Leonardo diCaprio’s much anticipated film, the 11th Hour, opened this past weekend. diCaprio produced and narrates this urgent call to action to mitigate global warming.
Inspired by Godrey Reggio’s film Koyaanisqatsi, the Hopi Indian word for ‘life out of balance’, which visually examines our disconnection with nature, the 11th Hour opens with a visual assault. Raging fires and floods, dispossessed people, animals in distress, glaciers breaking apart unfold clip after clip. Unlike Koyaanisqatsi, the diCaprio’s film is not wordless. Scientists, thinkers and activists such as David Suzuki, Wangari Maathai, Ray Anderson, Stephen Hawking, Mikhail Gorbachev, Oren Lyons and Bill McKibben explain just what’s happening and where it will lead if we don’t take drastic action now.
They make it very clear that while the biosphere is on the verge of collapse, planet earth will likely recover. Human beings, along with millions of species that co-habit this beautiful world, will not.
So who are the culprits? While the film, directed by newcomers Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners, wags its finger at governments for cozying up to big business, it also looks at our history to find out how we got to this terrifying place and why we continue to perpetuate it. The film walks us through agricultural practices that have depleted forests and soil for thousands of years and the grand daddy – oil. This cheap and powerful energy source has not only released stores of carbon from buried ancient forests, it is responsible for the unprecedented increase in the human population thanks to wide-scale prosperity. According to the film, our species’ population has doubled since the time JFK was in office – not even fifty years ago. Add to the fact that we are insatiable consumers, and put the economy before ecology and us above nature, the challenge to avert ecological meltdown is formidable.
Depressed yet? The film packs a wallop. Just when you think the situation is hopeless, the film holds out an olive branch. Designers such as William McDonough and Canada’s Bruce Mau shed light on exciting possibilities for a carbon-free future that can roll out now. This depends on one thing. Political will. The film reminds us that in 1942, Roosevelt got America’s war machine up and running in half a year, no easy feet, becoming a critical force in a fight on two fronts on opposite sides of the world.
A carbon-free future that can be realized in our lifetime also depends on you and me.
The film provides a reminder reminiscent of Hal’s St. Crispen's Day Speech to his frightened army in Shakespeare’s Henry V. He tells them what lucky sods they are to be at Agincourt, despite being heavily outnumbered by the French. He tells them that future generations will envy them for fighting England’s greatest battle. It’s quite a sales pitch. The same pitch can be made to us.
You lucky lucky people. The chips are down, yes, but we are the generation that is destined to overcome the greatest challenge ever to face humanity. Our descendents will look to us with envy. If only I lived during those times, they will say. If only I made such a difference.
Make a difference. See the film. Bring your friends. It’s important. Step up your efforts to reduce your climate footprint. Contact your local representatives. Tell them how you feel. Our date with a collapsing biosphere must be avoided. It now rests in our hands. We’re it.
In the News
The Age of Cheap Oil is Ending – by Thomas Homer-Dixon
This piece appeared in the Globe & Mail on Aug 6. The US National Petroleum Council, not one to cry wolf when it come to oil, is starting to come to terms with reality. Depleting reserves and the insatiable demand from Asia are not happy bedfellows. Will the 2020s be the dirty 20s?
Wheat prices reach record level
Hot dry weather affects a critical crop.
Sun set to shine on solar by Tyler Hamilton
What a venture capitalist has to say about renewable power.
India’s Supermarket Boom
George Monbiot argues that the West needs to rethink the supermarket to drastically cut greenhouse gases. But what if countries like India and China develop a taste for brightly lit and air conditioned stores? What if Walmart gets in there? It’s already starting to happen.
Other News
BBC – The Greenroom
Ecoshock Radio
Green Bloggers
Grist Magazine
Monbiot
My Green Element
New York Times – Environment
StopGlobalWarming.org
Tree Hugger
Zerofootprint Blog
Showing posts with label Film Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Film Reviews. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Thursday, May 03, 2007
The Great Nappy Debate and other Fine Arguments
The last two 60 percent installments have been devoted to babies and kids. It’s not over yet. I’ve covered input but not output. I think you know what I’m talking about. Yeah that’s right. I think it’s about time for the great diaper debate!
For those of you not consumed in the land of children, why not scroll down to learn about the exciting escapades of…my week. Ok, you can stop yawning. I had a very illuminating and rather intense seven days. I’ll stick with the illuminating part. I saw some exciting eco-oriented films at the Toronto Hot Doc fest and spent some time at the Green Living Show. Let me tell you all about it…. But it you’re a parent (of a baby), you may want to read this first:
The Great Diaper Debate
What kind of eco-baby talk can I give without touching on the all mighty diaper debate? Cloth or disposable? What should it be?
Way back in the late 1980s when I was a young woman and blog-less (alas), everyone got all hot and bothered about the hole in the ozone layer and the burning Amazon. With our eco-consciousness ignited, it became obvious to just about everyone that disposable diapers were evil and a one way ticket to eco-hell (for more on eco-hell, I recommend that you pick up Vanity Fair’s annual green issue this month).
At the time, Americans threw away 18 billion disposable diapers per year. That translated into 1.2 million metric tons of wood pulp and 75K metric tons of plastic. Faced with these statistics, some parents turned to the old fashioned reusable cloth. The largest disposable producer, Procter & Gamble, shot back, funding a study that showed that with all that washing, the cloth nappies were in fact using up more energy than the disposable alternatives. Other studies followed, demonstrating this and that depending on who was funding the study.
In 1993, Franklin Associates conducted a more thorough investigation that reviewed the entire lifespan of both types of nappies. They found the following:
Commercially laundered diapers used 13 percent more energy than disposables. Home laundering required 27 percent more energy than disposables. The washers and driers were not as efficient as the commercial ones, which explains the jump in expended energy.
Diaper services consumed 2.5 times more water than the throw-aways. Home laundry used more than twice as much.
However, disposables produced twice as much waste as commercial and home laundering.
The Union of Concerned Scientists advise us not to sweat about which one to choose. Happily disposables are becoming thinner and in places like Toronto, you can recycle them in the green bin. Also, commercial and home washers and dryers are becoming more efficient. It all depends on what you have available to you.
The more important choices are to buy organic, reduce the number of toys and clothes, reduce toxicity in your home, and spend more time in nature with your kids.
Speaking of which, thanks Eddie for letting me know about Wholesum, his new cotton and bamboo clothing company for men and women.
What I’ve Learned the Week:
I spent my week at the Hot Docs Festival and Green Living Show in Toronto. I saw some great documentaries on nature and our impact on the planet. At the Green Living show I met folks promoting organic gardens and green products, and attended talks by David Suzuki, Van Jones, Robert Kennedy Jr. and George Monbiot. The latter two spoke via teleconference from Virginia and Wales respectfully.
It was inspiring and sobering. This is what I learned:
The Four Elements. A poetic film by emerging filmmaker, Jiska Rickels. Divided in four parts devoted to the elements, the film is told through the work of Siberian wild land firefighters, Alaskan king crab fishers, German miners and Russian cosmonauts. The human connection to nature that is touched on in beginning of the film transforms into a deeper connection with technology as we follow the fishers and miners and then literally leave the planet with the cosmonauts.
What Would Jesus Buy? The Church of Stop Shopping poses this question to just about anyone who will listen during a month-long trek across the USA leading up to Christmas. Asking a North American to stop shopping during Christmas time is like trying to move a Macy’s store. According to the film, the average American racks up $13 thousand in credit card debt during Christmas alone. If you get a chance to see this hilarious and sobering documentary, please do.
Everything’s Cool. This global warming wake up call spans from 2004 to 2006. We follow long-time climate change profits, Bill McKibben and Ross Gelbspan, exhausted and bitter by their decades-old campaign, and their reaction to the growing media recognition of climate change. We learn about Rick Piltz, the civil servant who blew the whistle on the Whitehouse’s manipulation of scientific reports on climate change. We also follow climatologist Dr. Heidi Cullen from her three-minute spot on a weather channel to landing her own half-hour global warming program. The film captures a fascinating time when Americans and the world were waking up to the problem of global warming.
From Toronto’s Green Living Show
David Suzuki – In response to the fed’s shirking of their Kyoto duties, Suzuki reminded us that John Baird is Canada’s Environment Minister, not it’s Finance Minister. Just as it’s inappropriate for Baird to place the economy before ecology, it is incorrect to assume that protecting the ecology undermines the economy. Any society that treats the two as separate issues is doomed to fail. Remember that ‘ecology’ and ‘economy’ come from the same word: home. If you don’t sustain the ecology, you’re not going to have an economy. It’s as simple as that. Even David Stern, head economist for the British Treasury, understands the critical importance of investing in sustainable activity to stave off economic disaster.
Robert Kennedy Jr. – Kennedy, son of Bobby and one of the State’s lead environmentalists, reminded us that former oil lobbyists have taken top environmental roles in government. You can read more on that in Vanity Fair’s green issue as well. As an indication of the auto industry’s tremendous power, Kennedy told us that Laurie David, producer of An Inconvenient Truth, approached the major US networks about a TV ad that she wanted to air. I can’t remember what he said the ad was for, but it had something to do with a solution to global warming. She was prepared to give the networks $5 million. They said no. They didn’t want to upset their auto clients. Ah…democracy in action.
George Monbiot – The author of Heat: How to stop the planet from burning tells us to stop flying and stop driving. Change is happening faster than we think with dire consequences. Recently, Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Center in Colorado, announced that the Artic summer ice may disappear as early as 2020, thirty years earlier than the conservative estimate made by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climatologists. If this happens, the warming of the planet will accelerate. We must act now. No more dancing around.
During his talk, George fielded a question by Elizabeth May, leader of Canada’s Green Party, regarding the federal government’s recent decision to not meet its Kyoto targets by 2012. Monbiot said that this decision has the moral equivalency of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of the German invasion of Poland and Czechoslovakia. To Monbiot, both ‘appeasements’ are cop outs with dire consequences. May reiterated Monbiot’s comment in a church sermon in London, Ontario. PM Harper got all mad and said that her comments diminished the Holocaust. Can somebody please explain how the Chamberlain comment diminishes the Holocaust? That’s quite the leap in logic. The fact of the matter is the government is copping out and the consequences will be dire. Global warming is not going away. It’s only going to get worse, just as Hitler wasn’t going to go away when Chamberlain failed to stand up to him: he only got worse.
Van Jones – Thank God for folks like Van Jones. He’s the Executive Director of the Ella Baker Centre in Oakland, California. Van became an environmentalist when he realized that the kids he was getting off the streets and into jobs at polluting factories was hardly a step in the right direction for his community. He quickly saw the connection between greening his city and empowering youth with jobs. But there’s a problem. People employed in green jobs tend to be exclusively white and relatively affluent. He recognized that from the environmental movement an eco-apartheid was emerging.
Through his program Reclaim the Future, low-income and minority youth are starting to find work in eco-friendly jobs. This should serve as a role model for other cities. Indeed, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker the House, is so inspired by Jones, she is making the case for a national Clean Energy Jobs Bill.
In the News
Green Bloggers
Ecoshock Radio
Grist Magazine
Tree Hugger
Zerofootprint Blog
StopGlobalWarming.org
BBC – The Greenroom
New York Times – Environment
For those of you not consumed in the land of children, why not scroll down to learn about the exciting escapades of…my week. Ok, you can stop yawning. I had a very illuminating and rather intense seven days. I’ll stick with the illuminating part. I saw some exciting eco-oriented films at the Toronto Hot Doc fest and spent some time at the Green Living Show. Let me tell you all about it…. But it you’re a parent (of a baby), you may want to read this first:
The Great Diaper Debate
What kind of eco-baby talk can I give without touching on the all mighty diaper debate? Cloth or disposable? What should it be?
Way back in the late 1980s when I was a young woman and blog-less (alas), everyone got all hot and bothered about the hole in the ozone layer and the burning Amazon. With our eco-consciousness ignited, it became obvious to just about everyone that disposable diapers were evil and a one way ticket to eco-hell (for more on eco-hell, I recommend that you pick up Vanity Fair’s annual green issue this month).
At the time, Americans threw away 18 billion disposable diapers per year. That translated into 1.2 million metric tons of wood pulp and 75K metric tons of plastic. Faced with these statistics, some parents turned to the old fashioned reusable cloth. The largest disposable producer, Procter & Gamble, shot back, funding a study that showed that with all that washing, the cloth nappies were in fact using up more energy than the disposable alternatives. Other studies followed, demonstrating this and that depending on who was funding the study.
In 1993, Franklin Associates conducted a more thorough investigation that reviewed the entire lifespan of both types of nappies. They found the following:
Commercially laundered diapers used 13 percent more energy than disposables. Home laundering required 27 percent more energy than disposables. The washers and driers were not as efficient as the commercial ones, which explains the jump in expended energy.
Diaper services consumed 2.5 times more water than the throw-aways. Home laundry used more than twice as much.
However, disposables produced twice as much waste as commercial and home laundering.
The Union of Concerned Scientists advise us not to sweat about which one to choose. Happily disposables are becoming thinner and in places like Toronto, you can recycle them in the green bin. Also, commercial and home washers and dryers are becoming more efficient. It all depends on what you have available to you.
The more important choices are to buy organic, reduce the number of toys and clothes, reduce toxicity in your home, and spend more time in nature with your kids.
Speaking of which, thanks Eddie for letting me know about Wholesum, his new cotton and bamboo clothing company for men and women.
What I’ve Learned the Week:
I spent my week at the Hot Docs Festival and Green Living Show in Toronto. I saw some great documentaries on nature and our impact on the planet. At the Green Living show I met folks promoting organic gardens and green products, and attended talks by David Suzuki, Van Jones, Robert Kennedy Jr. and George Monbiot. The latter two spoke via teleconference from Virginia and Wales respectfully.
It was inspiring and sobering. This is what I learned:
The Four Elements. A poetic film by emerging filmmaker, Jiska Rickels. Divided in four parts devoted to the elements, the film is told through the work of Siberian wild land firefighters, Alaskan king crab fishers, German miners and Russian cosmonauts. The human connection to nature that is touched on in beginning of the film transforms into a deeper connection with technology as we follow the fishers and miners and then literally leave the planet with the cosmonauts.
What Would Jesus Buy? The Church of Stop Shopping poses this question to just about anyone who will listen during a month-long trek across the USA leading up to Christmas. Asking a North American to stop shopping during Christmas time is like trying to move a Macy’s store. According to the film, the average American racks up $13 thousand in credit card debt during Christmas alone. If you get a chance to see this hilarious and sobering documentary, please do.
Everything’s Cool. This global warming wake up call spans from 2004 to 2006. We follow long-time climate change profits, Bill McKibben and Ross Gelbspan, exhausted and bitter by their decades-old campaign, and their reaction to the growing media recognition of climate change. We learn about Rick Piltz, the civil servant who blew the whistle on the Whitehouse’s manipulation of scientific reports on climate change. We also follow climatologist Dr. Heidi Cullen from her three-minute spot on a weather channel to landing her own half-hour global warming program. The film captures a fascinating time when Americans and the world were waking up to the problem of global warming.
From Toronto’s Green Living Show
David Suzuki – In response to the fed’s shirking of their Kyoto duties, Suzuki reminded us that John Baird is Canada’s Environment Minister, not it’s Finance Minister. Just as it’s inappropriate for Baird to place the economy before ecology, it is incorrect to assume that protecting the ecology undermines the economy. Any society that treats the two as separate issues is doomed to fail. Remember that ‘ecology’ and ‘economy’ come from the same word: home. If you don’t sustain the ecology, you’re not going to have an economy. It’s as simple as that. Even David Stern, head economist for the British Treasury, understands the critical importance of investing in sustainable activity to stave off economic disaster.
Robert Kennedy Jr. – Kennedy, son of Bobby and one of the State’s lead environmentalists, reminded us that former oil lobbyists have taken top environmental roles in government. You can read more on that in Vanity Fair’s green issue as well. As an indication of the auto industry’s tremendous power, Kennedy told us that Laurie David, producer of An Inconvenient Truth, approached the major US networks about a TV ad that she wanted to air. I can’t remember what he said the ad was for, but it had something to do with a solution to global warming. She was prepared to give the networks $5 million. They said no. They didn’t want to upset their auto clients. Ah…democracy in action.
George Monbiot – The author of Heat: How to stop the planet from burning tells us to stop flying and stop driving. Change is happening faster than we think with dire consequences. Recently, Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Center in Colorado, announced that the Artic summer ice may disappear as early as 2020, thirty years earlier than the conservative estimate made by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climatologists. If this happens, the warming of the planet will accelerate. We must act now. No more dancing around.
During his talk, George fielded a question by Elizabeth May, leader of Canada’s Green Party, regarding the federal government’s recent decision to not meet its Kyoto targets by 2012. Monbiot said that this decision has the moral equivalency of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of the German invasion of Poland and Czechoslovakia. To Monbiot, both ‘appeasements’ are cop outs with dire consequences. May reiterated Monbiot’s comment in a church sermon in London, Ontario. PM Harper got all mad and said that her comments diminished the Holocaust. Can somebody please explain how the Chamberlain comment diminishes the Holocaust? That’s quite the leap in logic. The fact of the matter is the government is copping out and the consequences will be dire. Global warming is not going away. It’s only going to get worse, just as Hitler wasn’t going to go away when Chamberlain failed to stand up to him: he only got worse.
Van Jones – Thank God for folks like Van Jones. He’s the Executive Director of the Ella Baker Centre in Oakland, California. Van became an environmentalist when he realized that the kids he was getting off the streets and into jobs at polluting factories was hardly a step in the right direction for his community. He quickly saw the connection between greening his city and empowering youth with jobs. But there’s a problem. People employed in green jobs tend to be exclusively white and relatively affluent. He recognized that from the environmental movement an eco-apartheid was emerging.
Through his program Reclaim the Future, low-income and minority youth are starting to find work in eco-friendly jobs. This should serve as a role model for other cities. Indeed, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker the House, is so inspired by Jones, she is making the case for a national Clean Energy Jobs Bill.
In the News
Green Bloggers
Ecoshock Radio
Grist Magazine
Tree Hugger
Zerofootprint Blog
StopGlobalWarming.org
BBC – The Greenroom
New York Times – Environment
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