Just think of a big ship in the middle of a huge
ocean, without any crew. No captain, no navigator, no maintenance personnel, and
so on. The ship will drift on the water as wind pushes, and will hit somewhere and
sink down before long. The time is ticking. There might be a rock nearby
already. As passengers of the ship, what would you do? Wait, are you guys really
passengers here?
The Age of Stupid made me recall what I felt after watching An Inconvenient Truth years ago. I did enjoy it pretty much, but found a big
problem in it. In the movie, Al Gore talks mostly about visible evidences of
global warming, important facts related and how the governments can handle
it--basically, everything. It does make you think deep and wide, but it is
slightly not enough to alert the general public to change their actions
since it is mainly delivering information. Many of us already know most
of the facts he explains in the movie. We also know humans should take actions immediately
to decelerate the temperature rise. However, there are only some around us who actually are concerned and actively
participating to solve the problem. Why is this happening?
From my perspective, that’s because WE LACK URGENCY. We have only been
alleviating ourselves, saying “it’s going to be okay," “the doomsday isn’t
going to come soon," and not facing the problem directly. From this view, The
Age of Stupid can be a perfect complement for An Inconvenient
Truth. In other words, this film works like a bright spark to light a big
fire on our knowledge sleeping in our heads.
If you are not convinced why we need urgency or why we have to deal with global warming, this man might help you.
To begin with, The Age of Stupid simply, scares us. Since the documentary is set in 2055 when the modern human society has already collapsed, the whole story starts from a negative point of view. The film shows that the apocalypse will take place 40 years later if the people don’t take global warming heavily and try to solve it actively.
“A war of biblical ferocity, across the whole continent!”
The fear and tension of the film hits its peak when the numbers (2007 to 2055) show up on the screen, increasing in number and getting bigger and bigger in size. The sentence above is spoken when the number turns to 2055, the year that the apocalypse is thought to happen in the film. Surely frightening.
Plus, the film clearly states that we don’t have much time. Mark Lynas (environmental activist) was planning to decrease the amount of greenhouse gas emitted gradually for 7 years. However, the plan is already abortive, as 5 years have passed (2008-2013) without any fruitful decrease – the emission rather increased. According to a research done by International Energy Agency in 2011, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in 2009 increased 18% in 2010. In order to prevent the temperature from increasing over 2℃ until 2020 (as governments have agreed to), 8~13Gt (1Gt = 10^9 metric tons) of greenhouse gas should be additionally reduced: which is almost impossible for now. In short, we have less time but more to do. The film is simply telling us that we have almost no time left until ‘the day’ comes.
This documentary provides people with urgency and seriousness towards the problem effectively, and is persuasive enough to make changes in people’s minds to start taking actions to deal with global warming. This film isn’t perfect, though. The Age of Stupid lacks facts. It does not provide the viewers with enough background information related to global warming. Especially, the linkage between the apocalypse and global warming isn’t developed much. Although the film mentions it a little bit, further explanations about what will happen when global warming worsens were missing. People with less knowledge about this issue could have hard time understanding it thoroughly. Also, there is no clear relationship between such disasters to a sudden collapse of every country. I do agree that climate changes can cause massive destructions and deaths, but stretching it to the total apocalypse of mankind sounds like an exaggeration.
There have been tons of different problems and issues around the world throughout the history of mankind. However, the problem we are facing right now is much different from them: because of not only its destructive result, but also its equal responsibility to everyone. None of us is especially responsible for it or free from being blamed, meaning that everyone must participate in solving this problem. What should we do then? Well, we already have the answers in ourselves. Save energy, consume things less, participate in NGOs. Don’t lose the urgency, and remember……
“There are no passengers on spaceship Earth. We are
all crew.”
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