Filmmaker from Grosse Pointe Farms tackles project, urging viewers not to turn away

Miles O'Brien is hoping his latest project has better luck with total strangers than it has with his own daughter.

After all, the topic of climate change often triggers anxiety for the 20-something. She avoids it. And she's not alone.

A new NOVA film, "Chasing Carbon Zero," premiering on PBS this week, takes a fresh approach. It spotlights Linda Zhang, chief engineer of the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning and science experts in a fast-paced overview of "the science behind the technology that could help the U.S. achieve net zero in the next 30 years," as described by the team behind the project.

O'Brien, 63, a Grosse Pointe Farms native who now lives in Falmouth, Massachusetts, reported, produced and directed the film. He is not just an award-winning science, technology and aerospace reporter at CNN but also a documentary filmmaker whose childhood memories of Detroit have helped shaped his career.

These are his words, edited for clarity from an interview with the Detroit Free Press, and why now matters:

Climate doom

"I started covering climate in earnest when I became a science correspondent in 1992. I feel like I’ve been witness to the stages of grief here — denial, bargaining, maybe acceptance. One of the things we, as journalists, have not done a very good job at is giving people an idea of how to reverse course, how to do something about this seemingly unstoppable path toward climate doom. Some of this is a function of how journalists are taught — solutions are kind of boring, they’re advocacy. ... But a lot of technology is on the shelf and ready to go if we could just scale it up and employ it."

A little boy's wish

"I was born at Harper Hospital in 1959. I grew up on Hall Place and moved to Stephens Road, in Grosse Pointe Farms. I went to (University) Liggett (School). I grew up parked in front of a TV set and I was fascinated by television. I was watching the famous Action News on Channel 7 with Jac LeGoff and John Kelly, Sonny Eliott doing the weather. My father was in insurance and my mother was at home. I imagined myself doing news reporting.

"When I was young, the school field trips that I remember the most was when we went to WXYZ Channel 7. And then the Rouge Plant. It was probably in 1969 or 1970. They would bring in iron ore and sand in one end and a (Ford) Thunderbird would pop out at the other end. To go on the same production line that was kicking out Thunderbirds and it's now producing Lightnings? It kind of made me misty. It made me realize how important Detroit is and how proud I am to have Detroit as part of my lineage. I have cousins in the Detroit area, and we meet in Harbor Springs and the Petoskey area all the time. My great-grandfather was employee No. 3 of the J.L. Hudson Company, where he worked for more than 75 years. (William Petzold Sr., and he retired as secretary-treasurer.)

'I was really worried'

"The problem with doing a story like this is, how do you make it less of a list? There’s this and this and this and now this. So the trick was a great vehicle, so to speak. We shot the (F-150) Lightning scene late in 2022. And I love listening to "This American Life," and Melissa Lott, (director of research at the Center on Global Energy Policy) at Columbia University was on there, and I realized I needed someone like her. We shot with her late in the game, in January, after a lot of shooting. I thought I had a very boring film. ... I was really worried. And then these two things happened: I had the opportunity to drive the Lightning and meeting Melissa. It's like a lot of projects, where you have a lot of stuff in the pot and all of a sudden everybody gels."

Boomers: 'We might be the worst'

"I had a conversation with my 28-year-old daughter the other day. Her generation is bordering on almost fatalism on the whole subject. ...

"I'm a boomer. I can't deny it. Boomers have done a disservice to our follow-on generations. Tom Brokaw wrote about the Greatest Generation. We might be the worst. ... I gave her an advanced copy (of the film) and she hasn't watched it. She said, 'I get very depressed on the subject of climate. It leads me to existential dread.' A lot of her friends have gotten to that space where we're (expletive). ... It’s not as dire as it may seem. ... It's not too late. The real solution is within us."

How to watch

"Chasing Carbon Zero" premiered on PBS on Wednesday and will also be available for streaming at pbs.org/nova, NOVA on YouTube and the PBS App.

The network said it "aims to help viewers understand the essential steps we must take to stay on the path to net zero: (1) electrify as much as we can — things like cars and buildings; at the same time, (2) decarbonize the electricity — that’s replacing carbon-emitting electricity generation with renewable and other zero-carbon technologies; (3) hunt down and squelch the emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide, and (4) push for the breakthroughs that will allow us to tackle the thorniest carbon emitters: aviation, industry and agriculture."

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Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-618-1034 or phoward@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid.