11th Hour: Moment Has Come to ‘Heal’ the Earth, Film Argues
NEW YORK — Huge fires burning forests, devastating floods, dark clouds of industrial smoke, traffic jams, a million cars, deadly earthquakes, devastating floods, melting ice on mountain tops, traffic noise, and crowded malls. That is what you see when the show starts: it’s called “The 11th Hour.”
Produced and directed by Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio, the new feature-length documentary film on the extent and gravity of the global environmental crisis is being shown in theaters across the United States and Canada this week.
The 131-minute film is based on interviews with more than 50 world-renowned figures, including the former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, physicist Stephen Hawking, Noble Peace laureate Wangari Mathaai, environmentalist Bill McKibben, and Native American leader Oren Lyons.
Using striking images of the earth from aerial photography accompanied by solid music, DiCaprio tells the audience about the environmental destruction of the planet: “The evidence is now clear.”
Unlike Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth,” an environmental documentary released last year in July, “The 11th Hour” does not merely warn of the consequences of the dangers posed by global warming. It rather attempts to raise the bigger question of whether the existing model of economic development is compatible with the laws of nature.
“The industrial civilization has caused irreparable damage,” says DiCaprio in the opening scene. “Our political and corporate leaders have consistently ignored the overwhelming evidence.”
In DiCaprio’s view, global warming is “not the number one environmental challenge we face today, but one of the most important issues facing all of humanity.”
The movie documents a wide range of issues related to environmental destruction, including climate change, loss of biodiversity, deforestation, depletion of ocean habitats, unsustainable patterns of consumption, overfishing, and environmental refugees.
The theme of the movie emphasizes that all these issues are interlinked with each other and that any initiative to solve them must be derived from an integrated approach based in scientific knowledge.
“I keep telling people…’Let us not destroy the forested mountains, because if you destroy the forests, the rivers will stop flowing, and the rains will become irregular, and the crops will fail, and you will die of hunger and starvation,’” says Mathaai. “Now the problem is that people don’t make those linkages.”
Reflecting on the same theme, Gorbachev sees ecological destruction as a global issue that demands a global response. “We need to think and act differently,” he says.
Many among those interviewed by the “11th Hour” team hold a unanimous view that overemphasis on economic growth and greed for profits is largely responsible for the current environmental crises, including global warming.
In support of his thesis, DiCaprio argues that, at this point of human history, the industrialized civilization has become “sick” to the point that it needs “healing.”
“That is the task of our generation,” he says. “Our response depends on the conscious evolution of our species, and their response could very well save this unique blue planet for future generations.”
Like many others in the movie, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking sees ecological degradation as the direct result of irrational human actions and treatment of nature, which amount to collective self-destruction.
“We are committing suicide,” he says in an interview.
The movie offers sharp and pointed criticism of American and other industrial nations’ dependence on foreign oil. To make a point about U.S. security concerns and their links with foreign oil, DiCaprio has also engaged former CIA director James Woolsey in the movie.
“Winston Churchill had it right about us,” Woolsey says. “He said the Americans always do the right thing, but unfortunately it’s only after they have exhausted all other possibilities. We have been exhausting some fairly bad possibilities for a long time. I think maybe we are finally ready to get it right.”
Perhaps, conscious of the vital role indigenous people play in the global environmental movement because of their close proximity to nature, the documentary also features Oren Lyons, the Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation.
In giving his views on the state of the planet, Lyons warns the audience that humankind could disappear from the face the Earth due to its ill action, but the Earth itself will survive.
“It will regenerate. The rivers, the waters, the mountains; everything will be green again. Because the Earth has all the time in the world. But we don’t. Love the place you live in.”
© 2007 One World
Stephen Hawking said “We are committing suicide”. Unfortunately we have also granted our money and power to those who are willing to kill to keep it. So now what?
Looks great to me!
http://wip.warnerbros.com/11thhour/
http://www.11thhouraction.com/
Global warming is fine with me. I do everything I can to increase the effects of global warming. It is always the poor and less fortunate that appears to be worried about global warming. What are they worried about?
If the United States continues on this, “War for Any-Reason” path, what kind of country/world will be left? It will be like a bad sci-fi movie. Who wants to live in a world run totally by and for the corporations? I say let’s speed up the global warming so the bastards that have caused it and their family will be suffering like the poor people.
On this topic I agree with O’reilly and his monkey (Miller), “I’m usually cold anyway a degree or two warmer sounds nice”.
The Bush Administration has killed millions of people and captures and tortures whomever they choose. And we are worried about global warming?
Nature is reality.
Climate Deniers = Climate Dodos
“The Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) was a flightless bird that lived on the islands of Mauritius. Related to pigeons and doves, it stood about a meter tall (three feet), lived on fruit and nested on the ground.
“The dodo has been extinct since the mid-to-late 17th century. It is commonly used as the archetype of an extinct species because its extinction occurred during recorded human history, and was directly attributable to human activity. The phrase “as dead as a dodo” means undoubtedly and unquestionably dead.” — Wikepedia
I suppose it would be interesting to ask the prisons at Guantánamo Bay what the effects of global warming have been. I wonder if it makes waterboarding more or less torturous.
“Climate dodos.” The expression implies that it is an insult to be compared to a flightless bird who was driven extinct because of human beings. Not human beings bringing about their own destruction and being too stupid to figure it out.
Dodos went extinct because they had no natural enemies and would walk right up to humans carrying clubs and guns–unaware how greedy and vicious humans were. They were faultless. You wouldnt blame a blind man for not being able to read a road sign so why would you blame a bird for not knowing how destructive humans were?
Slandering another species for humanity’s own faults is so typical.
Like calling a traitor a “stool pigeon”–stool pigeons were birds either alive or dead tied to a post to attract other birds so they could be captured.
By humans.
Humans are the ones who will make deals to spare themselves for profit.
Never the other way around.
They did an experiment once were they tied monkeys to a chair and had monkeys in another room wired the same. If the monkey in one room didnt press a button that would shock the monkey in the next room, then it would be shocked instead.
The monkeys chose to be shocked rather than do it to the other monkey.
They did a mock version of it with humans. They had people in one room pretending to be tied to a chair that gives out shocks. the people in the other room werent even set up to be shocked themselves. Instead an authority figure asked them to shock the person in the other room.
Do you think they showed the moral fortitude of the monkeys?
Nope!
Global warming isnt such a bad thing if it teaches humanity a lesson in humility. But that’s a long shot.
Too many human supremacists with their heads up their rears(far worse than what ostriches do).
I suppose it would be interesting to ask the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay what the effects of totalitarian dictatorships have been. I wonder if it makes waterboarding more or less torturous.
Freedom Loving American,
“The Bush Administration has killed millions of people and captures and tortures whomever they choose. And we are worried about global warming?”
Well, yes. Climate change will kill billions, not mere millions. The planet could become unfit for mammaliam inhabitation. Nothing else Bush and his corporate masters are up to can come close to climate change as a threat to human existence on this planet.
How does being human relate to humanity?
Just asking…….
We have to shift the economic model….and there are lots of folks working towards this…
Riane Eisler’s Real Wealth of Nations
Barbara Brandt’s Whole Life Economics
Marjorie Kelly’s The Divine Right of capital…
All three of books outline ways we can transition out of a ‘consumer economy’ and into an economy that is centered on quality of life vs. quantity of money.
Check out www.seachangetoday.com
re: “The Bush Administration has killed millions of people and captures and tortures whomever they choose. And we are worried about global warming?”
The ONLY intelligent response to the two problems you present here is we worry about BOTH.
Focusing only on the war and ignoring global warming would, to me, be the height of stupidity. It’s like believing a magician has actually performed real magic in his right hand because you were too busy watching the left. Further, those who want to own everything and control everyone are the ones who are not only feuling (and profiting from) the death machine in Iraq, but also the ones spreading the disinformation that has made global climate change something short of consensus. It truly amazes me that a person can so passionately disagree with the murder in Iraq yet so ignorantly dismiss the reality and real danger that is global warming.
Oh! That nasty crude oil that has polluted the entire Earth’s atmosphere.
Oh! All of those nasty polluting oil corporations, they don’t care about anything but huge profits.
Oh! This nasty US government and all of those elected officials. They don’t care about GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE CHANGE and the pollution of the Earth’s atmosphere, they only want to get reelected.
Oh! Those nasty automobiles, trucks, airplanes, boats, trains, and all of those petrochemicals and products produced by using oil, they have ruined everything on this earth and have caused global warming for all of us and the future of mankind.
Oh! Those nasty people that use/combust hydrocarbons, and all of those polluting products made from hydrocarbons.
No! No wait! That’s us! We are the polluters! Never mind all of the above! We have been lied to! We have been told all along it was the Big Oil that did all of the polluting. But now I realize that every time that I turn the ignition on my automobile, turn on a light switch or adjust the thermostat so that I will be more comfortable, or when I’m purchasing most any product with my credit card, I AM THE POLLUTER THAT I HATE!
Hey lets be fair give the Bush administration/repukes time they will be able to kill billions, too. Never doubt a repukes ability to kill. Once they attack Iran that is 65,000,000 then Pakistan is 125,000,000 then India is over 1,000,000,000. How many people have died from global warming so far.
I stated 5 years ago we had gone past the tipping point. Once the oceans start warming what do you do? The green house gases do not disappear from the atmosphere within a few months, and we will are not as a world going to stop emitting them anytime soon, so global warming is here and there is nothing ordinary people can do. And frankly we really do not know what the weather effects are going to be except the weather appears to be more extreme. Besides at least in the US who owns all the beach houses and most of the water front properties?
Voltaire: “The progress of the rivers to the sea is not as rapid as men to error.”
I don’t like you either Global,
Kiddin you Global,__ but, if Freedom Loving American up there is serious, I really don’t like that person. What are you and I leaving our children, their chldren, F.L. American?
Thirty five years ago, a scientist, explorer, inventor, author, navigator, ship’s captain, pilot and a very fine man, warned us all, that we had from sixty to eighty years to clean up our act, or this planet would die. That was Jacques Costeau and he was correct and few listened. The result is, we have little time left.
We will not be laughing when global warming causes the Arctic’s permafrost to melt. Billions of tons of methane gas will be released into the atmosphere and that will do it for the ones who like global warming, and for those who don’t like it.
If global warming doesn’t do us in, the continual reduction of the ocean’s phytoplankton will. Those tiny plants are rapidly dying off and no one knows why. Phytoplankton supply us with from 65 to 70% of our oxygen. When their levels drop a few more percent, we’d better have a big oxygen bottle, or we could stop polluting our atmosphere and oceans and see if we can leave somethng for the kids.
Kathy is right though; how we gonna do it? The truly ignorant bastards have the money, the power, and they don’t care.
Kem, can I call you Kem,
I agree with most everything you said except the not liking me part. I have children and grandchildren and I have spent much time worrying about their future. As you mentioned the global warming issue is very complex as it interacts with all our ecosystems.
However, this is one area where I believe the ruthless greedy bastards that have ruined our country and are trying to ruin the world have more at stake than the average citizen. And this is a problem if it does not somehow solve itself can only be solved by the leaders of the polluting nations of the world.
Besides we really do not know what the warming effects will be in the future, perhaps a chunk of ice breaks loose in the antartic the size of Texas which throws us into an ice-age, or perhaps the extra moisture in the atmosphere turns into gigantic winter snow storms correcting part of the warming. No one knows.
I chose to spend my time dealing with issue I understand and I that I know can be improved.
Freedom, you may call me Kem or what my friends and neighbors call me. _______Never mind.
I’m sure I would like you, I love people of evey type, especialy if they are females. I don’t particurally like what you wrote the first time, but now I understand where you are coming from. I don’t agree at all, but then we all have our opinions. The problem with the opinion you express on this important issue is, it’s that of the majority___and that’s why we have the problems with our enviroment that we do have.
I don’t have any solutions either, we are under the power of the most elite and we don’t have an intelligent king or queen to rule this planet. Perhaps we can be be very nice to our kids and grandkids and tell them we’re very sorry for what we have all done.
Mother Nature will reclaim her planet.
Kem and Freedom Lover- You both know exactly what we “ordinary” folks can (and should) do - force ALL these candidates (dems and reps) to answer the question of exactly what they plan to do about global climate change. I have not heard one word about it in the so-called debates - maybe I missed something but I don’t think so.
We can also flood the MSM with e-mails asking why they don’t discuss this calamity. (I know why, they are supported by the same corporations that benefit most from ignoring global climate change. But it’s good to ask them anyway and make them either lie or tell the truth (very unlikely, that). But that would let them know that we care and that they may lose us as their audience if they don’t take this issue seriously.
The point of the movie is that it is not only global warming that is an issue, but the overall devastation of the environment. We are causing major changes within ecosystems we interact with.
Our major cities are getting hotter because of the amount of asphalt and concrete we use to build with. Asphalt especially retains heat and concrete reflects it whereas the ground that was covered over with the above substances absorbs the suns rays in a more gentle and natural manner. A recent study has shown that if roof gardens were placed on all houses and buildings within an urban area, the temperature would be 10 degrees cooler in the summertime.
Forests are being cut down at an alarming rate. Trees absorb CO2 and use it in photosynthesis, releasing Oxygen. If we were to use a more renewable plant, one that would break down more easily to create our paper products, we would use considerably fewer trees and no harsh chemicals. Industrial hemp and kanaf are two products that break down easily and make excellent paper, as well as other usable products.
Most of our manufactured products are based upon the principle of planned obsolescence and manufacturers need to stop that practice. Rather than produce products that will only last for a few years, why not put more emphasis on products that will last far longer. In that way we will use fewer resources and have much better products.
We need to put our heads together and come up with better ways to power ourselves. Many great ideas have been shelved because the big boys don’t want to have them see the light of day and they are inexpensive. I say let’s start using really alternative energy. Much private research has been done in the areas of scalar energy and water separation/recombination modalities to show they could be viable energy sources. Other sources exist that are even more far out, but I will not delve into those here.
These are just a few ideas for making the planet a better place for us all to live in. I’m sure many other people can come up with more. We need to get away from greed based, laissez faire economics and move to a more stable state economic model. That, in itself, would lessen wars for resources.
The bottom line is that we must treat each other better if we are to survive as a species. By respecting the rights of others, we then can create a world in which there is room for all to thrive and grow in all ways.
Freedom Loving American Memluks
Is it not time to break your self made chains? Do you think that withdrawing our money from the Big Banks on 9/11 will catch the attention of our Corporate Masters? Buying nothing for a day will hardly be noticed but calling in ‘well’ for a day is another thing entirely.
Global climate changes will make Africa too dry to support human life and middle America too wet. Who has ever seen a stand of Gopher Wood since Noah’s time? Planting trees and Carbon Trading will not help. Only living within Nature’s means will work.
Don’t anyone bet Mother Nature will re-claim her planet. If we kill off enough of the phytoplankton, as we are surely doing, Mother Nature will die with us.
Hi Granny, I know what we should do, how do we FORCE our congress to do anything? Cindy Sheehan failed and so have about a billion more of us. Congress raises money for their next election, that is their first priority. Their second priority, is to raise money for their next election. Their third pri>>>>>>>>>>> and on. If you start a parade, I’ll join it.
Does anybody get it. Stephen hawking says we are committing suicide and he is right. Think of a fishbowl with one goldfish and then another and another. Now don`t change the water. What is going to happen? Now do you understand!
Those who still debunk the consensus of the non political & dedicated international scientific community join Bush right wing’s war on science, & our planet.
Rather than pursuing even modest effort to understand the effects and consequences of mans activities they follow the deceptive data issued by the right wing and energy cartel.
Evidence linking carbon pollution to warming has long been as close to certain as science can be. Its causes, consequences, and mitigation requirements have been documented by many dedicated environmental organizations including The Union of Concerned Scientists.
The dangerous manipulation of essential scientific data used by Bush’s team to conceal and derail corrective measures for this threat and other vital environmental reforms has always been apparent–and all indicators show no change in their direction.
Often overlooked is the fact that the same measures needed to mitigate global warming would be necessary even if it were not an issue. Conservation, alternative energy development, anti- pollution refinements, etc are essential for other vital environmental reforms such as air and water quality, reductions in toxic waste generation, land preservation, etc.
Contrary to right wing assertions, greenhouse gas reduction measures could only improve our economy by lessening our trade deficits, and improving our security by reducing our dependance on foreign oil. We could also regain some of our lost world respect resulting from our opposition Kyoto while arrogantly contributing disproportionally to carbon pollution.
The immeasurable environmental and social destruction from our indifference to carbon pollution and related environmental measures can only worsen if we allow this reckless and unlearned president, guided by special interests to continue their war on our planet.
grandma said
” I have not heard one word about it in the so-called debates - maybe I missed something but I don’t think so.”
Exactly, Grandma. We desperately need Al Gore in charge, but he doesn’t want to run in 2008. He says he doesn’t rule out a career in politics in the future, but not now. It’ll be too late, if not now. Not one of the current candidates, even the best, Dennis Kucinich, puts enough emphasis on the environment and climate change.
Nothing we can do as individuals will make enough difference in the long term. It has to be government led, and changes need to be mandatory. Only the president can ensure that what needs to be done will be done, and if the new president doesn’t care enough, then we are well and truly lost.
Two thousand scientists, in a hundred countries, engaged in the most elaborate, well organized scientific collaboration in the history of humankind, have produced long-since a consensus that we will face a string of terrible catastrophes unless we act to prepare ourselves and deal with the underlying causes of global warming.
AL GORE, speech at National Sierra Club Convention, Sept. 9, 2005
Rebel Farmer, you asked, “how does being human relate to humanity”. Well, I’m human and if I spend the night with a human female chick, that’s humanity.
Global warming, peak oil. Peak oil, global warming.
There are no other issues that matter.
None.
Dennis Kucinich has plans for a Works Green Administration. If his plan were followed it would be a giant step in ending global warming. It is the best plan I know of that has been put forth by anyone, politician, scientist, conservationist, anyone.
I beg to differ with you RISCHEV. Read the lead article, Cancer in Iraq Vets, Raises Possibility of Toxic Exposure. Then read the comments.__ DU is the number one issue.
Our plan for human democracy is ahead of schedule. The cold parts of their world are melting to make better sea levels to cleanse their cities. Diseases of their tropical regions will soon move toward the former cold spots. Wilds in temperatures and waterfall are having our intended effect. Our leaders in positions of power are doing well at pretending to be interested in only gaining more money. How pitiful these humans are, they suspect nothing. They go day to day without noticing. They would do nothing even if we speak openly on one of their websites on our plans.
Some here are working so quickly they may do the job too well much sooner than plan. There seem to be some humans working against us. Advance42 is concerned that our food supply will be contaminated with diminutive decay elements. Some humans warrior-class are making weapons which explode and spread the decay to the land of the people just to get more ancient sunlight harvest so they can warm up the planet even more. They have begun experimenting with level 3 atomic power and are using it to destroy their environment. A large spread of decay happened several of their cycles not recent in a country they called Russia. They imagine they can safely use decay atomic power. Is joke, neyt?
Is there any chance of moving up the date of the occupation forces?
We will officially come to their world with the promise of solving their environmental worries. They will drop dead believing this lie of freedom. What cat-mouse-fun we will have pouncing our weakened human food.
(In case you have not figured it out, Satire(?), foodies.)
Grandma - The US radio and TV interviewers ask your presidential candidates whether they believe in the power of prayer. Certain pockets in the US electorate appear to consider this an important question as well.
Why is this? Is it because the average voter hasn’t anything else to ask these candidates? No one ever seems to ask proper questions that relate to governance and future vision for America. Why is this?
Living as I do outside the US, I can only shake my head in disbelief at this coterie of clowns who want to run the circus.
All I can say is that I am glad a number of you who post here don’t bother with institutionalised news media and take the time to look outside the square for information.
17 months to go for you. Lots of damage, lots of hidden bank accounts, lots of feathering of nests and not one candidate who appears to be serious who will make through to the presidential elections.
It is so unfortunate that the rest of the western industrialised world has tied itself to the US apron strings.
I agree with Freedom Loving American who thinks that we have over reached the tipping point.
Sob
V
How old is de Caprio? He looks thirty something. That generation will hit the halls of power in some 12 to 15 years. They are more aware than previous generations of the problems we face.
Everything that all of you have mentioned here are all cause for concern.
The one thing that hasn’t been mentioned is the unbridled escalation of global human population. Is this because it is too touchy a subject? It certainly is too hot a potato for the ‘leaders’ of the world to address, let alone even mention.
A lot of the blame lies at the door of the Vatican, but it is not just the Catholics. Every man and woman of child-bearing age is seduced into ‘believing’ that they will not be fully potentialised (more weasel words!) unless they produce babies.
This exponential growth in human population is the single over-arching reason for our current environmental stressors.
2.5 billion in 1950, 6.5 billion now, an estimated 8.5 to 9.2 billion by 2050. Sustainable? Not on your nelly. Everyone wanting to live a life in consumer heaven as advertised by the US ‘look how terrific our gadgets are’ throughout the world.
You can’t blame people with little in the way of material goods and leisure time hankering after such a life-style as promulgated by the US and other Western industrialised nations. Is it sustainable? No. Can you tell them that? No.
China and India have enormous populations. All of them gobbling up the lifestyle choices made by industrialised nations. Dear oh dear.
We have brought this upon ourselves. Reaping the consequences won’t be so pleasant.
How many times can anyone keep pointing it out. Please, tell everyone to stop breeding, before we all die.
Need another sustaining:-) drink
V
A radical rethinking of the philosophies that drive corporations (and others) is part of what needs to occur if we are to effectively resolve this problem which is not just “one of the most important,” it is THE MOST IMPORTANT, let’s not beat about the bush, let’s just beat the Bush and have done with it. However, Americans need to set the example by stopping rampant consumerism and getting frugal. That’s the only kind of American leadership that inspires us.
As a species we need to become Prosumers, not conned-sumers. Pro-meaning: pro-life and sustainable resource management. Example: Americans have more than $5Billion (in business per annum) in materials in storage facilities across their nation. Get it out of storage and give it to the developing nations who need it and could use it. Give it to New Orleans if you must. This hoarding of stuff that is no longer useful is a waste of already consumed resources. If you can’t use it, give it away. Just one example of what could be done to stop consumptive waste.
Trim the marketing budgets to stop encouraging senseless consumerism and start campaigns that really do get people managing to live in a sustainable way in every sector. All people including the excessively wealthy need to trim the fat.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has 5 Humvees! Surely one would be enough (course he probably got them as corporate giveaways). Celebrities set a massive bad example that encourages consumerism, and it is played to the max to get people wanting, and consuming and becoming debt-ridden to support the wealthy 1-2%. Well, they live here on Earth too. “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” and other similar programs have created this consumptive nightmare, and America has lead the way, promoting the myth of a land of milk and honey, that has been extracted at the expense of practically every other nation.
You want real change, lasting change, that’s what you’ve got to do: change the stinking-thinking that gets us into this mess. The game is over, the jig is up. The stupidity of these consumptive ideas is now fully evident. But changing stinking-thinking means re-tooling everything from our education system on up, so be real about the task. Do not pussyfoot around on this one, or slap band aids on gaping neck wounds and a disemboweled planet, it won’t work. The haemorrhaging is not stopped by band aids.
The “11th Hour” is not a term to use lightly! It’s not a silly little slogan that catches attention in some cutesy way that can be easily dismissed. By all that’s good, and decent and sacred in humanity, by all that’s the best in us as a species, we need to put every difference aside, every armed conflict, every petty international dispute–because they are petty when it comes to catastrophic climate change. Terrorists? Every terrorist should give up right now be granted amnesty while we fix the planet if they’ll but help in that way and fight later, and I don’t just mean Al Qaida. Every weapons manufacturer needs to take the obscenity of their bloody profits and turn them to doing what they should have been doing in the first place.
That’s the sort of effort that we need to engage in. Anything else won’t cut it.
We need to become Custodians of Life, and if we’re smart about this we can have the whole package: World Peace, Sane International Custodianship, a truly United Nations. Every bullet fired is a waste of natural resources that could be housing, feeding, and providing for life, rather than death. An apolitical process occurred in the enacting of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, it has been hailed as an example of apolitical process–that’s an example of the human spirit we need our governments and our institutions to adopt if we are to manage this situation correctly.
In our darkest hour are our greatest opportunities to perform at our collective best, but it means EVERYBODY getting on board and playing that game and getting honest and straight , nothing else will suffice. Working together we can colonize space, clear up our planet and advance our civilization in a sustainable truly profitable way. This 11th Hour is an opportunity, a kick in the collective human butt, to nurture, to use as a way to find and put in place real solutions. Life-style solutions so that all these Damoclean Swords that hang over our heads–driven by hidden and covert agendas that represent the collective insanity of our race, dishonoring our many glorious and peaceful advances–to rest. If we but have the wit to do so. Whatever it takes.
There is no other issue more important than fixing our planet. Any sane leader knows this, and does not cower from facing it and will use their position to galvanize their community, nation and their neighboring nations to address these issues.
Redirecting the obscene amounts of the people’s revenue from war to planetary-wide cleanup would be a marvelous visionary and bold step for America to take and given America’s legacy of warfare and corruption of nations in its effort to build empire, an appropriate act of atonement. I can imagine this. I can envision it. But I can’t do it. But these are exactly the sort of ideas that need to be entertained if there is to be a sincere concerted and determined effort to turn this situation around. Every man, woman and child has an interest in this.
Change the thinking, get rid of the philosophies that cause the stink (the stinking-thinking) and act to address with complete and utter determination the situation that threatens all life on Earth.
The corporations need a way out of this bind, there it is. Right here on this page. Retool. And you greedy bankers, you finance them, finance the recovery and earn your right to live, because at the moment nobody else on the planet agrees that you have that right. If you were clever enough to design, develop and put in place systems that plunder, pillage and pollute you are surely clever enough to now put in place the alternative and you do have the systems in place to do so. So, get to it. Redeem yourselves. We need plowshares. No, I’m not a fundie. I just want to live and our species and home and the life upon it to survive because I have dreams and am sick of the nightmares this ‘civilization’ creates to keep us consumptive.
You Al Gore fans out there. Why are you depending just on him? Al Gore looks to everyone of us to do something today to Save This Earth for future generations.
A Presiident Gore still would have to fight Congress and all the Powers That Be.
Al Gore is leading now today this minute.
His problem is finding people that will stay and fight and get dirty for a very long time to Help Our Earth And Help Ourselves.
It will take more then a personal vote at some election even to take 1 drop of a pollutent out of our Environment..
This means even if Al Gore ran and became President we still could not very long from now be eatting Soylent Green.
And of course you know what Soylent Green in that movie was made of? PEOPLE!!!!!!!
Sometimes it seems we are caught between an uncaring greed and an uncaring fatalism. This rock and a hard place of uncaring is now being joined by willful greed and a willful fatalism. There are those on the right who see the need for alternatives but willfully delay in light of excess profits.
They are aided by those who apparently want to see global warming happen as some sort of punishment for the ills of American capitalism. The latter group’s ‘make em all suffer…I’m unhappy’ attitude is worthy of a Nero or of an immature mind.
Both groups share some commonality, in that they do not want to do anything about global warming. Thus it will be left to those of us who are neither a caesar nor think like a petulant child (who thinks of themselves as one), to do the hard work that our world needs done.
But while we the rational try to combat the spin of greed… the petulant Neros could grow up… while they can. Once it gets bad enough, even the greedy will start acting sane… but for the ’suicidally petulant’, all that will be left is for them to say they’re glad it is happening?
Yeah …sure they will. Poor boobies, moma and papa will make it all better for you? Some poster onCD said there should be a ‘get off your ass’ movement. Yep! But in light of these ersatz Neros, I’d like to add a ‘get off the couch in your mommy’s and daddy’s basement’…and grow up movement. Times a wasting… kiddies. The bad will be getting much worse… rising sea levels may flood your cozy basement. Now that would be a catastrophe huh? Enough to make you get out of your basement finally… lol.
The Human Race isn’t smart enough to survive. We are a seriously flawed species. It is clear that our collective capacity to reason is inadequate. For many thousands of years our brains evolved to deal with simple survival skills like hunting, planting, the gathering of nuts, fornicating and protecting our families. We eventually discovered that by joining with a few others our chances of surviving improved, and by destroying our neighbours we expanded our opportunities. By necessity we became hierarchically organized with a few leaders and most others assigned the humble roles of spear throwers and diggers. If we accept Darwin, it took a very long time to evolve this far and civilization - whatever that means - is a very recent event. Our brains are no larger and the issues more complex now. Because our survival instincts were refined in the dank caves of antiquity we continue to ruthlessly exploit and exterminate each other. The only difference with this prehistoric past is the arrival of literacy that has allowed us to organize, live longer, acquire more, and introduce methods for mass destruction. Our tribes are prepared for the inevitable battles with images, poetry, songs and exhortations.
We can clearly predict that our primitive instinctive drive for acquisition and conflict will destroy our human world in the not too distant future because we are powerless to change. We will suffocate in our own waste. We can look at this as quite an accomplishment; the only living species to destroy itself. Collectively man worships and blindly follows their generals and distrusts their wise men. Power reigns over wisdom. Fortunately when we are gone, the animals and insects that remain will take this world back, the empty cities will remain as silent monuments to our misdeeds, life will return to the seas, snow to the mountain tops, and the forests and plains will be green again.
I hear more of the usual whining and hand wringing… the sounds of those about to die who want to be blameless for their own deaths.
Kathyodat - I guess just fall on your sword dear - you will not be held accountable for global warming. Feel better now?
Can I just say that we already have the technology to stop using fossil fuels like blood? We just have yet to find more than a few courageous individuals willing to emnbrace the technology. Instead of whining about what others are doing, ask yourself what exactly you are willing to do to help make a change in the air you may not be able to breathe much longer.
Or keep whining about “they are doing this!!” while you are doing nothing.
Great game plan.
I don’t see these comments as “whining and hand-wringing”, shikantaza. I see them as enlightenment for passing readers who may live in areas where global warming is a dirty word (I live in such an area). It helps to know that there IS sanity out there.
We do what we can in our household to abide by Al Gore’s guidelines. I say again, though - what each household can do individually will never be enough. Changes need to be mandatory and severe. If GWB can have his way over Iraq, surely an environmentally concerned president could have his way about the environment, even in the face of opposition from Congress.
I believe that the new president will be the key to whether we, and the world’s population, survive.
When I saw that the health of our planet Earth is being addressed by a movie star and some policy makers and even Indians were included, I exhaled.
As someone who prays daily for those being held in Guantanamo, or in the military in Iraq, for their families and even for the ones who want the war to continue, “because we don’t want it here,” (where they may suffer some discomfort or inconvenience)who wants the troops home now, not in 2008 or beyond, who wants the war to end, I applaud the movie, because it strikes a blow at the heart of the monster system that makes Guantanamo, Iraq war, and all the rest possible: Corporate Greed. Industrial complex run amuck.
Yes, to mix my metaphors, we must continue to raise money for the ambulances to carry the bodies coming down the river to get care, but we must also go up the river to see whose killing and wounding the bodies and dumping them in the river. Di Caprio’s film does that. Take heed. For who feeds the system, the monster, but us?
The whole thing’s about self-control, and if there’s one thing mankind has shown in its short existence, it’s that we have no self-control. Greed always beats reason. Always! Go to the mall and watch people. Hungry eyes, all confusing want and need. Hundreds of them. But that’s not a grain of sand on a beach. Hope dies last, but I really don’t think we’re going to fix this problem without starving ourselves back into the stone age (or extinction). It’s contrary to our programming.
Stilba - I agree, it’s contrary to our programming, but when we are forced into it we CAN do it. I am old enough to remember World War 2 in England (as a small child). Everything was rationed. Everything. Food, candy, clothing, petrol (gas). There were no toys, few books other than those passed down from the previous generations.
The people coped and strengthened, grew leaner and wiser. Most of that generation is now gone. It could all be done again, for different reasons.
It seems so easy:
POLLUTION = BAD
CONSERVATION = GOOD
Pollution is “bad” because it makes the air taste funny and fish die in the streams before i can catch ‘em.
Conservation is “good” because when we conserve we rely less on foreign powers for our energy needs.
Why in the HELL is this so hard to sell to the American public? Oh yeah. We don’t EVER do LESS, do we?
LESS = BAD
Well, “My Super Sweet 16″ is starting and I’ve got some coveting to do. Ta da.
Peace to you and yours.
Way to go Leo!
Bravo for de Caprio! Developing consciousness goes one step further than giving money away and adopting kids, though that might have been the necessary example. The connections need to be made between:
- capitalism and cultural colonialism
- cultural colonialism and a yearning for western livestyles
- yearning for western livestyles and poverty
- all of the above and resentment
- resentment and terrorism
- terrorism and war
- war and the fascist state
- the fascist state and your own unhappiness
looking forward to watching the film
the problem with the economic model that requires annual growth is that all parasites that need continuous growth to survive wind up eventually killing the host.
I can’t help but wonder if any of us know what we’re talking about. Not saying I do, but what if we have it all wrong and what we’re doing is jumping on our horses and riding madly off in every direction?
I wonder if there is any way to distill a lot of this into a cogent set of statements. Here’s my try:
- Humans are a part of nature, not masters or stewards of nature.
- Humans cannot escape nature, no matter where we go nor what we do. Even in death, we will be part of nature.
- If we see ourselves as nature, not above it, then we will live as if we depend on it. If not, we’re merely suicidal maniacs.
- Humans cannot kill nature, but nature can, in its inexorable need for balance, kill humans.
- Humans are not responsible for global warming or any other ecological disaster - just one class or culture of humanity is. There are humans who have lived for thousands of years very successfully. Unfortunately, they’re almost extinct.
- Change starts with the individual, so we must start from where we are and do what we can.
- We can hold others accountable, but first, we must hold ourselves accountable.
- Accountability is productive, blame is not.
- Knights in shining armor don’t exist. Well, they do - we’re it!
- We know what we must do. Whether we have the conscience and courage is another matter.
Powerful and creative the documentary presents the global envrionmental crisis and its causes for the first time. Importantly, a recent article in “Nature” found that plants grown in high carbon dioxide levels produce significantly less protein than plants grown at normal carbon dioxide levels. Since all of the animal kingdom depends ultimately upon plants for protein, the higher carbon dioxide levels caused by environmental pollution could wipe out much of the animal kingdom. The crisis is real.
The enemy is us!!!
So it is said . . .
Well I for one will conserve and sacrifice and save energy when the first Local City Council Meeting votes down a development project for a large corporation or Investment group. We are constantly bombarded with everyone telling us how “We Can Make A Difference” Well when was the last time you saw or heard of one of our Local City and/or State Government Organizations saying NO to a development project.
No water around . . . “conserve” . . . “don’t water your lawn” . . . meanwhile we are going to approve the new Golf Course because it is good for the economy.
What’s good for the corporations is good for me . . . I’ll take all those tax breaks that Bush gave Oil Companies . . . How about those tax breaks your local City Council granted that last Big Box Store so they could move into your city? I could use some of those tax breaks Thank You . . .
Spend folks and use it up . . . Cause they ain’t making it any more.
The sooner the better . . .
Don’t forget, boys and girls, that 3 of the 4 evil foreign nations that supply us with most of that accursed foreign oil are Canada, Mexico and Venezuela…
“Stephen Hawking said “We are committing suicide”. Unfortunately we have also granted our money and power to those who are willing to kill to keep it. So now what?”
kathyodat,
Change that “we” to “I”.
So, now what?
This thread is probably running out, but I’ll post this anyway.
I’ve been reading through all these astonishing posts and the ideas expressed are AMAZING and creative, really on track. I think it likely we all do the “little” things, like using the new light bulbs, using less gas, recycling, turning things off, walking when we can, and so forth. And the “little” things add up after awhile to a big thing.
But here comes an election, a big thing all by itself, and I for one plan to ask EVERY candidate on EVERY level, local right up to the presidency, who wants my vote, just what they plan to do about climate change on whatever level they will have power if elected. And they need to know that unless they have a reasonable plan and name specifics, I WON’T VOTE FOR THEM. And I’ll ask my friends not to, either, and tell them why.
Can you imagine what would happen if every time a candidate (for anything) spoke in public they were asked to give their potential voters their plan to combat climate change? Even a school board member can work for saving energy in the school buildings and should, if they’re after my vote. This may seem a minor thing, but in fact, school boards have a lot of local power, and there are a lot of little things they can do to make a big (if “only” local) difference.
Imagine what that could do if it spread all over the country! Since we do have an election coming up, let’s nail every candidate for anything and ask them their plan, make them answer that in public. And tell them that if they don’t have a good plan, WE WON’T VOTE FOR THEM!
As every parent knows, little things grow into big things astonishingly fast.
Why don’t you folks stop waiting for someone else to do something for you, and use your oft claimed majority to actually live the choices you say you want? This in and of itself would slash carbon emission.
The reality is, you’re as selfish as anyone else. It would be hard and painful and you’d have to do without. Without easy travel, without air travel, without goods and products and lettuce in winter…all by simple choice, and stick to it.
But that’s hard. Apparently, expressing deep concern and caring is enough, and actually ceasing to wait for someone else to make you do what you already claim you want, isn’t enough to make you stop going along with all those bad things. If you are right about climate, every long distance food you eat, every airplane trip you take, every product made thousands of miles away hurts the earth, and you’re doing it anyway…as you wait for action and complain.
I posted this on another thread of posts on an article here on Common Dreams and it seems like the same discussion is going on here, so I will post it here as well.
A desk, a mattress, a couple of lamps, cooking and eating utensils, a lot of books, music, a desk for reading, writing, and eating, a place to keep my clothes, some containers for water, a refrigerator, a water purifier, a clean two room shelter, a roof that doesn’t leak, a bathroom and water that goes into a bucket for washing myself, and a tank of propane for cooking. And of course, my laptop computer. Oh, and a bicycle. That is what I possess. And, fortunately, a job I enjoy.
I know my situation is much different than many others who honestly do need more “things” to get by in life. Also, I don’t have a wife and family to support. But these are the material things that I need. I get much of what I really need through friends and helping people to learn.
Don’t get me wrong. I like money. It allows me to travel and perhaps buy more “things.” I’m also pretty sure if Mr. Gates offered me his home to live in, I wouldn’t hesitate to live there. I know I’m not immune to greed. But this is where I am in life and it is all I really need, although I do miss a hot shower.
As some one else posted earlier, Henry David Thoureau’s book “Walden” did much to influence me as a young teenager. Living the way he did seemed ideal to me. It still does today. It’s people that I need the most in life. Meaningful contact and conversation. And a little unmeaningful and fun conversation or activity as well.
I think I am fortunate not to have to worry about much, especially since I have been out of the USA for some years now. I’m also fortunate to be able to read the articles and discussion on this site. I am able to learn many things I would never had known if it weren’t for the people who post here.
I will admit that it does hurt at times when I get blasted for something I’ve written. But that’s another way to learn to look at myself first before blaming others. By all indications - for me at least - this should be another good day. That’s a self centered thing to say but when I say that, it doesn’t mean I’m not also aware of the suffering going on in and around this Earth. The best I can do each day is to try and change what I can change for the better. To help someone.
Yes Folks, all these things are connected.
Yet, the Business of War and it’s consequences make any effort to Clean up our planet a talking exercise.
The spokes people for the Environment tend to keep these separate stove pipes in good working order as if there were two separate problems here. They will hint at the connection, but we must get down and dirty if we want real change.
This is what a comprehensive solution is about…war and toxic pollution go together.
We are moving in this direction, but apparently way too slow for Nature to notice.
Love, Jim
Did I miss something?? No one seems to have mentioned what seems to me to be the problem behind all other issues here. OVERPOPULATION! If there were only 500 million humans on this planet, environmental problems would be manageable. We are like a cancer, rapaciously overrunning every ecological niche on the Earth. Until we deal with overpopulation all other “solutions” will merely be treating symptoms.
To rlin - You’re right, over population is the biggest single problem we face. But getting down to 500,000 million from the present 8 billion+ is impossible without draconian measures that neither you nor I (nor anyone else, I hope) would support. For example, nuclear war might just do it, and fast, if you like the sound of that. And of course, as Kem Patrick keeps trying to tell us, DU is already at work.
On the other hand, Gaia herself seems to be winding up to do the job for us.
No. We have to scale down gradually, generation by generation, and that takes lots of time. Meanwhile, we have to stop celebrating births and instead give the prizes to those couples (and countries) who have fewer children. Also, China’s one-child-per-family is a great idea and we should institute it ourselves. This goes against all our history, but it is the only humane way.
I recently re-read Paul Ehrlich’s 1950’s book “The Population Bomb” and I recommend it to all - only complaint I have is that he underestimated the problem. (Also, sadly, his solutions are too aggressive for me. They read like “1984″).
Arthur C. Clarke said that the planet could really sustain only 2 or 3 Billion. He’s probably right. As a goal, it would be a good start.
“Leave something for the children…” Oh. That’s the problem “nobody” recognizes. The planet is dying from overpopulation, nothing else. The rest is just symptom of this fact, because population leads to consumption, and currently humanity has long used up it’s “Enviro Savings” and is running on “Enviro Credit” until the limit has been reached, and “bankruptcy” ensues.
We don’t need “carbon credits”. We need a limit on how many children can be brought into this world, and reduce world population over time, but my guess is that no matter what could be done at this point, it is too late to reduce world population in a meaningful way in time to save the planet as we need it to survive as a species. Besides, nobody would accept limits on reproduction, because humanity is guided by a combination of selfishness and really really bad stupidity, and hence, the biosphere of our planet is doomed.
What will you do to people who have more kids than you want them to?
MtnGoat - Why, string them up in the public square, of course.
What would you do? Let’s hear some positive attempts at a solution from you, for a change.
Nothing draconian needed. Tax incentives and penalties, and stigmatizing those with large families as habitat and resource hogs would go a long ways.
Grandma, I began in this topic with positive ideas for a solution. Everyone here needs to stop waiting for someone else to do something, and take action in their own lives to drastically and immediately slash emissions.
IF as many people as claim to care do so, US emissions would immediately plummet since it is claimed a majority support this. There is *zero* need to wait for someone else to impose upon you the actions you claim you want to pursue.
I couldn’t agree more with MtnGoat. Exactly my thoughts as I read this string.
Alot of people are waiting for someone else to fix the problem. What we need is alot of people acting. Alot of small actions, totalling up. No republican put a gun to your head and made you pump that petroleum into your car. No one is stopping you from trading in your gasoline powered vehicle for a diesel (BIODIESEL) powered car (or a bus pass). Yes it will be very, very inconvient for you to make a huge change in the way you live; but it won’t kill you.
BE THE CHANGE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And the thing is 2cent2, if they really believe this is a problem they are literally harming the earth every day they fail to choose to cut their own emissions.
You would think that with the strident claims here, people would put the planet ahead of their avoidance of personal incovenience or a harder time gettting to work, or not skiing in aspen or visiting grandma in CA. Isn’t the planet and the future more important than ones own desire to avoid a hassle?
Apparently not.
I posted this above (Aug.28) but will repeat it here - it’s a plan that anyone can use, now. Remember Tip O’Neill who said that “All politics is local.”
________________
From Aug. 28 post -
I’ve been reading through all these astonishing posts and the ideas expressed are AMAZING and creative, really on track. I think it likely we all do the “little” things, like using the new light bulbs, using less gas, recycling, turning things off, walking when we can, and so forth. And the “little” things add up after awhile to a big thing.
But here comes an election, a big thing all by itself, and I for one plan to ask EVERY candidate on EVERY level, local right up to the presidency, who wants my vote, just what they plan to do about climate change on whatever level they will have power if elected. And they need to know that unless they have a reasonable plan and name specifics, I WON’T VOTE FOR THEM. And I’ll ask my friends not to, either, and tell them why.
Can you imagine what would happen if every time a candidate (for anything) spoke in public they were asked to give their potential voters their plan to combat climate change? Even a school board member can work for saving energy in the school buildings and should, if they’re after my vote. This may seem a minor thing, but in fact, school boards have a lot of local power, and there are a lot of little things they can do to make a big (if “only” local) difference.
Imagine what that could do if it spread all over the country! Since we do have an election coming up, let’s nail every candidate running for anything and ask them their plan, make them answer that in public. And tell them that if they don’t have a good plan, WE WON’T VOTE FOR THEM!
As every parent knows, little things grow into big things astonishingly fast.
Jim Clover, have you ever been to Stove Pipe Wells in Death Valley? The water table is still fairly normal in this
part of the USA. If you have ever camped or backpacked in these harsh lands, you would know that you only need to dig a few feet underground to get water. Stovepipe Wells is a great name, as is Furnace creek.
I agree with you completely. But I am afraid that Mother Nature will intervene at this late point. Who will be the benefactors of Nature’s wiping the slate clean?
Whales and Dolphins and other animals who have shown much more respect for the unaviodable laws of nature, species that want to live together and not kill. The human race has no choice in this matter.
Grandma’s post makes a lot of sense. We’ve followed her plan in the past though without much success. We attended local meetings prior to election of a town mayor. We put questions to the 4 candidates about making provison for re-cycling in our town. They all paid lip service to this. Almost 2 years later - nothing. We’ve been taking our newspapers and aluminium cans to a neighbouring city 35 miles away to deposit them at a collection center from whence the military from a big Fort nearby used to collect the materials. Just a few weeks ago we were told that the Dept. of Defence has withdrwn funds for this collection to continue. So we’re back to square one.
Mtn Goat sounds angry and what he/she is saying over and over again makes sense too - in theory. But scolding doesn’t work - it’s counter productive and only irritates those who ARE doing their best, to no avail. Personal effort on its own doesn’t work. It will never work without the government involved to make things mandatory for those who don’t care. Not enough people care- that is the top and bottom of it all - NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE CARE!
What it would take would be a real rationing of everything and anything you can think of, which this world provides, at a better than sustainable level (until we’ve reached 500 million population), and allocate to each person already born equally. Then have a one-child policy per couple (no more than 1/2 per person. In case of remarriage, too bad, if the first marriage already produced an offspring). Anyone who breaks the one child rule has to share his allocation with the children that are above the limit, and the children will not receive their own ration/allocation, until their parents have died, thereby reducing the parents own share, not the share of someone else.
Sounds draconian? Of course. But desperate times require desperate measures. This would never ever fly, because as much as we in the West think we are ‘cutting back’ and ‘recycling’, we are still wasting way too much for the amount of people that are alive. When 300 million people consume 25% of the world’s energy, you know there’s no way a meaningful reduction in living standards that will allow the biosphere to survive, can be achieved. It would mean that Americans would have to take an 80% cut in lifestyle (EVERYTHING is related to energy)… [Actually, an 80% cutback wouldn’t be enough. It would merely give the US population their “fair” share under cutrrent UNSUSTAINABLE conditions.] The forests are still being cut down. The air is still being polluted more. Fresh water sources are still decreasing and drying up. Until this trend is reversed, we stand no chance at survival, merely at dragging out the inevitable.
It won’t happen. The best that can come out of this is some “reduction” to bring about that personal “feel good” condition, but it will not save the biosphere.