I distinctly remember the night I saw An Inconvenient Truth in 2006. The film essentially did what no high school teacher could: gave me a purpose to structure my studies, setting me on course to earn a degree in environmental studies, an advanced degree in natural resource conservation, and eventually working here, at the Wilson Center.

The same spark that Al Gore inspired in many young people is now sweeping China – and much of the world – thanks to a new film and innovative effort to bring it overseas. Under the Dome, a TED-style documentary on China’s air pollution released in March, starring former TV reporter Chai Jang, has been likened by many to An Inconvenient Truth. It’s become a viral phenomenon, with 880,000 views on YouTube to date and more than 150 million views on the Chinese video platform Tencent before it was removed. Environmental Protection Minister Chen Jining even praised the film initially, before the government mandated the media stop covering it and blocked access online a week after its release.

Part of how quickly its spread, despite these efforts, has been a remarkable grassroots effort to crowdsource its translation into English. After seeing the documentary, high school students Tianyu Fang (age 14) and Linghein Ho (17), thought it was “conclusive and revolutionary,” Fang said in an email exchange. But without English subtitles, they felt it wasn’t going to reach many English papers and online media outlets.

On March 1, Fang and Ho, determined to translate the film, posted a request for translators and editors on Ho’s personal blog alongside an eight-minute YouTube clip with translations they had completed themselves. “The number of people who responded to us was out of my expectation,” Fang said. “We received hundreds of responses and heard from people who were willing to join us – from China, the United States, Australia, Japan, Germany, France, Spain, and Vietnam.”

A professional translation of the 104-minute documentary would have cost thousands of dollars, but two high school students and an online army of translators and proofreaders completed the work in five days. The best English translation of Under the Dome could be found for free on YouTube weeks after its release. When asked whether their peers had the same reactions to the film, Fang said, “People at our age? I don’t think they do. But they are concerned about the smog problem now because of this documentary, which makes me satisfied.”

The Power of Peers

The success of Under the Dome comes at a time of growing environmental awareness in China. According to the University of British Colombia’s International Reporting Program, environmental protests are increasing 29 percent each year in China. Following a series of high profile incidents, there’s been growing momentum from the bottom up and top down.

Screen shot from Ho’s personal blog updating the community on their translation progress.

“Political will has been increasing significantly in the past several years,” said Hongjun Zhanghen, a partner at the law firm Holland and Knight who has drafted environmental policy in China, at a screening of Under the Dome at the Wilson Center in March. He pointed out that the State Council passed 10 new air pollution measures in 2013 that if implemented properly could reduce air pollution by 60 percent. In addition, to the relief of environmental organizations around the world, President Xi Jinping signed a bi-lateral climate agreement with the United States last fall agreeing to put a cap on Chinese carbon emissions by 2030.

More and more data is becoming available to everyday citizens as well. In 2008 the Chinese government signed onto the worldwide Open Government Information Regulations initiative which sets out a series of guidelines for governments concerning the freedom of information and access to information. Increasing transparency, enabled by the internet and a global middle class growing by leaps and bounds, means informed citizen action is quickly becoming more achievable, even in the most closed societies.

Here at the Wilson Center, the Science and Technology Innovation Program (STIP) and China Environment Forum (CEF) are interested in how these open and bottom-up forms of participation are assisting scientific pursuits and information generation in response to environmental pressures. CEF has covered Beijing’s sludge crisis and private citizens’ attempts to document illegal dumping sites around the city. Ma Jun, a Goldman Prize winner and recent recipient of the Skoll Foundation’s award for social entrepreneurship, who has created China’s first public-facing pollution map, is a current Wilson Center Global Fellow. ECSP is following “geojournalism,” which combines mapping with open-sourced environmental data. And this February, STIP released a report evaluating the uses of citizen science in Europe for policymaking, while the Commons Lab is keeping a running tally of federally supported citizen science and crowdsourcing projects in the United States.

In China and other places around the world, these tools are helping increase citizen participation and awareness. “We are pleased to make our own efforts on environmental issues,” Fang told me. After watching Under the Dome, will more Chinese teenagers feel the same way? The enthusiastic response to Fang and Ho’s call for help suggests there’s a willing audience, and my own experience makes clear what a difference such a powerful film can make.