The 11th Hour - Review

[Gonçalo Ferreira]

This is my first post here. Please read it and comment with some feedback. Thank You. This is a review on the documentary The 11th Hour.

 

 

The documentary The 11th Hour offers ideas, facts andarguments concerning the need for man to live in harmony with the planet Earthas well as solutions to solve an ecological and social crisis. Presented by Leonardo DiCaprio and dozens of guests such as M. Gorbachev and S. Hawking.

Followingthe perspectives presented by several speakers from the movie 11th Hour, theman is living in an unsustainable way, given that we are part of a much largersystem, Nature, or Earth. This means that man isrecklessly expanding the company to unbearable limits and that our species willsuffer directly from this attitude. Nature,one way or the other, will persist; while Homosapiens may be unable to persist over time and therefore having a shortexistence on Earth compared with other species.

So that man can prolong itskind during the next coming years, we must change our attitude and point ofview relating Earth, which comes as a subject without rights (land is treatedas an object: can be mined, burned ...), that is, man willhave to change from a society where the economy is in the center and above all,to a society that seeks the protection of our planet. Our society has built up abarrier so that these ideas can be eradicated: capitalism prevents mostawareness campaigns and protest about the ecology and makes false advertisingso that they can explore the planet's resources that guarantees their extraordinaryincome (eg, environment minister of the United States during the term ofPresident Bush, was a lawyer and member of the lobby of oil). The economy is booming but theplanet is to following this expansion.

Amore direct and therefore faster, but perhaps less obvious, problem affectinghumans, is the increasing amount and intensity of natural disasters in recentyears. Their number has increasedover the years, but they do not receive wide media disclosure, except when theyare of great intensity. The extraction of resources ismaking the Earth increasingly defenseless against natural disasters (eg,excessive consumption of wood increases the intensity of floods: a tree, onaverage, can hold 260.000L of water in aflood, tha will be replaced to the aquifer afterwards; if we multiply this number by the thousands of cuttrees, we have a giant flood / the speed and duration of hurricanes hasincreased by 50% in recent years). We also have an increase ofdiseases due to excessive release of chemicals by industry (either to thehydrosphere or the atmosphere); cases of asthma, headache, lethargy, diabetesand even cancer have increased. As consequence of the risinggreenhouse effect, 20% of the original ice from the polar caps, which act likea mirror, melted, which contributed drastically to a decrease of solar raysreflected back to the atmosphere, which increased even more the greenhouseeffect; a temperature even higher can lead to a release of large quantities ofCO₂ retained at the oceanic bottom, elevating the temperature evenfurther, entering a vicious cycle where Earth may become similar to Venus, toohot.

 

The solution to these problems remains in each one ofus, but mainly in the governments that have yet to understand this crisis assomething serious and imminent. According to O.N.U., by the end of the century XXI, the total of refugees dueto environmental impact will be of 150,000,000 worldwide.

Whilemankind lived with energy and heat from the sun, which cannot be stored, livedin harmony with the planet: there was no pollution or overpopulation (being oneconnected to the other: more people - more consumption - more production - morepollution - less harmony). From the moment that Manlearns to accumulate and store energy, by extracting natural resources in aunsustainably (petroleum and coal), which gives an explosive increase oftechnology, quality of life (at least as regards the luxuries, in a shortterm), the world population increases in huge amounts (Baby Boom: since 1960the world population has tripled, and increased by about 1000% since thebeginning of the industrial revolution).There is an emerging consumer society and economy ruled by productoffering and capitalist system. It is this society that has to be changed. This consumerist behavioraffects the entire planet: 5000 to 10,000 living species become extinct everyday, but fauna and flora also disappear in quantity; Man as the culprit.

Feedingso many people has caused major problems and impacts on the environment:over-fishing, breeding in captivity and the pollution that comes with it, thedestruction of virgin soil to produce vegetables and cereals... All thesefactors show that the planet as we know it today isabout to change, and that Man will not be granted if this happens.

Millionsof gallons of chemical pollutants are dumped every day into the sea. These chemicals affect thehumankind in a perverse way, the fish we eat are infected with these chemicalsthat are liberated into their midst and we will eventually be contaminated, forexample, by eating those contaminated fish.

Toovercome this crisis, we must understand the planet and man as a whole. We must make the most out of Earth’s functionsin a sustainable way and invest in renewable energy, an industry free of litterand pollution, ecological design, but mainly on innovation.

Everyyear millions of dollars are spent to restore the levels of O₂ andCO₂ in the atmosphere, something that would be naturally done by ourplanet, if treated with the necessary respect.

Theclean and renewable energy can be accumulated and stored, there is no need togo back to the ancient culture of energy used discontinuously, but we have lotsof options to avoid exhaustible resources the use of pollutants such as oil, wehave solar, wind, hydraulic and, more importantly, atomic energy.

Theeco-design is not something you can draw directly, but an idea, a concept thatgives functions to something, maintaining ecological, functional and lines andprincipals.

Thesame weapon that brought us the imbalance, the power of our minds, must now beused to find a balance between modern society and a planet that is oldest andlargest.

 

 

Thank you for your time.

 

 

 

Factual claims Source: The 11th Hour