Leonardo DiCaprio's "The 11th Hour" is a documentary concerning the environmental crises caused by human actions and calls for restorative action through a reshaping of human activity.
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10:30pm Thursday night I sit down on the couch to watch some TV. I am flipping channels to see if I prefer watching Jay Leno, David Letterman or Nightline. I make my decision, but I still have 5 minutes until the show starts, so I flip over to the Planet Green channel, and low and behold there is Leila Connors on Supper Club with Tom Bergeron. I only caught the last half hour of the show, but I watched the show in its entirety on Friday afternoon.
I have seen all the previous Supper Club shows and have enjoyed some more than others mostly due to the topic of conversation. I really enjoyed this show the most because of just one particular point that was addressed that has had me thinking a lot over the last several months.
The point was brought up during dinner that some people don’t want to be inconvenienced with doing a simple ‘green’ thing like carry cloth grocery bags with them to the store. Host Tom Bergeron commented that these people are not so much lazy, but just struggling to get through the day. Actress Aisha Tyler added that it’s not that people don’t care, it is just not as important to them as compared to their everyday pressures. I totally agree with both of them, and saw this first hand last year when confronted in a grocery store.
I was grocery shopping and I brought in with me as I always do my reusable grocery bags. I only brought in 3 reusable bags and the grocery bagger had filled them up and started to put the few remaining items I still had left in a plastic bag. I immediately told him, please don’t put those few items in a plastic bag, just place them in the shopping cart and I will put them in a reusable bag when I get to my car. I always have a lot more bags in my car.
The woman behind me in line who was about my age, said, “Oh PLEASE! Do you really think that one plastic bag is going to ruin the world?”
I replied, “It’s one plastic bag here, and another there, and it all adds up. It’s no big deal to just bag these few items myself when I get to my car in order to help ensure we leave a healthy and livable planet for future generations. It’s a small sacrifice.”
She boldly replied, “I sacrifice plenty, in fact all I do is sacrifice, my whole life has been one big sacrifice.”
WOW! Bad choice of words on my part, I used the word…SACRIFICE. I didn’t mean to, but I obviously hit a nerve, or what Eckhart Tolle calls in his book A New Earth, a ‘Pain Body.’ You didn’t have to be a psychologist to know that this woman has a lot of unhappiness, pain and negativity inside her. So trying to have a discussion with this woman about the environmental importance of bringing your own grocery bags would have been futile.
The part of The 11th Hour that resonated with me the most was said by Wes Jackson at the end of the film, he says, “The deterioration of the environment, of our planet, is an outward mirror of an inner condition. Like inside, like outside, and that‘s the part of the great work.” I couldn’t agree more.
I was happy that The 11th Hour DVD included in the Special Features Section the Religious Perspective. I completely agree with what Rabbi Michael Lerner says, “The environmental movement has to develop a spiritual consciousness and a spiritual approach…The environmental movement not only has to teach the scientific fact, but about the new spiritual vision.”
The biggest disease on our planet is unhappiness because people perceive they are drowning in either debt, poor relationships, family pressures, job/career stresses, or poor health. They feel they are drowning victims always in survival mode. They have forgotten that they already know how to swim. They just need to be reminded of who they are…they ARE swimmers.
So I was thrilled to hear Leila talk about the premise of her next film which continues on the theme of - What’s going on in the world is a reflection of an inner condition. The film will address the questions…Why are we here? Who are we? What is God?...in relationship to the environment and our survival. I can’t wait for this one to come out.
Yes Leila, you can pull this off.
You can still see this episode of Supper Club on Sunday August 10th, and on Monday August 11th. See schedule HERE.
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What Would Jesus Buy? is a serious docu-comedy about the commercialization of Christmas that just came out on DVD. I rented it last night and found it quite hilarious and very thought-provoking as well.
What Would Jesus Buy? follows Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they go on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse: the end of mankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt!
Bill Talen (aka Reverend Billy) was a lost idealist who hitchhiked to New York City only to find that Times Square was becoming a mall. Spurred on by the loss of his neighborhood and inspired by the sidewalk preachers around him, Bill bought a collar to match his white caterer's jacket, bleached his hair and became the Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping. Since 1999, Reverend Billy has gone from being a lone preacher with a portable pulpit preaching on subways, to the leader of a congregation and a movement whose numbers are well into the thousands. Through retail interventions, corporate exorcisms, and some good old-fashioned preaching, Reverend Billy reminds us that we have lost the true meaning of Christmas. What Would Jesus Buy? is a journey into the heart of America – from exorcising the demons at the Wal-Mart headquarters to taking over the center stage at the Mall of America and then ultimately heading to the Promised Land … Disneyland.
Will we be led like Sheeple to the Christmas slaughter, or will we find a new way to give a gift this Christmas? What Would Jesus Buy? may just be the divine intervention we’ve all been searching for.
The Shopocalypse is upon us … Who will be $aved?
I thought the film had a nice mix of serious & relevant information, as well as outrageously funny scenes. The 11thHour film expert Bill McKibben is featured in the film under the section called “Malling of America.” Bill talks about how he feels in a 100 years from now we won’t be doing the things that we are doing now. We will have figured way more interesting things to do than just go shopping as our main activity. Unfortunately, he thinks we don’t have a 100 years to make that transition. We have to make it more quickly than it would happen naturally or else we will derail the Earth’s physical systems – especially the climate.
One of my favorite scenes is when Reverend Billy and his Choir go Christmas caroling door to door. They sing these popular Christmas songs to families using new lyrics.
Deck the Malls with Folks with Money!
FA LA LA LA LA, LA LA LA LA
Tis the Season to be Dummies!
FA LA LA LA LA, LA LA LA LA
AND
Joy to the World!
In the Form of Goods!
Consume! Consume! Consume!
Bright Plastics This and That’s!
For Screaming Little Brats!
Take the SUV to the Mall
Take the SUV to the Mall
I also loved the part where Reverend Billy hears peoples’ confessions out of a confessional booth that he sets up on a street corner with a sign that reads, “Confess Your Shopping Sins.” Alright, I will come clean and confess my biggest shopping SIN from the past few years. I bought one of those big exercise balls, and only used it twice. It sat in my closet for a couple of years, then I finally gave it away.
The Earths temperature is like watching paint dry. It has changed by 0.6 degrees in 100 years if you believe the normally inaccurate UN IPCC or by 0.2 to 0.4 degrees if you believe others.
Que.1. Can I ask the 'experts' here how that equals "scorched Earth" and "the Planet has a fever" please?
CO2 levels have always followed temperature change (well for the past 700,000yrs anyway!). The lag is 400 to 1,400yrs behind previous warmings.
Que.2. Could the current high CO2 levels be related to our warming since the mini ice age 800yrs ago?
CO2 levels have increased by 30% in the past 10 years but temperature has changed by 0.00 degrees in those past 10 years.
Que.3. Has CO2 gone on holiday or is this very clear proof CO2 is not a temperature driver?
The worlds CO2 cycle is dominated by natural, not man made, cycles. The oceans absorb CO2 (scribs from the atmosphere) in polar oceans and expels the CO2 back into the atmosphere in warmer oceans.
Que.4. Has anyone here, an expert, heard of the 'Solubility Pump' and the solubility of CO2 in liquid?
If man can change the Earths temperature as the greens and politicians claim can:
Que.5. Would it be better to have a temperature 2 degrees warmer than today or 2 degress colder - please detail why it benefits
a). man - it would be better to be 2 degrees hotter/colder (delete one) because....
b). plants - it would be better to be 2 degrees hotter/colder (delete one) because....
c). animals - it would be better to be 2 degrees hotter/colder (delete one) because....
The IPCC and greens claim man is 'responsiible' for high CO2 levels. Please detail the quantities of CO2 from
i). Man - Output = ???tons per year
2). Plants - Output = ???tons per year Sink - ???tones per year
3). Oceans - Output = ???tones per year Sink = ???tones per year
4). Other (ie. volcanos) Output = ???tons per year
5). The primary source for the increase in CO2 is due to man/natural sources (delete one)
SHEC LABS has been developing Solar Thermal Technology for the production of hydrogen from waste. SHEC is currently commercializing this technology to convert waste methane sources from landfills, agricultural waste, waste water treatment, coal-bed methane and other sources. Methane from such waste sources enter the atmosphere and are 21 time more potent as a greenhouse gas compared to carbon dioxide. SHEC's process dramatically reduces greenhouse gas emissions by both the destruction of the methane the offsetting of fossil fuels in the production of hydrogen. Currently SHEC has interest in deploying this technology in Canada, the United States and Europe.
The Technology:
SHEC has developed the most efficient solar thermal technology in the world as far as we know. The technology consists of a solar concentrator that concentrates sunlight to between 5,000 and 16,000 times. This intense sunlight goes into a solar receiver in which the heat energy of the sun is applied to a process. The emissivity (radiant energy loss) is only 5% which is key to the high thermal efficiency of the solar receiver. The heat in the solar receiver is then applied to a process. In the instance of our hydrogen production process, a thermal catalytic reactor is coupled to the solar receiver.
Other Applications:
The heat reaches high temperatures in excess of the melting point of any metal if this thermal energy in not removed by a process, This heat can be applied to the production of alternative fuels besides hydrogen, the production of electricity and for industrial and residential heating applications.
Solar Energy Availability:
Solar energy has the potential to provide humanity with a clean, renewable and sustainable energy source. The Earth receives 89,000 Tera Watts (TW) of solar energy from the sun. Total human consumption of energy amount to 15 TW. A very small portion of the suns energy has to be harnessed to meet all of the energy requirements of humanity.
SHEC is continuing to decreases the cost of its solar collection technologies with 2nd and 3rd generation design innovations. This in conjunction with mass manufacturing is anticipated to make SHEC’s solar energy a very attractive and competitive option to fossil fuels.
There is a new Copernican Revolution which removes not only the Earth but Human Beings from the center of the cosmos. Whether one accepted the Copernican/Galilean/Keplerian thesis made little difference for the world as a whole; it only narrowed one's own world.
The acceptance of the new revolution which requires our seeing ourselves and all the cosmos not from a anthopocentric/hierachical but from an integrative/interdependent paradigm is not a luxury for scientists and intellectuals, but will decide the future of human life on this Earth and in this cosmos. Extinction is permanent, but human extinction, while permanent, may be beneficial to the rest of the natural world.
It would be difficult if not impossible to name a species of plant or animal that is better off for our being here. Our primary interactions have been destructive; we treat the Earth as a natural resource for our infinitely expanding appetites. The Earth cannot afford such a cancerous organism to remain within its systems.
Sara Teasdale caught the sadness in "There will come..."
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
The choice is our own: we can be part of the body of the Earth or be expelled as unfit. The old sci-fi flick, The Day the Earth Stood Still gave warning that aliens would stop us from exporting our violence and destruction to outer space. Perhaps the Earth will eliminate us before we take that step, making it much simpler for the rest of the cosmos, which has gotten on nicely without us for 13.7 billion years, to continue thriving and evolving. Perhaps the human experiment will work out better on another planet in another solar system--we can only hope so. We have had our chance and, from all the evidence and from the direction of our leadership, we have failed, utterly and miserably.
Dylan Thomas 'ding dong of doom' is close on humanity's clock. It is well past the 11th hour, but can we wake up in time?
I'd like to present you a French website that deals with four major issues that are:
energy savings, domestic rubbish management, domestic air quality management and sustainable use of water.
Those issues are treated deeply, dedicated to the general public.
For the moment, the website is written in French but in a few weeks, this website will concern all european countries: all major themes will be treated in a local aspect (national market, local regulation...).
It is really interesting and objective (no brands...).
A Movie That Santa Does Not Want You To See!
