Welcome to the production site
The Climate Restorers
BACK TO OUR FUTURE
A global documentary series
exploring climate and ecosystem restoration
returning the climate to a state
in which all life can thrive
Four one hour episodes
Photo: Dr Dionne Miles
What kind of world do you imagine in 2050?
John Bowey
Director-producer
+1 360 712 9919
Contact:
Phoebe Barnard
Co-producer
+1 360 914 2307
For everyone who wants to know exactly where we're at - and where we need to be to create a world where all life can thrive
The Climate Restorers - initially titled Back to Our Future - is a four-part series on climate and ecosystem restoration, and how achieving them at scale could enable a future for humanity and the planet.
We were proud that one of our trailers was shown at the Cannes Film Festival Side Event of Green17 Partners on climate and ocean solutions
at a lively evening event on 22 May, 2023!
See our 'Backstories' tab for behind-the-scenes fun and insightful tales from Alaskan permafrost, Mexican coastlines, and Dutch seaports...
Content
1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
2 SHORT SYNOPSIS
3 DIRECTOR'S VISION
4 SYNOPSIS
5 PRODUCTION TEAM
6 PRODUCTION STATUS
7 SUPPORTING ARTICLE
8 THE SEVEN EPISODES
9 CONTACT INFORMATION
View the 8-min trailer made primarily for COP27 Global North policymakers, organizations and experts who must take the lead with financing and solutions
To predict the future, we must create it
1. Executive summary
The world doesn't have to be this way - heading to climate and social disaster - or end this way. We can change it. A restoration future for our climate and planet is not only possible, it's already underway. And it can herald the start of a kinder, wiser civilization.
The Climate Restorers: Leading the Way Back to Our Future is a forthcoming global documentary series on stabilizing and restoring our climate - now in post-production.
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The series has been recorded in Alaska, California, Washington, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maine, Colorado, Washington DC, Iceland, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Germany, Uganda, Rwanda, Mexico, Pakistan, India, Egypt and Barbados.
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John Bowey, awarded international director-producer of films, immersive media and talk shows (My Otherland, Insight Out, People of the South), drives the creative vision and production.
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Emmy-winning narrator, actor, director and screenwriter Peter Coyote calls this the most important project he’s ever voiced.
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Social innovator and climate philanthropist Peter Fiekowsky is executive-producing and set in motion an aspirational global conversation around climate restoration.
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Global change scientist/policy strategist Prof Phoebe Barnard is co-producing and brings in top scientists, economists, activists, social change-makers and specialists.
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Emmy-winning cinematographer Cameron Currier is lensing much of the production.
Climate restoration - it's the biggest thing we're not talking about
2. Short synopsis
3. Director's vision
The Climate Restorers shifts our perceptions of the future - the climate we could have, if only we choose to create it.
The 4-part series explores climate restoration: the people, their visions and stories, and the four major nature-based technologies of carbon removal and methane oxidation. Together with ecosystem restoration on a vast scale, these can stabilize and restore our climate, our planet, and our future.
The series also explores the social and economic changes we need to move 'back to our future.' It provides a positive vision of a new civilization in which we accelerate safe technologies, restore ecosystems, and shift mindsets.
The series is in post-production, with planned delivery by January 2024.
John Bowey’s vision for the series embraces an alternative, positive future for our climate and planet. Bowey is awarded internationally for his insightful, entertaining work on big social and environmental issues. His signature 'engage and transform' style uses emotionally compelling, lively content, sensitively shot and edited, for audiences across cultures.
The consequences of climate change make news every day - which has the effect of numbing people to the grave consequences. At the same time, the only current narratives are business-as-usual versus apocalypse. We shift this dangerous and disempowering binary narrative by revealing a little-known alternative future that is both broadly viable and already underway. We also surprise audiences with inspiring stories, projects and possibilities.
Solving the climate problem has never been just about the science - it's about our beliefs, behavior and choices. The film's message is simple - the situation is far worse than most people realize, but new developing technologies, actions and mindsets offer a path back to a climate we've had for millennia.
Most importantly - millions of people can soon be involved in climate and ecosystem restoration, empowering an active, positive new civilization.
Photo credit: Dr Dionne Miles
See our related ambitious global initiative, the Global Restoration Collaborative, for the restoration of ecosystems and the climate at vast scales - to accelerate progress on the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration - powered by youth, women, and men from activist and technical expert communities and informed by the insights of indigenous cultural bridges.
Collaborative solutions are needed at scale, at speed, this decade
4. Synopsis
The Climate Restorers is a groundbreaking global documentary series on the future of our planet and civilization.
In four 52-min episodes (readily repackaged as half-hours), it shows how four little-known nature-based technologies, combined with vast-scale ecosystem restoration, a major shift in mindsets and a commitment to the future, can literally stabilize and restore the climate, our living planet, and our societies.
Stabilizing the climate buys us the time to make transformative change in our societies and mindsets. It's increasingly possible through four types of nature-based technologies being explored for carbon removal and methane oxidation - combined with large-scale ecosystem protection and restoration.
Permafrost tunnel research facility operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers ERDC-CRREL team, Alaska.
The series will energize, inspire and equip viewers to rethink our future in times which have become increasingly discouraging. Humanity can, if we choose to do so, restore the climate and planet: we have the skills, the resources, the youth energy, and potentially numerous nature-based and other technologies to dramatically reduce methane and CO2 from the atmosphere. This is urgently needed to buy humanity the precious time needed for a fundamental shift of mindsets and culture in the next few decades.
All we have to do is choose that better future, and pull out all the stops make it happen.
The best way to deal with climate anxiety is to get involved
5. Production team
John R Bowey
Director / Producer
Who's
who
Filmmaker and multimedia director John Bowey works on big-picture issues challenging society today, from the history of science, innovation and technology to conflict resolution, identity, sustainability, biodiversity, climate change, consciousness, wellness, entrepreneurship and interfaith dialogue. Creative director and owner of Transmediavision USA, John grew up in the UK, Nigeria and Zambia. He has designed, directed and produced live TV talk shows, horror films, documentaries, concerts and other creative and technical productions in Hollywood, the Middle East, South and West Africa and Pacific Northwest USA. He has worked with artists such as U2, Peter Gabriel and Tina Turner in the USA and Africa, traveled and worked with the Dalai Lama and Tibet House team, and designed/ produced Middle Eastern immersive virtual reality experiences for high-end science centers and museums.
The last 2 projects directed by John Bowey:
Prof Phoebe Barnard
Co-Producer / Science & Policy Advisor
Well-known, internationally awarded global change scientist, ecosystem ecologist, science communicator, policy strategist, Phoebe is affiliate full professor of conservation biology and societal futures at University of Washington, and climate research associate at the University of Cape Town. Recipient of a Fulbright and a global conservation biology award, she is also founding CEO of the new but mighty global coalition on human planetary impact, Stable Planet Alliance. Phoebe worked 34 years in Namibia and South Africa, founding and leading national and global development, biodiversity and climate change collaborative programs. She is also driving a bold alignment of global ecosystem restoration, climate restoration, youth and women's leadership networks, to accelerate transformation of our economy and civilization.
Pat McDonnell
Associate Producer/Camera Operator
Pat McDonnell has logged more than 25 years filming outdoors. In 2001 he created Medicinebleu Films, documenting the humble ambition of ordinary people around the world, from Nepal to Ecuador, working to make a difference in their communities and major watersheds.
Peter Fiekowsky
Executive Producer
Peter Fiekowsky is an MIT-educated physicist and engineer, serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, and social innovator. He worked at NASA and the Fairchild/ Schlumberger AI Lab in Palo Alto; taught at MIT, and developed his machine vision company, Automated Visual Inspection LLC. He holds 27 patents and is on the board of Climate Capex, a fintech company designed to help complete the global transition to 100% clean energy by 2040 by tripling solar investments.
Alexandra Dowling
Peter Coyote
Narrator
American actor, director, screenwriter and narrator of films, theatre, TV and audiobooks, Peter Coyote is well known for films like ET the Extra-Terrestrial, Bitter Moon, Patch Adams, and Erin Brockovich. His Emmy-winning narration is best known in 11 of Ken Burns’ documentary series.
Alexandra Dowling
Co-Executive Producer
Alexandra’s work as an actor includes notable roles in ‘Game of Thrones’, 'Hammer of the Gods,' 'The Musketeers,’ and the recent feature ‘Emily’. When not acting, she works in collaboration with her peers on various creative projects with the purpose of shifting culture in the direction of climate, ecological and social justice.
Cameron Currier
Director of Photography
Since 2005, Cameron has lensed music videos, shorts and feature films, most notably director Caleb Young’s “Do You See Colors When You Close Your Eyes?” His work with agencies and production companies led to a 2016 Emmy.
Julia Dederer
Production Consultant
Julia’s whole career has been dedicated to transforming the challenges of our time thru working with global leaders and organizations. Her 50+ years of work has focused on personal transformation, leadership and organizational development.
For the past 8 years she has been a consultant/advisor on multiple initiatives within several organizations, all committed to climate restoration and planetary sustainability.
Aurielle Buermann
Production Manager
Experiential production management and major sporting events are just a few of the projects to which Aurielle applies her production management skills. Managing major production logistics in the Cascade volcanic range of the US Pacific Northwest is second nature to Aurielle.
Savannah Bowey
Researcher
Law, medieval history, sociology, psychology and front-office technology user experience management all form the backdrop to South African-born, London-based Savannah's meticulous research skills in a number of Transmediavision productions.
Terri Pugh
Promotions and Outreach
Terri is a passionate climate restoration reporter, founder of the carbon removal education organization WorldOra, and a grandmother with a masters in global international policy who keeps future generations foremost in her research. Terri's had a front-row seat at the global trends in CO2 and methane removal, natural and technological, since 2021, and supports and builds communities around advocacy.
Julia Simmons
Researcher
Wildlife and nature photographer and life scientist Jules, born and raised in Namibia and South Africa, brings a love for information, numbers and the power of the internet, and an eye for composition and light, to her work as a part-time researcher for Transmediavision productions.
Ryan Bogenreif
Associate Editor
Ryan Bogenreif is a filmmaker and writer from Austin, Texas. Ryan joined us in post-production of Back to Our Future as assistant editor. He brings a wealth of story structure knowledge, as well as a love of cinema.
Natalie Nolte
Associate Graphic Designer
Based not far from Cape Town, and with 20+ years' deep experience in agencies and other organizations in London, Dubai, Sweden, Canada, the US and South Africa, graphic/web designer and film producer Natalie knows how to pull multiple media together to create engaging material with effective messaging, and to drive environmental and social regeneration.
Everyone deserves a place at the table when it comes to
deciding the future of our planet
6. Production status
Filming is happening in Germany, France, Britain, Mexico, Canada, Egypt, Iceland, Pakistan, Uganda, Rwanda, Barbados and the USA. At COP27, we presented an 8-minute trailer at an official UNFCCC press conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to excellent feedback from expert communities.
Our compelling footage and the variety of important perspectives, technologies and voices create engaging episodes for global streaming. We plan delivery of episode 1 in October 2023 and 2, 3 and 3 from November 2023 through January 2024.
Episode numbers depend on sales packaging.
In Florida, we covered the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, and the people for whom increasingly severe climate instability is a harsh and miserable reality.
It's never been just about the science, it's about our thinking,
our behavior - and our choices
7. Episodes
Season 1 of The Climate Restorers consists of four hour-long episodes (readily be repackaged as half-hour episodes). Episode 1 provides a rich overview of what climate restoration is, how it is being developed around the world, and the most serious issue for focus: methane, the most potent greenhouse gas. Episode 2 covers 'blue carbon' and the ocean solutions of seaweed permaculture and management, ocean fertilization and coastal livelihoods. Episode 3 features carbon-negative building through artificial limestone technologies. Episode 4 brings these all into focus with the changes we need to make in society, and with our own choices and behaviors - to make avert our current trajectory of a seriously challenging and unstable future.
This synopsis below is based on the four 52-min longer-format episodes preferred by terrestrial television broadcasters.
Ep 1. The only way to predict the future is to create it
Ep 2. Blue carbon on a blue planet
Ep 3. Carbon removal and regeneration
Ep 4. This changes everything
So what future do you imagine?
Isn't it worth learning about what's really happening, the choices we still (barely) have,
and where we could be going?
Join us on a journey of discovery and the chance to shift the narrative -
to one of a world in which we all can thrive on this beautiful planet.
The series arose initially from the 2022 publication of an ambitious book, “Climate Restoration: the Only Future That Will Sustain the Human Race” by Peter Fiekowsky and Carole Douglis. Yet it goes well beyond the book as an independent exploration of the obstacles to climate restoration - scientific, technical, psychological, social, and economic - how to break these open and reframe our future through regeneration, rather than exploitation, of our planet and climate.
The series covers four kinds of affordable, nature-based climate technologies which can, when fully funded and scaled up along with large-scale ecosystem restoration, repair our climate and planet. They are: methane oxidation, artificial limestone for carbon-negative building materials, and several kinds of ocean solutions.
Top global scientists, economists, politicians, social changemakers, justice advocates and indigenous wisdom keepers reflect on the crossroads at which our civilization finds itself – and the urgent action needed on a global-grand-challenge scale to reduce catastrophic risk to our future. The series delivers pathways to that action.
