Individual projects- movie review or consumption Journal - Essay Example

The 11th Hour The 11th hour is an environmentalist warning concerning a converging crisis, according to host Leonardo Dicaprio. It is a summary of the challenges faced across the entire world at the prospect of climate change through global warming. Evocative clips include distraught, African children wailing over a presumed environmental crisis, as a voice over announces a United Nations estimate that one-hundred-fifty million people may become environmental refugees by the middle of the century.

Other evocative images are of a polar bear picking its way through a flaming pile of industrial garbage. "Because human beings have not figured out how to change our ways." comes another indictment of the ecological consequences of rampant economic and industrial expansion. CIA official James Woolsey waxes ominous concerning the American practice of large-scale borrowing in terms of money and resources, such as aluminum thru zinc, to the tune of eight-hundred billion dollars in order to finance our oil trade, with implications for disaster looming amidst the suggestion of a house-of-cards-like strategy.

A series of experts deliver what are referred to as Time-capsule interviews. David Suzuki, geneticist/biologist who expounds on his theories of the importance of understanding all of mankinds needs in terms of living systems, while the iconic mathematician-scientist Stephen Hawkins delivers warnings on a myriad of ways in which we might destroy ourselves, and predicts the necessity of colonization of other planets as the only means to survive our abuse of this one. Gloria Flora exhorts us to vote, and not just in a ballot box, but vote in the way in which you use and buy products in your daily lives.

In so doing, we approve of everything that goes into a product when we put our money on a counter to purchase it. Health guru Andrew Weil weighs in on his own awareness of the problem and willingness to help averting catastrophe. The founder of the Greenbelt Movement, and Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai informs us that it takes ten trees to process the carbon dioxide of each individual, and for each of us to ensure such vegetation remains. A central prediction of the theme is that industrial civilization has caused irreparable damage to the planet; by way of the assumption that carbon dioxide output creates a warming climate that leads to hurricanes, such as Katrina, and various climactic disasters.

An interesting premise is that the problem is primarily one of leadership, rather than technology. That is a principle that deserves further discussion and examination. For years we have heard that solar power, and wind power are just not sufficiently effective to give us profitable industry and electrical supplies without supplementation of petroleum. That idea, to me, is most interesting and impactful. If it is in fact, possible to maintain our standard of living through green technologies, every advance must be made to secure this promise.

In the meantime, there is indeed a need for leadership. Even if one country, the United States were to make the difficult commitment to curtail or consumption in the interest of carbon neutrality, without similar policies in place around the world, the consequences of climate change would not be abated. With the interconnectedness of ecosystems throughout the Earths biosphere, if America is cleansed of pollution, but China, Mexico, or India picks up the slack and continues churning out waste as fast as it can be produced, the same environmental consequences will in time effect us all.