Joel Bach

Journalism career

ABC and NBC Before landing at 60 Minutes with CBS News, Bach had worked at American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and National Broadcasting Company (NBC). Bach joined 60 Minutes in 2004. While working at 60 Minutes, Bach earned two Emmy Awards for his investigative journalism and production efforts with CBS News. After Bach and Gelber had collaborated on two separate stories related to climate change for 60 Minutes, they realized it was the most crucial news topic worthy of additional stories. They knew they wanted to focus more on the topic, but were cognizant of the fact that they could not simply inform their supervisors at 60 Minutes that they would intend to only focus on one solitary news issue of climate change. Bach and Gelber both left 60 Minutes together in order to devote more time and energy to their climate change project. Together in 2011 they founded the company to focus these efforts, Roaring Fork Films — in the process Bach described they both left, "the best job in TV, 60 Minutes." Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, used his company Vulcan Inc. to allocate $1.8 million towards education and marketing related to the project. Fellow film and television executive Jerry Weintraub convinced Bach and Gelber to instead make the production into a television series.

After Bach and Gelber successfully enlisted Weintraub and film director James Cameron as executive producers of the television documentary project, multiple celebrities joined soon thereafter — including Harrison Ford, Jessica Alba, Matt Damon, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The series debuted on Showtime in 2014. The project received a generally positive media reception. Columbia Journalism Review noted the show "drew praise", while The Guardian observed, "the series has very high standards of accuracy." He and Gelber also won the 2014 Environmental Media Award in the category, Outstanding Achievement for Environmental Content. For season two of the series, Bach reached out to David Letterman after discovering he showed specific attention to climate change issues on his CBS program Late Show with David Letterman. Bach and Gelber sent David Letterman to India for the second season, to interview the country's prime minister Narendra Modi about energy issues.

For their second season, Bach and Gelber continued to use celebrity star power to bring attention to climate change, and additionally provided more examples of solutions and direct methods on how interested parties can address the issue.

60 Minutes, "The Bailout" Emmy Award, Outstanding Coverage of a Breaking News Story in a News Magazine Academy of Television Arts & Sciences 60 Minutes, "Where's the Bottom?" Emmy Award, Outstanding Interpretation or Analysis of a Business News Story - News Magazines Academy of Television Arts & Sciences 2010 60 Minutes, "60 Billion Dollar Fraud" Emmy Award, Outstanding Investigative Journalism in a News Magazine Academy of Television Arts & Sciences

Primetime Emmy Award, Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Environmental Media Award: The EMA Outstanding Achievement for Environmental Content Award Environmental Media Association IDA Award, Best Limited Series International Documentary Association 2015 Years of Living Dangerously Cinema for Peace Award: The International Green Film Award 2015 Cinema for Peace Foundation 2017 Years of Living Dangerously Environmental Media Award: The EMA Outstanding Achievement for Environmental Content Award Environmental Media Association