkers and doers really needed to understand better, we kept coming back to climate change.”

The New Normal symposium will have a wide range of speakers — scientists, activists, and storytellers — who are on the front lines of the climate issue.

As Holbrooke said, “The challenge is how to make programming on climate change feel fresh and forward thinking. We feel that The New Normal allows us to look clear-eyed at what is happening to our planet and also address how some of these potential changes can create a new and vibrant global society.”

This year, the symposium will also look closely at what The New Normal means in the Telluride, Colorado, region. Mountainfilm will collaborate with the people of  “Ashton-Hayes, a British village that has worked assiduously to become carbon neutral.

“Telluride has always had a reputation as a bastion of innovation, so the symposium will highlight what the local community can do to lead in America and beyond,” Holbrooke said.

Passes for the 2017 festival, which is scheduled for May 26-29, are on sale now at early bird prices, including Mountainfilm’s new Palmyra Pass.

The New Normal preliminary speaker line-up:

James Balog. Environmental photographer James Balog has spent more than three decades chronicling human modification of our planet’s natural systems through images. He is the founder of the Extreme Ice Survey, which is the most wide-ranging photographic study of glaciers ever conducted. His work was the subject of the award-winning documentary “Chasing Ice,” which screened at Mountainfilm in 2012, as well as the short documentaries “1000 Cuts” (Mountainfilm 2015) and ” Message in a Bottle” (Mountainfilm 2016). In 2009, Balog served as a U.S./NASA representative at the United Nations Conference on climate change in Copenhagen. He has given presentations at places that range from TED to the White House.

Alizé Carrére. A writer, photographer, cultural anthropologist and National Geographic Explorer, Alizé Carrére has spent several years traveling the world examining the ways humans are adapting to climate change. She has traveled from Madagascar to Norway and India to research and document the stories of the people on the front lines of climate change, such as farmers in Bangladesh who plant floating gardens in the country’s rising waters.

Garry Charnock. In 2005, Garry Charnock brought an idea to his tiny U.K. village, Ashton-Hayes, proposing to band together to become carbon neutral. What happened next was extraordinary: Three-fourths of the population showed up for the first meeting; the community got on board; and it has since cut its carbon emissions by 40 percent — without government funds and spearheaded by volunteers — through modifications as simple as changing light bulbs and improving insulation. Aided by a subsequent grant, Ashton-Hayes built a low-carbon sports pavilion and has embarked on other social enterprises. For his work, Charnock was awarded Climate Week’s “Inspirational Leader of the Year Award” in 2011 and continues to spread the word.

Auden Schendler. As vice president of sustainability at Aspen Skiing Company, Schendler focuses on large-scale solutions to climate change, primarily through the routes of clean energy and activism. He was named a global warming innovator in 2006 and has testified to Congress on the impacts of climate change on public lands. He is the author of Getting Green Done: Hard Truths from the Front Lines of the Sustainability Revolution and his writing on the subject has been appeared in the L.A. Times, Scientific American and High Country News.

Chris Steinkamp. The executive director of Protect Our Winters (POW), Steinkamp runs an organization dedicated to mobilizing the outdoor sports community to lead change toward positive climate activism. He helped legendary snowboarder Jeremy Jones found POW in 2007 after Jones recognized a gap between the outdoor sports world and climate change action. The organization partners with a consortium of professional athletes, resorts and outdoors companies concerned with the sustainability of snowpack, winter seasons and snow sports.

About Mountainfilm: Established in 1979, Mountainfilm uses the power of film, art and ideas to inspire audiences to create a better world. Working at the nexus of filmmaking and action, its flagship program is the legendary Telluride Mountainfilm festival, a one-of-a-kind combination of films, conversations and inspiration. Mountainfilm also reaches audiences year-round through its worldwide tour and Mountainfilm for Students, an educational outreach initiative for youth.

To learn more, visit www.mountainfilm.org.