Austinite's film screened at Copenhagen

AUSTIN (KXAN) - In his office at Arrowhead Film & Video, Pat Fries' telephone rang. He answered it.

"I got a phone call from the producer and he said, 'You know, we're making a film about climate change in Bhutan,'" said Fries. "And my first question was, you know, 'Where the hell's Bhutan?'"

Sandwiched between Tibet and Bangladesh, Bhutan has a problem. The small country's forests absorb more carbon than its people produce.

But scientists say global warming is causing Bhutan's mountain glaciers to melt. Normal weather cycles have always caused the periodic melting that creates life-giving rivers. Now, however, the melting is happening so quickly that large lakes are forming in the mountains.

The worry is the lakes will become so large they will burst the land formations that hold them back, resulting in catastrophic floods in the village-laden valleys below.

"Whether you agree or disagree with climate change, you cannot debate what's happening in these countries," said Fries. "The glaciers are melting."

Working for Global Environment Facility, in cooperation with the World Bank, Fries spent much of September trekking to over 17,000 feet in the Bhutanese Himalayas.

"I felt like I could do it," he said. "When I left here, I felt like I was in good shape and I felt really strong when we got to Bhutan. You know, it wasn't until we actually started that things started to kind of fall apart. After two or three days, I just thought, 'This is way over the top for me.' I pushed my redline every single day and I wasn't quite sure I could make it. The altitude, it was raining sideways. It was cold; all the gear was wet. It's snowing and raining and there's mud up to my ankles and, you know, this isn't exactly what I saw in the brochure."

Fries pressed on, though.

"What happens is reality begins to set in and you go, 'We're not turning around because we're with a team of scientists that have to get to the site.'" said Fries. "So you realize, nobody's turning around so you better just start learning to put left in front of right and get your attitude straight because we're going up, regardless. And once we got to that point, it was just nothing but hard work every single day. It was ten hours straight up, huffing and puffing; get to your tent, eat a little food, collapse at about 6:30 at night, wake up the next morning, Ground Hog Day, do it all over again."

At a high altitude lake, some 300 Bhutanese workers use only their muscles and rudimentary tools like pickaxes and shovels to clear channels, allowing the lake water to drain slowly and safely.

The short film Fries brought back was screened during the international climate change conference is Copenhagen.

"One of the things that the film clearly shows is that the investment in these projects works," said Fries. "As world governments look at these projects, they say, 'Hey, if it works in Bhutan, it might work in our country.' So if the film helps propel that sort of aid to other countries, then that's a great thing."

One other great thing: Pat Fries now knows where Bhutan is.