By Leila Conners — Tree Media

Ahead of the 2014 UN Climate Summit on Sept. 23, “Carbon” attempts to move the debate forward, exploring how governments worldwide are putting a price on carbon through carbon trading or carbon taxes. “Carbon” is the first film in Green World Rising, a four-part series narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio that focuses on climate change challenges and solutions.

Given the alarming list of severe climate impacts in the Arctic, in the South Seas and in places closer to home like New York City and California, and in light of the business-as-usual attitude that still prevails, resulting in increasingly dangerous levels of carbon in our atmosphere, we believe that getting the word out on the solutions and risks is critical. All four films create a whole picture, from the path forward to the peril we face if we don’t take action.

We begin the series with “Carbon,” a solution to keeping carbon in the ground. We then move to “Green World Rising” on the technologies that will power our future and “Restoration,” on the earth’s capacities to heal and reverse the damage. We end with “Last Hours,” a look at a scenario we can avoid if we all work together and take the necessary steps to stop carbon emissions.

Let’s stop pirouetting on the edge of disaster and come together to implement the changes we know we need to make — changes that have been on the shelf for years. We just need the will to implement them. These changes will create a sustainable world that will not only be cleaner, healthier, and more economically robust, but one that will also be viable, safer and secure, a world in which our children’s children — and let’s think seven generations coming — will thrive.

Along with DiCaprio and Thom Hartmann, this film series is backed by the website greenworldrising.org, which has a list of real solutions to the biggest challenge that faces humanity.