The 11th Hour

I just got back from a conversation after a sold-out screening of our film at the Arclight Theater in Hollywood. It's 11p.m. A Wednesday. Amazing. People came out to see the film and it was a packed house, as I mentioned. They applauded the film -- which always brings tears to my eyes. This is a public audience that is applauding a film in a theater. Something is working. I went up with Andy Lipkis from Tree People and Brian Gerber, one of our producers, for the Q&A. The entire audience stayed. They listened, they talked, asked questions. Again, a Wednesday night -- a school night, a work night. But the conversation seemed more important than getting up early. In all my work in media, writing, filmmaking, and politics, there is nothing so heartening as an inspired conversation among strangers. I would say we all left that room now as a community because we shared the film first, then the ideas and the feelings it provoked.

The intention behind this film was to be a massive conversation starter that would lead to action on a broad societal level. I know it is a lofty goal, but as artists and humans we aim high so that we can at least land somewhere beyond our own original horizon line. You can only see so far -- it becomes the view points of others that take us further, and if tonight is any indication of meeting the goals of this film, it is working.

I think back now to December of 2006 when we were deep in the editing process of this film. We had 150 hours of interviews to go through and bring down to this 90 minutes that we are presenting the world -- a distillation of the genius and passion of the work of the individuals we interviewed. This is their movie, at the end of the day -- a testament to the world they have been studying, watching, writing about, campaigning about as they see ecosystems spiraling downwards while the mainstream political and media dialogue remains defiant of the truth on the ground. This is our giant message in a bottle to the world beyond the veil of spin and denial. We are trying to break through the white noise of short-sighted debates over indisputable facts, through the mental pollution of irrelevant news stories about jailed heiress picked over with tremendous detail while our life support systems on this planet are being pillaged for short term profit and political power.

So back to the edit bay and the slow-moving process of finding the essence of this film -- figuring out how to capture a snapshot of the world we are living in -- all the destruction and simultaneously all the hope. Some days it felt like we were trying to run though molasses, a frustrated hurry to get this movie out there while our culture continued to hurtle towards a precipice. Would we get this out there in time to make a difference? Then there was the flip side. I thought about all this work we were doing in the dark edit bay and imagined the summer of 2007. I had visions of a new cultural movement that would be underway -- something to rival the civil rights movement but this time it would be a convergence of ideas that would make people hit the streets in outrage and inspiration. Forty years after the Summer of Love it seemed like as a country we were primed for the next great defining movement of a generation. I thought maybe we would be too late on that level. That this film would be an afterthought, because by the time it came out the good news would be that the citizens of this country and the world would be already uniting around an understanding of our problems and mobilizing for massive solutions.

Now it is almost the end of the summer of 2007 and I don't have to tell you that the transformative visible outcry isn't happening on the scale I imagined. We seem to be in a very similar place to when we began the process of making this film. Certainly the idea of global warming has become more accepted in this country than it was a year ago thanks to An Inconvenient Truth but again where is the next level to this movement. What is that gap between knowledge and change? What is it about this problem of the collapse of our environment at our own hands that seems so difficult to address on a political level? What is that space between awareness and action?

I begin now to think more about pausing in this moment of awareness, about how important it is to go deep into ourselves before actions are taken. Of course we can all do the '10 things' to help lessen our impact on the planet from changing our light bulbs to recycling, etc. and I will not diminish the importance of this sort of individual action, but this problem we face will not be solved by such a small to do list. It will only begin to become clear to us -- the view of this new horizon -- if we truly see the world in a new way.

Pausing then, and allowing the enormity of this event of the tail end of the industrial revolution is paramount. Because in this acknowledgment comes a subtle but primary shift in consciousness where you will never look at the world the same way again. Where you will never look at the things in your home that you have acquired, through a breakneck life of work and struggle, in the same way again. Where did that wood in your coffee table come from? What about that plastic water bottle? The heretofore hidden consequences of our consumption are slowly being revealed. But before you feel the need to shut down because of the inertia associated with such an incredible call for change or before you decide to run for the hills and live on nuts and berries, there is another way. If we can revel in this new consciousness for a moment new ideas will spring forth and that is the conversation we need to be having. It is armed with these ideas that we must hit the streets and protest for a world we want to see built rather than protest against an ideology that we now understand is treating this planet as a disposable resource.

Someone came up to me tonight and mentioned he thought the gap between doing something about all these problems and inaction has to do with the fact that we are emotionally unprepared to take on the challenges left to us. I believe personally that evolving an eco-psychology is as important as evolving literal action. Without a real foundation of what to do with our outrage, fear, and revelation we will be lost. This is where I think the environmental movement is about to cross over and build bridges with a lot of other existing movements on the planet because ultimately we are looking at power -- who has it and what they are doing with it. Other movements from the anti-poverty campaigns to health care to anti-war to you name it are all about making those in power accountable for their actions. Here we are united. How do we take back our power from those people and corporations that have abused the public trust and damaged the commons? How do we become citizens again after a half-century campaign of drilling into the American conscience that we are consumers? Of being told that our strength as Americans lays in our economic might so much so that we have spent ourselves into an untenable position of personal and national debt?

I am going to sign off for now with this last question on the heels of all these other observations. I look forward to your responses. I am filled with hope and optimism because I have seen the capacity of human beings to reinvent their world, tackle seemingly insurmountable problems, and move forward. Would anyone of African-American descent living 60 years ago imagine that we could look back from this vantage point with utter wonder at how we ever allowed people to be treated that way? We changed. Would anyone living behind the Iron Curtain in the early days of the 90s imagine that there would be no more Wall? That their countries would join the European Union? It happened faster than they thought -- in their lifetimes. So I think we can do it. We have changed before and we will change again.

It seems to be a matter of truly recognizing where we are in order to begin the task over moving into a post Industrial world. An new ideology that takes all the benefits of technology and innovation from the Industrial Revolution while dispensing of the idea of short term gain at the price of nature, humans, community and the survivability of future generations.

Comments

[ArthurKanegis]

"GLOCALIZATION"
I love Nadia's vision of a new cultural movement, a convergence of ideas uniting the citizens of this country and the world in truly seeing the world in a new way, protesting against the ideology of treating this planet as a disposable resource, and mobilizing for massive solutions.
Nadia and her sister are on the forefront of a wave of citizens around the planet helping to trigger this new movement, which will be even larger than the historic civil rights movement because it touches in a vital way the lives of every citizen on the planet.
Looking back from the future, we will thank people like Nadia who helped inspire us all to realize that we-the-people of the planet have the means and responsibility to move beyond the dysfunctional old political systems and instead take back our power to build a world that works. I envision a world in which are all working "Glocally" - globally through a new Earth Operating System on the web and locally in our neighborhoods -- to put in place sustainable political, social and ecological systems to restore the health of the vital life systems that make life on Earth possible and beautiful.

[Primadonna]

I saw "The 11th Hour" and I know how challenging it is to get a film financed, let alone, distributed. Thank you and your team for getting it launched.

The devisiveness just in these comments alone is pretty telling about where humanity is at on the scale of coming together. Perhaps a key to bringing people together is to succinctly stay with basics; yes, the earth has always undergone climatic changes; However, there was a time not too long ago when our planet didn't have poisons, herbicides, pesticides, toxic waste, nuclear waste, etc., dumped within it. Our rivers, oceans, lakes and the very air we breathe has been compromised to the point where we must do something now in order to sustain us. Combined with all of the other components that are tributaries of global warming ... deforestation, the raping of our land by agribusiness (primarily American corps doing this), drinking water depletion, overpopulation, we realize everything is interconnected.

From the research I've conducted on a film I'm working on, the sustainable farmers of our world are interconnected and hooked up globally in dialogue. They share their innovations and old and tried methods of food production. One of their concerns is that we can lose our top soil before oil. They are a community linked up globally via the internet and are working together in meeting food production needs. What works for them in bringing so many people of so many cultures together for purposes of sustainability?

I applaud your film ... personally, I would have loved to have seen more in depth stories of those companies that are part of the solution. Collaboration and cooperation between us all is the key - and that does begin with one ... then their relationship to the next - whether it be spouse, friend, child, the guy who cut you off in traffic, etc. It takes one to choose to turn off the water, recycle, drive less ... to reach critical mass. It takes one to choose compassion when it comes to those differences that can divide. It begins with one.

[MPeter]

Sorry. This was a response for another article on a different site. It was not intended for this article. My apologies.

[MPeter]

I am disappointed that you fail to credit Senator Obama and other candidates who are stepping outside conventional Washington thinking that failed for nearly fifty years and are offering change. The problem with your argument is that you want a radical shift overnight or no change at all. You have the luxury of not being the one running for President. And why do assume that only you have a monopoly of acceptable ideas when it comes to dealing with Cuba? By the way, that throw back that Obama should let Americans decide makes no sense either. Since when did 300 million Americans ever unanimously agree on any policy position? You have a sensible idea worth debating, offer it with the knowledge that not everybody will agree with it. But when you come out railing against an idea because it did not meet your full approval, you act like the DECIDER. We already have GW for that.

[grn1]

The light bulbs contain mercury and need to be disposed of as hazardous waste. Most of us who have lived for many years with environmental conscience understand the new enlightenment, the bandwagon approach by Hollywood to educate. Meanwhile they should feel this is their responsibility as one of the most wasteful and unnecessary uses of utility this country has ever been brainwashed by.

[Meah]

I changed out all of my lightbulbs and called all over trying to find out the safest way to dispose of them. No luck. I still have them under my kitchen sink. They will stay there until someone tells me where the millions and millions and millions of candescent light bulbs should be safely assigned to.

[paixa3]

Most of the citizens in the USA have been lost for years. Wake up and starting thinking.

[kingcityguru]

The warmest day in the last 100 years was in the 1930s!!
Globalwarminmongering is just the newest craze of the moment from acid rain to the ozone hole to Y2k to bird flu to the CO2 meltdown (you do know that CO2 forms less than 5 % of greenhouse gases and that humans are responsible for 3/100 of that amount -- yes, by all means, destroy the economies of the world and relegate the developing economies into poverty because of this 3/100 of 5%!! Insane)

Hey, why are there more polar bears today than 20 years ago? Anyone think that if warming is happening it is actually a good thing.

[AuntSally]

KingCity, you've delivered miraculous insight in 50 words or less. Once the thousands of researchers who've devoted decades to understanding the climate system have read your comment, the whole thing will be settled. Call me hopelessly optimistic, but in the off chance you're interested in actually learning about the climate, the state of the science and all of its complexities, start here:

www.realclimate.org

Then come back to the table and let's get going: we need your help...

[accountability]

Hey Auntie... not really my aunt.
good job, as always.

[2warvet]

And what of the researchers who have devoted decades to understanding the climate system read KingCity's comment and agree with him?

For every website that is out there touting global warming there is one that calls it junk science (www.junkscience.com for example)

On top of everything else, look at the limo set that is touting this. algore lives in a house that burns more electricity in one month than most houses in a year. Rides around in SUV's in huge motorcades, jets around in private jets... Same thing with leonardo. Sure he drives a prius, out of his HUGE mansion to the airport to fly in his private jet....Are you seeing the pattern here?

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

Spoken like a true Republican. Good for you Homer!! Life is all about saving "economies"... in other words, treating the earth and its resources as disposable instead of looking for alternative environmentally friendly means of energy. Now go and read more news how Bush pushed back 20 years of environmental laws and how it won't matter... so you can feel validated. This is a commentary for conscientious people.

[WilliePilgrim]

Convincing the public that global warming is a reality isn't the issue. Convincing them that it's causes are certain and that steps can be taken to reverse it will be difficult, especially so since a number of very informed scientists in this area are themselves in disagreement on the exact mechanism for the current character of our ongoing climatic change. Considering the number of varaibles, I wonder how it could be otherwise.
I can only wish that the general public could pull themselves away from the mind numbing barrage of sports and smarmy news analysis which flood the information channels and really try to understand the complexity of our natural systems and why a simple targetting of CO2 as "THE" culprit is bound to make us look stupid for taking such a simplistic path and then expecting to get results. And yet, to my dismay, what our leaders call an increase in earth science research is a pittance, and any scientist with genuine apprehension about the current interpretations of the admittedly fragmentary findings is painted with a broad brush, along with industry hacks, as "bought and sold" while characterized as working for evil. This rancorous atmoshpere, more than the actual climate itself, maybe have more to to with our worlds ending in neither a bang nor a whimper, but more a long aggravating accusatorial whine. In the mean time the concern over the other pollutants and further impact of developement on the planet in general get short shrifted again...good grief, are we really that overlaoded with junk information that we can't absorb the vital knowledge we will need for a future as precarious as ours is shaping-up to be?

[SixBillionPlus]

Why don't you just *say* we need to have fewer kids?
Fewer kids, few consumers, less pollution, smaller companies, more democracy, less crime, fewer resource wars, and less money.
Oh yeah i forgot, saving the planet is nice but you still have to make a buck.
Al's an inconvient truth was out there for free on the web. When will the 11th hour do that?

[ZenJu]

Inevitably, change will come, absolutely; the question is what the nature of those changes will be. As a species, we have a tremendous capacity for logic and compassion. Evolution has provided us with an astounding capacity for awareness and the construction of social systems that can be used to harness our destructive urges. We also have tremendous capacity for destroying ourselves and much of the ecosystem in process as our formerly adaptive hunter-gather tendencies, armed with lethal technologies, turn on us. It's up to each of us to decide what to do.

[humanoid]

"I think we can do it. We have changed before and we will change again."

We are definitely GOING to change. It may be that we find ourselves reduced to misery and barbarism amidst widespread ecological collapse. Or we might, conceivably, find a better way to live.

As Ben Franklin said, "We must hang together, or we shall assuredly all hang separately."

[cylindar]

It is too late. The movie "Planet Of The Apes" says it all. People have had plenty of time to do the right thing, yet they have chose not to do the right thing. So guess what's next!!

[ZenJu]

I applaud your efforts and am in agreement with your central premise. There can be no change without a shift in consciousness and a willingness to live in awareness. The tragedy is that it may be too late to build a critical mass of enlightened citizenry; we are in a race against multiple factors and we will be fortunate to survive the 21st century. To make an analogy, there are preciously few Lisa Simpsons on this planet but Homer is in the billions.

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

How true....how true!

[loslobo]

I look forward to seeing the movie and I appreciate your efforts in the cause, but I can"t help but to fear for my sons and the very challenging environment everyone will have to survive. It is all admirable to heighten awareness, but change will never happen because the corporate Gods can"t see the profit mode in keeping this planet habitable. Big oils" greed and shortsightedness doomed everyone. The solutions may be available, but the infrastructure will never be in place. So this country will be force to turn to coal when they figure out the oil can"t last forever. (This compounds the problem beyond any hope of fixing it) Banning flora carbons won"t fix this problem. It"s like IX/XI, by the time enough people figure it out, the damage has already been done. I wish you all the best though, keep up the good fight.

[Dap]

I personally know that psychological place...

Walden Pond...

Henry David Thoreau...

It's in there, the place where the Yin meets the Yang... Harmony, by living deliberately.

[Dap]

Why should we be in such a desperte haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises?

If one does not keep pace with their companions, perhaps it is becaause they hear a different drummer.

Let them step to the music they hear, however measured or far away. - Henry David Thoreau

[Dap]

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately... to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discoverer... that I had not lived. - Henry David Thoreau.