The 11th Hour
provides
ecological insights
Michael A. Zmolek
Freelance writer based in
Washington DC
Another epic film about a sinking ship
starring Leonardo DiCaprio has hit the silver screen.
The 11th Hour, which might have been better dubbed "Titanic 2,"
provides an overview of how every ecological system on our planet is in
decline, and suggests that we have the available technologies to prevent
ecological collapse.
When I viewed the movie Titanic several years ago, what struck me about
the film is how it provided a highly likely scenario for how the ongoing and
future ecological collapse of ecosystems on our planet will play out.
First, we see that in based on their confidence in their "unsinkable"
technology and under pressure from a media promising a heroic story, the
captain, the chief engineer and their advisors ignore warnings of icebergs and
recklessly embark on an absurd race against time. Second, even after the
ship has struck the iceberg, the initial reaction is one of denial, especially
on the part of the very wealthy, prone as they must be to greeting with
skepticism any suggestion that they might be on the verge of losing all that
they have. Eventually, a scientific assessment is made and the leaders
acknowledge that the ship is sinking, but they immediately recognize that in
their overconfidence they did not provide enough life boats. Third and
finally, the most expensive film ever made (to that date)
treats us to a tale of betrayal and class conflict, as the lower income
passengers are trapped below deck while the rich escape on the life
boats. As the camera panned the icy waters of the North Sea and we saw
the frozen bodies of the mostly lower income victims, I saw (and this was
before Katrina) an allegorical future for the poor of the planet: while the
rich retreat into whatever "lifeboats" they can afford to buy—say the
remaining overpriced dry land—the rest of us will have to bear the brunt of
ecological collapse.
While "Titanic 2"
does take some rather tepid shots at the oil corporations and at the Bush
administration specifically, unlike "Titanic 1" there is little analysis of the
role played by social inequality, and not a single mention of the term
"capitalism". The extremely important point is made that the
industrial revolution brought about the beginnings of an age in which we humans
no longer lived off of direct sunlight through plants and animals and instead
began to construct artificial environments based upon fossil fuels, or recently
unburied, ancient sunlight, so that today most people in industrial societies
feel themselves to be alienated from the rhythms of nature. After the
film, and in meditating on this point and on how fragile all life truly is, I
began to feel a wonderful new sense of kinship with my houseplants as fellow
living creatures on planet Earth and decided I need to start talking to them
more often.
Profound as such thoughts may be, I
nevertheless felt the same frustration with the film as I have felt about much
environmental writing, which is the tendency to suggest that the solution is up
to "you" the consumer, while failing to point out that in all but a
few cases, the biggest polluters are not individual consumers but industrial
corporations and militaries. Each of us can consume less or use clean alternatives, but what of those institutions
that consume and pollute the most?
We are unlikely to find solutions to the ecological
crisis, which is bound up with the exponential growth of the human population,
without resolving issues of social inequality. We may observe that many
wealthy, industrial societies today have stagnant or declining population
growth, whilst the highest birth rates are to be found in poorer
countries. If industry and consumerism were ecologically sustainable,
then high consumption for all might lead to an ecologically stable human birth
rate. But what we are poised for is a 21st century in which
rapid industrialization and consumer-driven economic
growth in massive countries like
"Titanic 2" ends on a high note, telling us that
such technologies are available and that there are more ecological associations
on the planet than ever. This brave optimism (and we're going to need it)
makes the film commendable. But I have to say that the warnings I felt
were implicit in "Titanic
1" are more relevant to a world in which the war-minded men of wealth
and power have so long and so strenuously sought to deny that there is any
danger at all in global warming and the concomitant decline of
ecosystems. If we continue to let those beholden to corporate power
rather than to the people steer the rest of us headlong toward destruction,
most of us (or our children's children's children)
may find ourselves bobbing not in icy seas, but boiling seas with no icebergs
to hit.
Mike Zmolek
is currently completing a doctoral dissertation on the origins of capitalism
and the industrial revolution. He is a former legislative aide to Rep.
Cynthia McKinney, for whom he drafted reports and legislation dealing with the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He co-authored the articles of
impeachment that Rep. McKinney introduced against President Bush in December,
and assisted Rep. Dennis Kucinich in drafting articles of impeachment against
Vice President Cheney. He has previously taught ecological politics and
environmental history as a faculty member at the
Michael A. Zmolek
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