A Requiem For Planet Earth – And Ourselves

I am getting away from it all, canoeing for a week in beautiful Woodland Caribou Park. In the meantime, enjoy this:

From young film maker Vivek Chauhan and naturalists working with the Sanctuary Asia network comes this non-commercial attempt to highlight the fact that world leaders, corporations, and our mindless consuming are combining to destroy life on earth. The creators dedicated it to all who died fighting for the planet and those whose lives are on the line today.

More links:

Sanctuary Asia

Want to help? Check out  Awakening the Dreamer and organize a symposium in your community.

0 thoughts on “A Requiem For Planet Earth – And Ourselves”

    • It does make one think, doesn’t it? I noticed you brought up a closely related topic on your blog recently, the Alternet article on the new book “Deep Green Resistance” by Derrick Jensen, Aric McBay and Lierre Keith. We are at a time of crisis, when these kinds of options start to appear to be a choice reasonable people could make.

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      • I am hoping to go and see a documentary this afternoon that has just come out here in the UK called Just Do It, which is about UK climate activists and their increasingly bold strategies. I think that Jensen, McBay and Keith are speaking about another step beyond these. My question is what kind of action is going to make more of a positive difference – some strategies are likely to backfire, justifying greater corporate and/or state control, entrenching the status quo and turning people off the issue.

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  1. I’ve seen (and posted) a clip from Just Do It – I’ll be watching for your review of it. I think, as Sandra Steingraber has said, that the answer to becoming a fossil fuel abolitionist is as individual as, well, individuals. We all have skills that can be put to use – and some people, considering the extreme consequences of inaction, will be moved to implement strategies that are on the edge of acceptable.

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    • Yes, that was my wife’s reaction to the film (we saw it last night thanks to the lovely godmother of our child doing a spot of babysitting) – that these people just have the gift of being willing to get arrested. I pushed back on this and we’re continuing to reflect on the film. I hope to write some kind of review (though I’m also hoping to review Food Inc/, which we saw on DVD the day before and which was even more thought-provoking, I think), but am still chewing over my reaction. It is far from a perfect film, and in many ways assumes a sympathetic audience. It is trying to turn sympathetic into engaged rather than hostile or apathetic into sympathetic, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Very low budget (as was clear in the calls for crowd funding, to which I contributed). I am glad we saw it and I feel very warmly towards most of those depicted in it. I am still trying to work out what creative resistance to the life-destroying powers looks like for me.

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  2. Food Inc is quite powerful – we just watched “Fresh” which features much of the same information, but focuses more on people who are growing food/farming sustainably as well as the problems with our current food system. I would recommend it.

    And I would say, Byron, that you are already creatively resisting the powers-that-be by blogging and educating yourself and others, as well as and thoughtfully considering the alternatives. Don’t forget to give yourself credit for what you are already doing!

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