Lorne Townend - Director

Solar force, in essence, is a film about how natural variations in the sun’s magnetic fields affects our climate. Although this film isn’t about Global warming per se – it does cross over with aspects of it, making scientists a little nervous about speaking on the subject. Global warming is such a political ‘hot potato’ no one wants to burn their fingers, so to speak, if they can possibly help it. This was particularly true of the Danish team that we interviewed, who believe that cosmic rays may be a possible driving force behind global climate change; they had direct, and painful, experience of putting their heads above the scientific parapet and being shot at by most of the science community for their controversial views.

One scientist on a previous film I made about the Loch Ness monster, said how, after he had appeared in a previous film about the elusive creature, he had been pelted with breads rolls at the next scientific conference he attended – and his area of expertise was nematode worms!

Making these films, also made me realise how ‘ad hoc’ science can be – small teams of experts strung out across the globe, operating out of universities and obscure institutes, quietly honing and polishing their research, hoping others will agree with their findings at the next big conference on paeloclimatology or whatever it may be. 2 scientists, from the University of New Mexico, certainly fitted that profile. They were pioneering a technique whereby they could tell how wet or the dry the climate has been over millions of years, just by analysing stalagmites in caves. Their work isn’t widely known, but is now of immense interest to climatologists the world over. And now, thanks to us, the general public will get to hear about their little corner of science as well.

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