Jon Shenk’s award-winning documentary The Island President is ostensibly and foremost a film about global warming’s effects on one nation, the Maldives, a chain of islands in the Indian Ocean, best known until recently as a enclave for wealthy tourists who enjoyed the white sand beaches and clear ocean waters, and now as a nation in the grips of civil unrest and facing complete annihilation by rising sea water levels caused by carbon emissions.

Bill McKibben is one of the most effective and widely-respected writers on environmental issues today. Starting with The End of Nature in 1989, he’s written and published a long line of powerful works that make complex environmental issues accessible to a general audience.