das loft

Fantastic new documentary: What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire, directed by Tim Bennett and produced by Sally Erickson. I know I seem to say this every time there's a new movie about the collapse of civilization, but this time I mean it more than ever: This film is imperative viewing for everyone. If there's only one movie recommendation you will take away from my blog, please let it be this one. I'd even go as far as saying, don't bother reading Ishmael or the Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight – just see this film.

If you can't afford to pay for the DVD but you still want to see it, let me know and I'll lend you one of the DVDs I've ordered.

Sally and Tim's blogs are also very much worth following. Here is an excerpt from Sally's latest posting:

For now I will just share one woman’s experience, and my response:

[...]

I have a small story of my own to tell. Over the past few years, I have grown increasingly frustrated with what seems are my own paltry and insignificant efforts to contribute to the saving of the planet. I have tried many ways (prayer, consulting the trees, consulting ancestors, therapy, begging, pleading to anyone and/or anything) to discern what my role should be.

But all I have heard is silence…

[...]

….that is until I saw your movie. The night after watching it, I tossed and turned until finally at about 4:00a.m. Then an idea emerged. I am going to send 50 copies to people I know and ask that they, if inspired and so inclined, will “pay it forward” and send it to 3 other people and request the same of their receivers. I hope they will purchase an additional 2 copies to keep it circulating at a fast pace. I know this is still a very small step, but I have a lot of energy around it so I am going to assume that it is my inner voice telling me to act.

[...]

Your film is so powerful. I don’t see how anyone could view it and not break out of denial and be moved to act.

Well, believe it or not, people do view it and manage to stay in denial. The wounds of Empire are deep and people are understandably numb, cynical and afraid to feel. But there are also lots of people who view it, and view it again, and again, because they don’t want to be in denial. They want to be awake and in action. They want to step into a larger, more meaningful story than that of Empire. Sometimes these are people who one might not expect. Sometimes people we would expect to feel supported and empowered by our film are instead threatened and angry, because we are not selling easy, hopeful, or only slightly inconvenient answers. It is heartening, though, how many people we hear from who are deeply appreciative. Like you, having seen the movie, they feel supported, empowered and affirmed in the midst of the mainstream culture that says they must be crazy to be so concerned.

Labels: civilization collapse, eye-opening, global warming, ishmael, movies, peak oil, sustainability

Read this great little talk by Guy McPherson - The end of civilization and the extinction of humanity. He's quite entertaining.

"As I wrote in one of my recent books, the problem is not that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions -- it's that the road to Hell is paved. We have, to the maximum possible extent allowed by our intellect and never-ending desire, consumed the planet and therefore traded in tomorrow for today. And we keep making these choices, every day, choosing dams over salmon, oil over whales, cars over polar bears, death over life."

Labels: apocalypse, global warming, peak oil

I just read an excellent article called Climate Change, Sabre Tooth Tigers and Devaluing the Future, which describes the evolutionary reasons our society is unable to properly deal with the growing concerns of climate change and peak oil. It was posted to The Oil Drum, a blog with very well-researched articles about energy and our future. I read it every day.

Here are some snippets from that article:

The debate on the realities of both climate change and Peak Oil has moved from 'are they real?' to questions concerning timing, magnitude and impact. At the same time, expanding research in 'temporal discounting' in economics (called 'impulsivity' in psychology), is shedding light on how steeply we value the present over the future, a trait that has ancient origins. Knowing this tendency, how can we expect factual updates on peak oil and climate change to behaviorally compete with Starbucks, sex, slot machines, and ski trips?

...

Ultimately we are after impact. If we spend 99% of our efforts on educating people on the facts of peak oil, yet nothing happens, it would be better to spend 50% of our efforts on education and 50% by example. For example, researchers attempted to persuade young students not to litter – either by teaching them about ecology and pollution or by telling them they were neat and tidy compared to other students – only the latter had a positive effect.⁽⁴⁾ E.O Wilson suggests, "A stiffer dose of biological realism is in order... The only way to make a conservation ethic work is to ground it in ultimately selfish reasoning. An essential component of this formula is the principle that people will conserve land and species fiercely if they forsee a material gain for themselves their kin or their tribe." All of our past environmental successes (DDT, ozone depletion, unleaded gasoline, etc.) had some sort of smoking gun—an emotional trigger. The problem with climate change/peak oil is when we do get the emotional trigger, it may be a Gatling gun on full bore.

Labels: apocalypse, climate change, eye-opening, global warming, peak oil

I finally got around to watching An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's documentary about global warming. It's another crucial eye-opener, as I expected it to be. I learned even more startling things about the consequences of global warming that I never knew. In general I found it showed our current predicament as pretty bleak, but then I have a tendency to see the future in a pretty dreary light anyway. So it didn't exactly lift my spirits, despite the positive action items mentioned at the end. But if there's to be any hope at all, then everyone should watch this film!

Labels: al gore, an inconvenient truth, climate change, global warming, movies