Life at the End of Empire
= documentary on the confluence of Peak Oil, Climate Change and the end of industrial civilisation
URL = http://www.whatawaytogomovie.com/ Wikipedia
Review
Ben Brangwyn co-founder of Transition Network says:
"Pros:
- hardcore, hard-hitting personal journey into the ecological nightmare of civilisation. If you've never read Derrick Jensen or Ran Prieur or seen... "End of Suburbia" this might be a tough watch. On the other hand, if you have, this one is essential viewing.
- covers plenty of ground – discusses the confluence of Peak Oil, Climate Change, natural resource depletion and population
Cons:
- short on solutions
- almost devoid of hope, presupposing that civilisation must collapse before we reach a more sustainable way of living – not much "transition" thought"
Tia Carr Williams:
"Deprived of hope for a future filled with family, fun and an opportunity to personally or professionally thrive, we find ourselves reduced more and more to survival at the most critical edge of societal disarray and precarious climate conditions.
In the first fifteen minutes of ‘What a way to go, Life at the End of Empire;’, narrator, as well as writer and producer, Tim Bennett recounts his upbringing of a secure childhood and an upbringing replete with contentment in the safe heart of a family where values were clear and demonstrated in hard work and mutual support. He counterpoints this with his dismay at the world to which we are all being exposed, nothing less than a daily onslaught of visceral confusion and a collapse of everything we knew as our contextual world.
Young people articulate their angst about a world in flux and presentiments of apocalyptic annihilation. Living through times of accelerating catastrophe whilst trying to make sense of how to change the way the world works, as well experiencing and expressing increasing level of helplessness, the abiding echo of one contributor rings in the heart ‘ You tell yourself it’s all going to be ok, to keep going’.
Featuring interviews with Daniel Quinn, Derrick Jensen, Jerry Mander, Chellis Glendinning, Richard Heinberg, Thomas Berry, William Catton, Ran Prieur and Richard Manning, What a Way to Go looks at the current global situation and asks the most important questions of all:
o How did we get here?
o Why do we keep destroying the planet?
o What do we truly want?
o Can we find a vision that will empower us to do what is necessary to survive, and even thrive, in the coming decades?
Why aren’t we all contributing to the answers to these questions?"