FILM 11TH HOUR GOES BEYOND GLOBAL WARMING

By Ella Tyler

The film, 11th Hour, produced and narrated by environmental activist and movie star Leonard DiCaprio, opens today at the Landmark River Oaks, 2009 West Gray. The film is essentially is 90 minutes of sound bites from very smart, highly committed activists about serious plight of our environment, and not only from global warming. It is intense and almost overwhelming.

One of the film’s biggest virtues is that it brings together more than 50 experts to introduce their topics. Think of it as a Cliff’s Notes for contemporary environmental issues.

Thom Hartman’s book, The Last Days of Ancient Sunlight, has been sitting on my reading pile since I came to work at CEC two years ago. He explains that, until the steam engine, civilizations lived on one day’s worth of sun at a time – and did it so well that now I’m looking forward to reading the book.

There are introductions to the benefits of fungi, an explanation of biomimicry, and plenty of horrifying statistics. For example, for each pound of useful product, nine pounds goes into trash. I particularly enjoyed the treatments of deforestation, which, among other ills leads to desertification. There’s a dramatic shot of a majestic tree and a discussion of what a tree does for us.

The film closes with a discussion of possible solutions to the threats confronting us. It doesn’t pretend that the solution will be as simple as changing a light bulb, but the experts interviewed embrace the idea and challenge “man’s ingenuity got us into this mess, and man’s ingenuity can get us out of it.” Canadian film reviewer Jay Stone says, “it’s probably nothing you haven’t heard before, but there’s always a new way to explain how mankind is using the natural world as a combination of cesspool and bottomless piggy bank, and always new figures to shock us: that Americans spend more money on maintaining their lawns than India collects in taxes; that the world’s population has doubled since 1960, to over six billion”

Go see it, even if you think you’re a member of the choir and don’t need the preachin’. I bet you’ll learn something.