I watch the 11th Hour today. A commentary on the state of enviromental aloofness of many americans today. Overall, I thought the entire show was too targetted to the american audience. And I thought the flow of the movie was rather unimaginative. it moved from how bleak the environmental situation has become, the results from our years of damaging action to a really inspiring end that all hope is not lost. Personally I thought the ending was too much of a lullaby such that the initial shock lost its impact on the audience.
The show had a really bleak start. Starving african children, deforestation, melting poles, homeless refugees, pollution etc kept flickering on the screen. The interviews with the various ‘unknown’ persidents, chairmans, chief etc of numerous ‘unheard of’ societies etc talked about how we are maxing out the world’s resources due to our population explosion. They all emphasized about how if we continue at this rate, we’re going to be eradicated from the face of this earth. But how earth itself will survive without humans cos its resilent and it will restore itself again given enough time.
THey went on and on about how humans are a very YOUNG species in the earth and yet are killing themselves at the fastest rate ever. About how we not only kill ourselves but cause another 50 to 500?50000? (i cannot remember) species to become extinct.
And they went on and on about katrina. How jia lat it was. not that it din warrant the attention apid to it bit so much more has happened in the world. Coastal towns disappearing, third world countries shortage of clean water causing high mortality rates etc…It would be much cooler to focus on more obscure impacts of global warming.
Then there was the part about our consumeristic society. How we buy too much of what we don’t need. (true, judging from my recent shopping spreesssss. but hey, it makes me happy…for a while at least) How we should be more responsible shoppers and only demand green pdts. (much money to be made here for ‘green’ businesses. which brings me tot he point of these pdts with labels. sweatshop free, organic food, free range meat there’s so many…… I may be skeptical but to me, its just different ways of selling the same pdt. waste of resources but great business idea)
The show also stated at the beginning that our only fuel is sunlight and that if we only depend on it, it can only support half a billion people. But because we discover hidden sunlight (i.e.coal, fossil fuels) we did so much more and this led to the population explosion in the world. and because these hidden fuels are finite, we’re headed for a disaster….plausible. except that at the end, they also say that the sun has so much more untapped energy…..(erm, din they just state that it wasn’t enough???)
A really COOL thing though was how the show introduced fungi as able to remove heavy metals from soil and thus help remove toxins. and this is the EXACT study that the WIFE OF THE MAN SITTING BESIDE ME on the recent flight from NEPAL TO BKK was doing in melbourne. She is a prof in some uni in melbourne researching on using the exact fungi to draw the heavy metals from teh soil so that the land becomes arable again. how cool is that.
Yes…A very bleak future awaits. We’re dead unless we do something fast. but we already know that. al nino, la nina, co2, methane we read in the papers and we learnt in schools already…
ok i still got lots to say but its 3am and i resolve to sleep at more humane hours so I don’t go about my day in a daze. so I shall put an abrupt end to this very ‘serious’ discussion and sleep….
Prior to joining the Women’s Everest Team, she has numerous trekking experiences in Malaysia, Tasmania, Australia, Nepal, Taiwan and has led an expedition to Thailand. An independent traveler, Li Hui has backpacked across Canada, Vietnam and Australia and spent a season skiing in Vancouver.