This Sunday on C4 at 7.25pm we are showing The 11th Hour, a passionate and polemical documentary presented by Leonardo DiCaprio that asks what can be done to save the planet and mankind before it is too late.
You can find out more about the film, watch our video clips and read our interview with the filmmakers at:
An incredibly powerful and highly relevant documentary about a potentially devastating future we have created for ourselves.
I feel a major problem we face in tackling this serious issue are the huge cultural differences that divide the human race. Because so many cultures believe so many different things, it must be incredibly hard, if not impossible to unite every single one of us in order to impose a much needed solution.
Will there be room for environmental solutions in the extremely religious cultures? Is population control a realistic possibility within these cultures? How will countries only just enjoying their industrial revolutions be able to continue their growth and yet remain environmentally safe? America has already enjoyed this success and it would be naive to expect these newly developing countries not to want the same benefits of such growth.
I was hoping the documentary would shed more light on the forces at work that are hindering solutions such as recyclable energy sources. It is obvious to even me that a switchover is inevitable, so i wanted to know why this isn't happening right now.
But a fantastic documentary that I will not only recommend to others, but will change some of my own daily habits/uses to do my part. Which is the very least all of us can do.
As the program highlighted we are way too dependant on oil/gas, we really need to get a grip on this and actually start getting to a point where we're using less year on year.
It will be interesting to see just how much less fuel/energy is getting used as a result of the recent price rises. I have a suspicion at the moment that folks are just putting up with increased prices, rather than looking at reducing their consumption.
I think the countries that move away from fossil fuels the quickest are going to be in the best place to deal the issues that arise once these resources run out.
Yes we are polluting the world but we don’t need to be. Technology such as Zero Point Energy is being deliberately withheld form us by companies like General Electric so they can profit from selling us electricity and the Governments can tax it. Zero Point Energy has been available since 1902. It delivers over 40 megawatts of power from a device that can easily fit is a car.
CO2 is blamed for causing Global warming when that is actually not true. The Sun is more energetic now than it was back in the early 90s. The Government tells people that motor cars give of CO2, that is a lie. The bbc television ‘news’ programmes say cars give of CO2 but when you look up what car exhaust emissions give off on google you get a link the the BBC web site where they don’t list CO2 as coming from cars(?).
The fact is we are being lied to about Global weather changes which NASA has said is being caused by the Sun. NASA has also said that all other planets and moons in the Solar system are going through weather changes such as the surface of ice moons melting to form seas.
The truth is that human beings and animals give off CO2 when we exhale. Trees and other plant life take in our CO2 and give off Oxygen. The Government advert that shows a car and a cloud of CO2 rising it is referring to the occupants of the cars not the cars themselves.
I am disgusted by the continuing lies being spued by the controlled british media.
While people are distracted by Global warming the EU is forming a communist Police state. British membership of the EU is illegal as it violates our Constitution the Magna Carta from 1215, our Bill of Rights from 1689 and the 1848 Treason Act. The Queen has signed 6 treaties with the EU and has committed treason on all six occasions.
So time to wake up and realise you are being lied to.
In my experience there seem to be two types of people on this issue. Those that do believe we are causing these problems and those that do not. For whatever reason these groups choose to believe each of the theories, there will always be disputes on either side and arguments to support and disprove both. At the end of all the bickering and one-upmanship it all comes down to a choice, what do you want to believe?
If you feel we are to blame for Climate Change, are you going to do something about it? Energy efficient light bulbs, showers not baths, being a sensible consumer, buying local produce and so on.
If you do not, then what now? Go about your life knowing that the planet will eventually kill us all off with another ice age or drought? Do nothing and just carry on the way you are?
Either way the fuels which literally dictate the way we live are running out and when they do what will happen? I for one would rather embrace a theory that will accelerate the human race into an age of renewable energy and cleaner living, eradicating our dependence on limited resources. The systems and structures that society is based on are flimsy at best, you only need to look at economic depressions and natural disasters to see what humans do to survive. When law and order and 'normal' life are disrupted many seem to revert to mob mentality and at times back to instinct, doing what is necessary to survive. The events in the Super Dome are an awful reminder of this. Imagine if that was where you live, everyday.
The sooner we let go of our dependency and embrace a future that is not under a time limit the better it will be when that time comes.
11th hour,wow what a show...if people are not switched on to this issue by now we may have less time than we think. The problem with the human race, apart from the fact that it would be impossible for us to unify being from so many different religions and beliefs for us to create a solution, is that we need an occurence of one event for us to learn yet we need a disaster for us to act...this is the way it has always been and while we have these wonderful brains which allow us to evolve and maintain our survival it is our biggest flaw...we are far too susceptable to mainstream ideologies and and methods of thought that it is too difficult for us to adapt to a new way of life...what the general public need is a time and date, essentially a deadline for us to take any notice of the inevitible...without this impossibility we draw ever closer to an unknown fate...without sounding pesimistic and mellon collie, it is in our nature to destroy ourselves...i just wish we didnt have to take the planet with us!!!
I have brought together senior execs from a dozen or so UK youth-issue NGO's (e.g. Oxfam, NSPCC, Princes Trust, UK Youth, British Youth Council, London Youth, Hansard Society, UK Youth Parliament, Foyer, etc.)to try and drive forward a project that will make a real difference to the underlying issue behind all the points rasied in this documentary. That underlying issue is culture, or youth culture in this case.
This will be the biggest non-govt youth project the UK has ever seen, and will have a knock-on effect around the world.
A couple of major think tanks are also involved in scoping and steering. The government has not so far been invited to get involved. But individuals with clout, vision and determination are invited. Corporate, business, media, writers and artists, movers and shakers, how can you make a real difference? Visit abracadia and just ask if you want to know.
I thought this programme also skated over the issue of the worlds population. It mentioned at the start how it's increased to 6 billion in the past few decades, but at this rate of expansion all these efforts to reduce polution will get totally wiped out by the extra humans.
Perhaps a separate programme could investigate what ideas there are out there to try and bring about a sustainable population. It would take some serious catastrophe to return to the 1 billion that was mentioned at the start of the programme.
Originally posted by Peter1970: Yes we are polluting the world but we don’t need to be. Technology such as Zero Point Energy is being deliberately withheld form us by companies like General Electric so they can profit from selling us electricity and the Governments can tax it. Zero Point Energy has been available since 1902. It delivers over 40 megawatts of power from a device that can easily fit is a car.
I would really like to see and read about this ZPE engine you are talking about from the H.G. Wells inspired world of 1902. As far as I understand ZPE was nothing but an equation at that point, and then put into a theory by 1913 by Einstein and Otto Stern.
I could be wrong of course but ZPE is often used to hock useless self perpetuating energy machines over internet scams, none of which work I might add.
This is not an attack on you my friend, I am genuinely interested. If you could provide some links or reading material on the subject I would definitely read them. It’s just I have never heard of such an engine or energy source bar pseudo science and fiction.
Give credit where it is due, the future of our planet is highly controversial and many people could be forgiven for being averse to tackling this issue and channel 4 have proved to definitely not be.
Personally, the issue that I have with this documentary is the portrayal of climate change as the principal MANMADE problem behind what is wrong with planet earth. It is not in dispute that climate change is happening yet still people are bogged down in the ins and outs of who is causing it and are we as humans responsible. Whether we are or not responsible is not really the point, because if, as 11th Hour points out, we are on the brink of disaster and the world that we live in could spiral out of our supposed control then even if fundamental proof that human carbon emmissions is the main cause of global warming, how does it in any way prove beneficial. Surely it is time to act now, and if the damage is done, then the effects mankind have had on the world are surely irreversible? In this case, the international community of politicians, scientists, environmentalists, corporate business and the public need to come up with a strategy to minimise the effects of climate change and hopefully adapt to work alongside the forces of nature. As I see it, all that documentaries like the 11th Hour are achieving is making the divide between politics and environmental science increase. There is an extreme lack of willing from environmentalists and scientists to integrate into the world of politics and attempt to make their opinions known and listened to. The current pleas for diplomats to take heed to this global problem is being portrayed as a fight between good and evil, with the evil being our politicians who believe it or not our actually employed by us, the public to make decisions because we are neither qualified nor have the necessary knowledge to do this. Perhaps people should not be so quick to criticise and perhaps look at environmentalists and do good celebrities who continue to single themselves out and perhaps question what their real motive is.
As i earlier pointed out Channel 4 have approached an extremely delicate subject, and many of the issues touched upon in 11th Hour were definitely valid points and ones that tend to be pushed under the carpet somewhat as the human induced climate change movement dwarfs everything else. Deforestation, loss of wetlands and soil erosion are extremely important issues that should be dealt with and are perhaps more important issues as to why our globe is in its current state of chaos. As the oceans are continued to be abused and waste builds up why is it still that the GREEN mandate continues to dominate? Energy saving and carbon free transport may help to save resources and clean up the atmosphere to an extent but as far as reversing the effects of global warming and saving our planet, far fetched is not the word.
I think in so many ways our life styles in the west are like addictions. There was some thing in that documentry which really resonated. Living in London you see people rockign around in Blinged up German cars costing as much as a house, full of rage and stress, they don't look happy. You can never get enough of something you really want, what a great thought.
I reminded me of giving up smoking which I did six months ago after 15 years. When I started in my mid teens I didn't think I would be commiting myself to a life long persuit which was ultimatley ruining my body and shortening my life. Its an addiction which gives nothing and ultimatly takes everything, yet you think you need it. I woke up one day coughing away realising that now in my early thirties that I had adjusted to having a permi-cough, lack of breath and accepted that this was OK, I had learnt to ignore it. In someways that addiction is much like how our society is functioning right now, we're addicted to a life style which will ultimatly kill us, we pretend we can't see the weeze and coughing of the planet, and we're all scared to give it up.
I had tried to give up before several times and I gave up this year instantly and haven't smoked again. This time I gave up easily, because I had a key distinction which was choosing not to smoke, choosing health and choosing to respect my body and live as long as I could. Trying to give something up is sacrifice, which is a delusion in the case of smoking as there is nothing of value to loose. I wonder if we are all a bit like smokers in the way we consume and polute the planet right now. As if saving our environment is something that is likely to involve scarifcing quality of life, which is a much bigger delusion and one which we cannot afford to indulge any longer.
This films is very much in line with my view that we need to make the solutions to these problems workable and more importantly desirable. We in the west are conditioned to consume, something we have all been exposed to since children, telling people off about their life styles and consumption is very likely to have a negative affect, pointing the figure and blackmailing people into change via guilt trips is not the way to go, and yet seemingly often the approach passionate people take on this issue. Showing them scary pictures about the predicted outcomes is also in my view likely to have a negative affect, the goverment try scare tactics with under age sex education and we have the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in Europe.
What I liked was that along with explaining the dire situation we find our selves in, there was a focus on the future we want! Making the solutions easy, desirable and affordable is the key to getting large scale adoption of an alternative way of living. Focusing on doing what we do now sustainably seems to me the sensible approach for everyone to do.
CO2 is blamed for causing Global warming when that is actually not true. The Sun is more energetic now than it was back in the early 90s. The Government tells people that motor cars give of CO2, that is a lie. The bbc television ‘news’ programmes say cars give of CO2 but when you look up what car exhaust emissions give off on google you get a link the the BBC web site where they don’t list CO2 as coming from cars(?).
The fact is we are being lied to about Global weather changes which NASA has said is being caused by the Sun. NASA has also said that all other planets and moons in the Solar system are going through weather changes such as the surface of ice moons melting to form seas.
The truth is that human beings and animals give off CO2 when we exhale. Trees and other plant life take in our CO2 and give off Oxygen. The Government advert that shows a car and a cloud of CO2 rising it is referring to the occupants of the cars not the cars themselves.
I am disgusted by the continuing lies being spued by the controlled british media.
While people are distracted by Global warming the EU is forming a communist Police state. British membership of the EU is illegal as it violates our Constitution the Magna Carta from 1215, our Bill of Rights from 1689 and the 1848 Treason Act. The Queen has signed 6 treaties with the EU and has committed treason on all six occasions.
So time to wake up and realise you are being lied to.
These things might be true, and it doesn't deter from the fact that our seas are poluted from manufacturing, we are over fishing and cutting down too many trees.
I think the wider issue here is that with a growing population we have to live in more harmony with our environment regardless of how much goverments might be trying to gain more control over us or not.
Its not just about global warming, its about a whole attitude about how we treat our environment. Its about waste, its about polution, its about carelessness and a lack of repsect for the ecosystems we live in.
We canot avoid responsibilty as individuals because of the way goverments and industry are behaving.
Originally posted by abracadia: we're all doing what we can.
I have brought together senior execs from a dozen or so UK youth-issue NGO's ... ...underlying issue is culture, or youth culture in this case. This will be the biggest non-govt youth project the UK has ever seen, and will have a knock-on effect around the world. A couple of major think tanks are also involved in scoping and steering. The government has not so far been invited to get involved. But individuals with clout, vision and determination are invited. Corporate, business, media, writers and artists, movers and shakers, how can you make a real difference?
"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO" ..is possibly the most significant problem the programme mentioned, as far as changing the way we live is concerned. (We already have the knowledge and technology or technological footholds to progress the changes required to address the power needs of our current consumerism). Whether it is personally, locally or internationally, nobody likes being told what to do. The only thing that does seem to create mass change in individuals is Peer Pressure. Often, possibly most often in western culture, this comes from 'must-have-to-be-cool' adverts. Real, and permanent, changes have to overcome that. There are some, as Kadus pointed out, who will believe and others who will always disbelieve it is humankind's fault..
quote:
Originally posted by Kadus: Either way the fuels which literally dictate the way we live are running out and when they do what will happen? I for one would rather embrace a theory that will accelerate the human race into an age of renewable energy and cleaner living, eradicating our dependence on limited resources. The systems and structures that society is based on are flimsy at best, you only need to look at economic depressions and natural disasters to see what humans do to survive.
Something they do all too frequently is start Wars to secure access to that fuel. Look at the last 100 years. ..or the last 20! Kids have to be educated using reason rather than dictat while still pretty young, that the energy debate is more than just industrial CO2 emissions. It's profit, it's nuclear waste, it's limited resources in general - in a world becoming ever more populated.
C4's "Green editor" asks "what can be done to save the planet and mankind before it is too late." Um, how about learning how to use non sexist language? What about woman kind? This is basic stuff, and i really would have expected more from C4. This documentary is shocking in its failure to include more than a tiny fraction of female experts as part of its attempt to assess the situation in which we now find ourselves. How ironic! It was patriarchy that got us here, and the two (FEMALE!) film makers continue the misogyny that is killing us. Keep it up lads. you just don't get it do you?
Originally posted by Advocatus Diaboli: I thought this programme also skated over the issue of the worlds population. It mentioned at the start how it's increased to 6 billion in the past few decades, but at this rate of expansion all these efforts to reduce polution will get totally wiped out by the extra humans.
Perhaps a separate programme could investigate what ideas there are out there to try and bring about a sustainable population. It would take some serious catastrophe to return to the 1 billion that was mentioned at the start of the programme.
To continue what I intended to add to my earlier premature articulation..... Population, population, population, should be the obvious prime focus: if it is us humans that are upsetting the balance of nature, then we must focus on how to stem the human population explosion.
That immediately raises issues of religion. My belief is that we must start a movement to change from worshipping any one of many dead prophets and start to worship our Mother Earth. All it needs is for one Archbishop with vision, to start holding services in our cathedrals and churches dedicated to the worship and preservation of Mother Earth. Some preaching by them on this important topic would be more relevant to any hope for a life hereafter.
Originally posted by abracadia: we're all doing what we can.
I have brought together senior execs from a dozen or so UK youth-issue NGO's ... ...underlying issue is culture, or youth culture in this case. This will be the biggest non-govt youth project the UK has ever seen, and will have a knock-on effect around the world. A couple of major think tanks are also involved in scoping and steering. The government has not so far been invited to get involved. But individuals with clout, vision and determination are invited. Corporate, business, media, writers and artists, movers and shakers, how can you make a real difference?
"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO" ..is possibly the most significant problem the programme mentioned, as far as changing the way we live is concerned. (We already have the knowledge and technology or technological footholds to progress the changes required to address the power needs of our current consumerism). Whether it is personally, locally or internationally, nobody likes being told what to do. The only thing that does seem to create mass change in individuals is Peer Pressure. Often, possibly most often in western culture, this comes from 'must-have-to-be-cool' adverts. Real, and permanent, changes have to overcome that. There are some, as Kadus pointed out, who will believe and others who will always disbelieve it is humankind's fault..
quote:
Originally posted by Kadus: Either way the fuels which literally dictate the way we live are running out and when they do what will happen? I for one would rather embrace a theory that will accelerate the human race into an age of renewable energy and cleaner living, eradicating our dependence on limited resources. The systems and structures that society is based on are flimsy at best, you only need to look at economic depressions and natural disasters to see what humans do to survive.
Something they do all too frequently is start Wars to secure access to that fuel. Look at the last 100 years. ..or the last 20! Kids have to be educated using reason rather than dictat while still pretty young, that the energy debate is more than just industrial CO2 emissions. It's profit, it's nuclear waste, it's limited resources in general - in a world becoming ever more populated.
Very interesting programme, but totally missed the cause to everything. The answer is so incredibally simple but impossible to do anything about. There is simply to many of us, we play at putting up wind turbines, and changing light bulbs. But the worlds population needs to be halfed in thirty years. We use carbon, if there are fewer of us, then the maths is simple. The problem is, it goes against the fundamental reason of us being here. Which government is going to say to a young family just married, sorry you cannot have any children.
11th hour programme couldn't even mention much about this, so the future is trully bleak until somebody addresses this issue.
Has anybody calculated the amount of carbon it takes to make a wind turbine, to produce all the cables, forge huge sections of steel, shipping costs for transportation. Is it only me that realizes the huge amount of energy to melt a several tons of metal. What if in the whole cycle of the turbines life it cannot produce enough energy to do this??
I believe we will only ever tickle at carbon control, as mentioned the nice period as truly finished...
Yes you are right population growth and excessive population exacerbates all the problems covered. Changing that is going to be very difficult. The only country that has had any real success in this area is China with its one child per family. Sadly all this has achieved is reduced level of increase and that has required a very draconian approach.
As for the embodied energy in wind turbines. Many detailed studies have been done. In summary if you seek out the results you will find out that the turbines have to operate for 2 to 4 years to pay back the energy invested. This is certainly no worse than a nuclear power station.
Religion's text doesn't exactly help when it commands mankind to "be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it."
It would certainly have been much better if god had told us to look after his precious creation. Cos if I was god I'd be ever so cheesed off with what mankind was doing to it.
In our moden day Garden of Eden, Oil is the Tree of Life and the snake is large corporations tempting us with their oil based products. We've been tempted big time and have been scoffing back the fruit, unfortunately God seems to be snoozing and is letting us pinch every single last apple. Perhaps when god wakes up he'll want to seek some retribution.
Congratulations on an excellent program. The enormous problem was well highlighted but because the symptoms of the problem are diverse, we seem to expect a diverse array of solutions. I postulate that the single source of the problem lies in our Midas like uase of energy. The initial effect of using energy is great, but we have yet to learn how to use it in a sustainable way. Energy in the form of oil, gas, coal etc. is a free good from nature. Extraction is cheap so that 1 KwHr of human energy (12 hours work) costs 4,000 times as much as 1 KwHr of energy from fossil energy (1/10th of a litre of petrol) Did the program makers consider the solution offered by Resource Taxation? The idea (in a nutshell?) is that as natural resources are free, society should impose an appropriate tax on them to give them an appropriate cost (i.e. to include environmental and social costs of their use) in relation to other alternatives available to the market. The market can then make a rational choice including the sustainable costs of natural resources. Society can modify the tax rate to pay all social costs and level the economic playing field between intelligent labour and energy profligate capital.
