PowerSwitch

BBC Four now... well it is just about finished... but OIL is a major topic. This really is GRIM.

Ah it's this isn't it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU

Excellent film.

Yes, that's the one. A very upbeat ending

I'm afraid 'ethical consumer choice' is not going to 'do it'. Nor is the vast wave of education... or ... solar panels or wildlife reserves.

It needs a total sea change of operational priorities, wealth distribution and global leverage. It needs a 'StarTrek' mentality. The corporations will continue to feck it up and our politicians will dance along to the tune. The individual has little leverage; even a second coming couldn't hold this back.

I'm doubtful that humanity has what is required to make that change. And a few million willing souls will not do.

I wish I was smart enough to know an answer to this, but the only one that springs to mind is population reduction. I have a feeling that it will be taken out of humanities hands one way or another and that a severe reduction will take place before the decade or two is out. I am not a doomer by the way!

These docs often end with the 'happy chapter'!

Did you ever read Azimov's Foundation series?

A degree of collapse of our civilisation is inevitable, many civilisations have come and gone before us - and there will be others. Climate change is pretty bad news, combined with our other activities likely a sixth mass extinction event. But remember, we're only here because of the fifth extinction...

This planet has likely got a few hundred million years left in it which is plenty of time biodiversity to crash and rise again.

Home has been out a while now. I'm glad it's getting a wider airing.

clv101 wrote:These docs often end with the 'happy chapter'!

I've noticed that about about most documentaries, Chris. They often start laying down the facts fairly well but feel they have to leave some room for hope. There is hope - but only in the sense that there could be a better, but highly unlikely, future.

The reason documentaries have to have a happy endings is the same reason that we are in the mess we are in and that reason is the human instinctive tendency to be optimistically greedy and to instinctively disregard any narrative that is pessimistic and/or requires us to be truly altruistic. It's served our species well for the most part. But, it is proving to be a disaster when it comes to solving some of the problems currently facing us.

maudibe wrote:Yes, that's the one. A very upbeat ending

I'm afraid 'ethical consumer choice' is not going to 'do it'. Nor is the vast wave of education... or ... solar panels or wildlife reserves.

It needs a total sea change of operational priorities, wealth distribution and global leverage. It needs a 'StarTrek' mentality. The corporations will continue to feck it up and our politicians will dance along to the tune. The individual has little leverage; even a second coming couldn't hold this back.

I'm doubtful that humanity has what is required to make that change. And a few million willing souls will not do.

I wish I was smart enough to know an answer to this, but the only one that springs to mind is population reduction. I have a feeling that it will be taken out of humanities hands one way or another and that a severe reduction will take place before the decade or two is out. I am not a doomer by the way!

Until we get rid of the great motivator, we ARE doomed.