What is global warming? What is the evidence for it? How will it affect the world? This film explores these questions as it follows the icebreaker Louis St Laurent on a trip to the Arctic Circle.
The Arctic Ice Sea, a plate of ice roughly the size of Europe, is disappearing.
Scientists say that by 2013, there will be no sea-ice left in the Arctic, causing a tipping point for climate change throughout the world.
Polar bears, who are at the top of the Arctic food chain, are feeling the heat. As the sea ice shrinks, so does their world.
The forests of Alaska are suffering, too. Alaska's vast pine forests rest on a layer of solid permafrost and when the frost melts the ground literally gives way. Melting permafrost could soon be a worldwide disaster.
"The Arctic will export change to the rest of the world," warns one expert, "Melting sea ice will intensify the extreme weather caused by climate change, bringing violent storms and cyclones."
Very quickly the world's food and water supplies will begin to run short.
Canadian coastguards predict that it will not be long before the legendary Northwest Passage through the Arctic will be completely ice-free. And that's fuelling a new "cold rush" as businesses eye the vast oil and mineral reserves which, until now, have been locked beneath the melting ice.
Says one commentator: "This issue will become something that people are willing to go to war over."
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