Age Of Stupid, The (2009) Movie Script
Welcome to the global archive,
a vast storage structure
located 800km north of Norway.
It contains the artwork
from every national museum.
There are pickled animals
stack up two by two.
Every film, every book,
every scientific report,
all stored on banks of servers.
But the conditions we are experiencing now,
were actually cause by our behavior
in the period leading up to 2015.
In other words, we could've saved ourselves
We could've saved ourselves.
But we didn't, it's amazing!
What state of mind were we in,
to face extinction, and simply shrug it off?
By nature or by disinterest,
there is always an introvert.
For years, you know,
the non-business need, need a face
blah, blah, blah,personality.
The year 32-year-old entrepreneur Jeh Wadia,
he started up India's
third low-cost airline, in 2005.
Time for India's now, the time for
developing business in India is now.
He's got 1200 employees, most of whom
have never set foot on an airplane.
What are the different kinds of
hijackers that you might have?
Why are you scared of a little smoke?
Do want to be scared and run of fire?
It's not a toy, it's not a perfume bottle,
you've got to aim it, hold it. That's it.
I was at London at the time, where Stelios Haji-loannou,
you know, uh, he created the EZ jet,
and I was fascinated with
basically how he did it.
Evacuate, evacuate
Go this way, go this way
We've been offering fares from 600 rupees
, ok, all the way down to 1 rupee.
How many people can afford a 1 rupee fare?
I would imagine every single Indian can.
That the, a rickshaw driver
can, and servants.
You know in year 2005, I mean, you know,
having a elite class who can fly in
a country of a billion people, it's ridiculous.
Search: visible impacts of
climate change leading up to 2010.
it's the hottest day ever recorded.
ever-recorded days rain fall in India's history.
Now, it's official, the past year has
been the driest in Melbourne's history.
The dessert is advancing at
the phenomenal rate of 3 miles every year.
Dozens of Antarctic ice shelves
collapsing faster than anyone predicted.
a half million people are affected.
Fernand Pareau has climbed Europe's
highest mountain Mont Blanc over 150 times.
Here he's guiding a family from England.
At 82, Fernand is the oldest
guy still working in France.
All his lifetime he witnessed
huge changes in the mountains.
Now, there's an elaborate
extension on the bottom here.
Extraordinary to think that
these are the Alps in December.
Here in Chamonix is across the Alps,
there's a dramatic lack of snow
, and exceptionally warm temperatures.
It is a glimpse into the future.
More than half of ski resort in Europe could
shut down in the next 50 years because of global warming.
So nobody goes skiing, big deal. The thing
is it's not bad, is it? That's the whole point.
The fact you can't get skiing anymore or
the glaciers are melting is not really the point,
the point is that signals that
basically the earth is destabilizing.
And all the norms that have
allowed life to exist are changing.
List: climate change,
major events, up to the present day.
This is a couple of days
before Katrina struck.
Most people are following the evacuation
order in getting out of the city.
But New Orleans-borne Alvin DuVernay
had no intention of moving.
I got up at Saturday morning and
there's a buzz in the neighborhood,
everybody were running around and
I was like what's up, what's up?
You know, the hurricane's coming.
I checked on the web and sure enough all of
the models had it, aiming right for us. Bulls eye.
This is a monster, and it's coming.
Walk through the house a few times,
putting things up, you know.
My silk rug from Nepal up on
the top shelf, and my guitar,
I mean, you know, you just
do these things, you know.
I mean another way to do that is get
all you stuff and go, that's option 1,
probably the best option.
I didn't grow up in that option.
AlvinhFL84^aA
Alvin collected his 84-year-old father
than barricaded the two of theminside
this house as the hurricane approached.
You stare Mother Nature in
the eye, usually she's fairly benign.
And she comes along,
methodically, ruthlessly.
And then she stands toe to toe,
and dares you, dares you.
Go ahead and get your best equipment,
now, go ahead, do it, let's dance.
I think ones got to be very careful about
attaching a particular event to global warming.
But nevertheless the intensity of hurricanes
is related to surface sea temperature,
so increased intensity of hurricane
is associated with global warming.
By first light, the water in Alvin's house
is chest-deep and still rising.
So he helped Alvin Sr. into their boat
and headed for dry land.
There's just one boat that's floating, so it's no
big deal to launch the boat, it's launched.
There's no landmarks, really, to speak of
that's a real different perspective,
driving through your
neighborhood at tree level.
Then, all of a sudden you realize
there is a lot of people who stayed behind.
There's no coastguard or police or.
Most of our national guards were
elsewhere in the world, Iraq, Afghanistan.
Alvin rescued 200 people,
and their pets, over 2 long days,
including a 95-year-old man
and a six-week-old baby.
that little basket came out of the window,
that was a pretty special time.
And just as peaceful eyes-closed, it just
stops you, in your tracks, dead stop,
take a breath, you know, there's
nothing more precious than that.
Alvin's neighbors were the lucky ones,
hurricane Katrina was America's worst
weather related event to that date.
And it was just a taste of what was to come.
"It is our fault," after years of debate
, some of the world's top scientists.
"Unequivocable," this the word
they used, human activity is.
Contributing to changes in our earth climate,
and that issue is no longer up to debate.
bAndermattA
In Andermatt,
they've covered the glacier with a special
protective sheet reduce its summer melt.
One way I do my bit for the environment
is turning to 30 with Ariel.
This is offsetting all those flights that I take
that I have to for my job.
David Cameron even wears recycled shoes
made from old fireman's trousers.
Despite all the efforts to control pollution
and its effect in our climate,
the level of greenhouse gas emission has reached
a record highand shows no signs of being reversed.
Despite the Kyoto treaty, and all the talk
of reducing emission of carbon dioxide,
level of this key greenhouse gas
are rising faster than ever.
heading up to work, searching for more oil.
Ironically, the oil infrastructure off the coast of New Orleans
suffered major damage during the hurricane,
but Shell moved fast to carry
out repair and just 9 months later,
the rigs are online, and
everyone's back at work.
Oil was formed when ancient plant life in the ocean
absorbed energy from the ancient sun.
When these plants died, they settled in the ocean floor
along with the dead bodies of tons and tons of ocean creatures.
Over millennia, temperature increased
and the organic matter was gradually cooked
until the sun's energy
was stored inside oil.
analyzed where the oil might be,
and then drilled 3 miles down
into the seabed to collect samples.
Hey you go Al, get yourself. Thank you
We get the samples and analyze them
for the fossil contents. The microscopic fossils.
And it's just another geo-scientific tool
in order to improve your possibility of finding oil.
In my opinion, probably arrogantly so,
but it's pretty high calling
actually to try to do that,
to try to figure out or maybe
take apart, you know, time itself.
Go back a few thousand years,
and the energy available to grow our crops or feed animals
was limited by the daily sunlight falling on the earth.
But now,
we gorge ourselves on hundreds of years
worth of sunlight every single year.
Every part of modern life is
now literally made of oil.
From CDs to plastic bags,
to medicines and computers.
From clothes and carpets to
hair gel and cell phones.
It's a fantastically useful substance.
Then there's our food,
each calorie we eat used about 80 oil calories
to produce, package, refrigerate and transport.
And fossil fuel produce fertilizers now feed
about 2 billion people who could not otherwise stay alive.
It would be wise for humanity to use the remaining oil
to build the new society which could run without it.
But we are, instead, indiscriminately
burning tens of millions of barrels every day.
It'll all be gone in about 40 years,
leaving pretty much none for future generations.
And then you see it,
and you smell it, and, you know,
it's greasy and ugly and smell so much
like money, it's just beautiful, you know.
pounds an hour, 400 pounds a second.
And a hefty chunk of those
profits came from here, Nigeria,
where most of the population lives
on less than 1 dollar a day.
This is the water we drink.
an ambition to trained as a doctor
and then work in
a home village called Cojabanee,
where Shell started
building this medical center.
Like hundreds of other community projects
across Niger delta, construction has been abandoned.
Shell maintains that's because
of the risk of kidnapping.
to be spent on community development.
But the local people share is almost
all lost to the corrupt political system.
So despite being in the most
profitable oil region in West Africa,
Layefa's village has no health service,
no secondary school, no electricity, and no drinking water.
Layefa is describing a phenomenon
known as "the resource curse".
Paradoxically, finding oil usually
increases a country's poverty.
As the oil wealth is
concentrated in hands of a few,
so the agriculture, education, and health system
of the country become neglected and often collapsed.
The local people health problems
are compounded by gas flare,
burning nights and days
throughout the Niger delta,
asthma, bronchitis, skin diseases
, and cancer have all been linked.
That gas is found alongside oil,
but, as it's dangerous to transport,
it can't easily be sold to over sea markets
. It could be use for cooking and heating within Nigeria,
but building infrastructure is expensive
so the oil company just burn it off.
Its flares emit about 70 million tons
of carbon dioxide every year
more than the annual emissions
from 10 million British homes.
they just do whatever they like.
Why are American cities designed
so it's almost impossible not to have a car?
Why were a hundred railways in cities like New York,
Philadelphia, and Los Angles bought
up and then deliberately destroyed?
Why do the electric cars get scrapped?
Why were we, along with Australia,
Why was an oil company lobbyist allowed to change
official government reports on global warming?
Why was the same PR firm employed by the tobacco industry
to persuade the public that smoking is healthy,
then employed by the oil industry to convince us
there was still doubt about climate change?
Alternative energy has been available
for 50 years, why have we barely used it?
Why were solar panels
taking off the white house?
Because right from the
early days of the industry,
the oil men and their unseen profit have had
an unhealthy influence on the people running our country.
And now, they all are
the people running our country.
And they're providing the cash, too.
Oil business isn't just
in bed with the government,
it is the government.
Here, Layefa is going to a nearby village,
Oiama, that was massacre by the government.
The village was involved in a dispute
about ownership of a piece of land,
on which Shell planed to drill for oil.
The government claimed that
the village was harboring terrorists,
and when they sent
the military in to find those terrorists,
the villagers opened fire on the soldiers.
Layefa has gone to hear the villagers' side
of the story, from Omiekma Wekid
Amnesty international investigated
the massacre and concluded that,
although the government
was responsible for the killings,
Shell Nigeria should have made sure that
their activities did not contribute to the conflict.
they burned them off.
Human history is littered, with the corpses
of people who had stuff worth stealing.
Animals,
water,
shinny things,
fertile land,
spices.
Hmm! Nutmeg slice, tea?
But when it came to stuff worth
pinching one continent had it all,
ivory, copper, cotton, rubber, wood,
tin, gold, diamonds, and people.
As cheap energy, slaves were unbeatable,
until the less troublesome
energy source was discovered,
and the new era began.
Human numbers increased 5 times over.
And with each person
wanting more and more stuff,
oil became "the resource"
worth fighting for all around the world.
Well, you want to know
the real reason why to warn Iraq?
According to the former Federal Reserve
chairman Alan Greenspan, it's a simple, 3 letter answer.
Not WMD, it's O-I-L.
You might read the ex-chairman of Shell
that said over weekend that oil can hit over 150 dollars
a barrel as world production begins to peak,
not really good news for
a country whose entire economy,
not to mention its entire way of life,
is based on cheap oil.
we left the world in a better place,
then we found it, that was progress,
the wheel, rule of law, penicillin.
It was our covenant
to our children, grandchildren;
my children went angry with me
for breaking the covenant,
they were too busy trying to stay alive
to waste energy on blame,
trying to negotiate their way through food riots,
refugee camps, and the collapse of society.
But I think my grandchildren
would have been angry,
had they survived into adulthood.
Skiing in desserts,
heating the air,
lighting empty offices,
energy is so ridiculously cheap it makes
perfect economic sense to just pick it away.
China is new bad guy, because they're building
a new power station every 4 days.
But the quarter of that
energy makes stuffs for us.
Western company pay Chinese workers
crap wages to make crap plastic toys,
then ship them to Europe,
and wrap them in more plastic.
Punters drive to the out-of-town
megastore in their gas-guzzlers.
Plastic toy and plastic box
goes into plastic bag.
and back it goes to a Chinese landfill where it
stays for about, hmm, 50 thousand years?
Water from the bottle's
much better than the tap.
...Mountain spring spot.
and 10,000 times more expensive for you.
It's a tricky decision.
Lots of ideas have tried
to take over the world,
but there's only one winner.
Telling us we'll be happier,
more atracttive with better skin,
if only we buy their product.
To get there,
they create incentives and insatiable
desire to buy more and more stuff.
Americans have been advertised that longest,
and they now each consumed
twice as much energy as an European,
and 50 times more than someone from Kenya.
If all the 65 billion here on earth
consumed like European or Japanese,
we need two more planets worth of resources.
If everyone consumed like
American or Australian and Canadian,
we need another four.
And in 2040 or so when
there are about 90 billion of us,
we need two more again.
Capitalism's only goal
is ever expending growth,
but ever expending growth
on just a one not expending planet
It's impossible.
The con economic system is disastrous,
not just for the planet
, but for most people, too.
the richest one 1% to take 40% for themselves,
leaving just 1% for the poorest to have.
But anyone wanting to live
differently is fool ticket every time.
With profit, the only measuring step,
destroying the planet
is written into the system,
and run away climate change
is not very surprising result.
The logo effectively is color,
you know, light grey, you know,
orange telecom, they are orangey black.
Our logo is fluorescent color.
Where everything changes in economy
in minute, you have an airline moving in.
Because people can basically
do business alot faster,
if businesses grow a lot faster,
people have more disposable income,
then, you know, consumerism sets in,
and you know where the verge
where base consumerism is setting in,
just moving a lot like America.
Here, Jeh travels to
Airbus headquarter in France,
as they'll be supplying him
with 26 planes in his first 3 years.
We have only 200 aircrafts
commercially flying in India, China has 800.
Ultimately, you know,
we have a very long way to go,
playing catch up with China
catch up with Europe,
or, you know, say, America one airline
South West, has 417 aircrafts.
That's double the amount
of aircrafts we have as a country.
You know, we simple sentence
for me, summarizes it all.
Thing is gonna get better.
In my main house,
is has 10 feet of water in it,
marinated in that sludge
for 3 weeks, almost.
So it's current state of
my house, it's been demolished.
It's flat piece of a property waiting
for another house to go on that.
I lost everything, everything that i owned,
I mean everything from family heirlooms
to the paper towels sitting on your kitchen counter,
in everything in between, it goes on and on.
Two beautiful, beautiful
oak trees I did not lose,
you know, local, indigenous,
quikes, virginianas, live oaks
that sprawl all over the place,
beautiful, beautiful things.
That's what I have left, two old oak trees and
an empty lawn, everything else is gone.
That sucks.
Losing everything you have,
it's so overwhelming.
And the grief that comes
with that, it is just profound.
We have an unspoken collected pact
to pretend climate change wasn't happening,
as though as long we ignore it
hard enough, It wouldn't be true.
Not absolutely everyone,
a few were shouting fire.
Hello, come on in.
One of the greatest difficulties
with climate change
is that the effects of our emissions today are
not actually realized in terms of the temperature
for 30 or 40 years so there
is this time-lag system.
Which makes it difficult for us,
humans, to respond
because we're evolutionary equipped
to deal with the very immediate threats
like advancing armies or dangerous animals.
We're not so well-equipped with dealing rationally
with very long term problems like climate change.
So we have to act now to stop
something happening in the future,
if we wait until the full temperature
effects are already upon us,
then it's far too late to stop.
If you remember one single
number above all else,
make it two degrees,
now everyone in the world pretty much,
the European Union, big multi-national corporations,
Greenpeace, political parties,
all agreed that we have to stabilize global temperatures
within 2 degrees above pre-industrial level,
and the reason for that is because, if you cross that threshold,
the narrow tipping point in the earth system,
which could drive the warming
process essentially out of control.
Huge amount of carbon
could be coming out of the world,
trees and soils, methane could be coming
out of the perma-frost in Siberia
and it's that extra input of greenhouse gases
into the atmosphere,
which then leads us up to the worst case
scenario to 6 or more degrees
and the eventual wipeout of most
of the life on earth.
So power emission has been going up
, between, let's says, 1950,
and now they need to level out
, stabilize, and then decline
just as rapidly to sustainable
levels about an 80% cut by 2050.
But crucially, to keep the temperature
rise within 2 degrees,
this point of stabilization need
to be at around 2015.
And so that means, really, the time,
timeline we've got, ticking clock,
is that we have to stabilize global emission
within just 7 years from now as we speak 2008.
And scale of this task to achieve
a transformation to a low carbon economy
of the entire,
entirety of human civilization,
is obviously, is huge, monumental task,
probably the greatest humanity ever faced.
Remember the English family
who went to see the glacier?
They're back home in Cornwall,
south west England,
inspire to start tackling
their own energy wasting.
It says that the average Individual in the UK responsible
for emitting 10 tons of greenhouse gas a year.
They're calculating exactly how much
climate-change-gases their family currently produces,
and how it can be reduced.
Yeah, but that's the average
individual, there are five of us.
Whichever way you look at this,
it isn't good.
We produce about half of our food, and we try keep
our consumption of meat and dairy down.
My car runs on chick fat and
we do cycle when we can.
We just got our wind turbine,
which will produce all our own electricity.
We're aiming to cut down to
about one ton each per year,
which is apparently the sustainable amount
that the world's trees and plants can reabsorb.
But the big problem is flying,
just one mid-term flight, say, London to New York,
would blow our entire carbon
budget for about 3.5 years.
Apparently, other than
setting fire to a forest,
flying is the single worst thing an ordinary
individual can do to cause climate change.
So, it's a bit of a dilemma, because we've
just been invited to go skiing in France.
Then I am flying from Newquay
, which is our nearest airport,
say, 40 minutes from here, to Bergerac,
which is like, you know, an hour and
a half or something, from it.
And literally we could leave here in
the morning that's we leave like in, Cornwall,
we could leave Cornwall in the morning,
and be in Bergerac by sort of,
for lunch, after lunch.
But if you actually think, this is going to cause
the death of people, actually in effect
people are make that direct connection
, then it's a really scary thought.
Obviously, us not flying to France or not flying,
wherever it's hard to guess, will solve the problem.
But it's down to what you think
it's the correct thing to do.
Because everyone else's doing it, I mean,
that is not a good reason to do anything.
You know, to look at the terrible things
in our history that everyone regrets now,
you know, massacres,
the holocaust a lot of that,
was just going a long way what was
the predominant thinking at the time.
I almost jealous at the time,
just jump on a plane with impunity,
I didn't even think about it,it's blissful,
no moral dilemma there, whatsoever.
Needless to say,
they didn't take that flight.
And joining the climate change protest march
may not be everybody's idea
of the 10th wedding anniversary,
but Piers and Lisa have share
ideals from the moment they met.
My friend, we went along
to the party together,
and she just basically took me
straight over to Piers and said,
"Hey, look," you know "Piers
, this is Lisa. " And, dah dah dah
And that was it, that was it. We just...
and spent the whole evening
talking about wind turbines.
Piers has been developing wind farms in Africa,
America, and Britain for over 15 years.
But he knows that they only
help slow the climate crisis
as a small part of a total
reordering of western society.
And there still is an idea that somehow
we have to find the solution,
you know, the silver bullet.
No single renewable source is going to
be the solution, absolutely not.
And Piers doesn't think
much of the other option,
whereby everyone crosses their fingers
and hopes that the miracle
technology will be invented in time.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be developing
other stuff, absolutely, we should be.
We should be throwing everything after it.
But, you've got to make
use of what's available now.
And in the UK, we've
got a great wind resource,
and we just got to bite
the bullet and go for it.
Piers has purposed a new wind farm as airfield farm
at Airfield Farm in Bedfordshire, central England.
He could have 15 turbines installed and generating
Well, the process balloon is now going up, but
while that's happening, I'll just explain where we are.
We all have our thumb down as well.
UK-wise surveys point to about 70 ~ 80%
in favor of wind farm as a concept.
The difficulty is when you
got one on your own doorstep,
and then there is the sort of
"not-in-my-backyard" syndrome.
Jim, what's the problem?
The problem really is that this is one of the
least windy sites in the country.
I hope it's not gonna get too windy tomorrow
and it wraps itself around the church.
Well, I live in Coddington, and we're going to be
absolutely surrounded by these high moss.
They're going to obliterate the view.
What it normally always comes down to
with wind farms is the aesthetics, you know.
Everything else is basically put together
to try and back up the ultimate thing,
the ultimate thing is they
don't want to spoil their view.
But I'm bit concern about
the low level noise as well.
The wind farm site is right next to world
famous Santa Pod drag-racing strip.
Anybody you ask it, nobody's against
wind energy, that's the point,
t's against inappropriate wind energy use.
Hypnotic, you're driving alone, and
you tend to saw this sails revolving,
and you're not concentrating on the driving.
Eurney Braddock will benefit
financially having turbine on his farm,
but now he's in conflict
with his neighbor, Victoria Reeves.
Well, everyone is very unhappy about it,
we're gonna lose the value of our properties,
we are not going to be able to sleep, it will make
a difference, Eurney you have no idea, believe me.
According to Victoria,
they stop to wind farm up in
Scotland on the other estate in Scotland.
Back in the mid-90's
that was a great victory.
"It can't rely on the wind, it can
only deliver ", "It's an additive. "
"Additive? Do you mean additional? Yes, it is additional. "
"It's a economics resources, put it that way. "
"No, Eurney, it doesn't. It's got to, it's got to.
It does nothing of the sort, believe me. "
It's an emotional campaign, it's about fear
mostly based on complete BS, frankly.
But never mind, facts are not
a problem, you know.
"It's a fair fight, and
I hope you lose. ", "Alright. "
This is august 2005, just after
Mumbai's worst ever floods.
And a couple of months
before Jeh's first flight.
Show daddy how good you ride this,
show daddy how fast you can go, come on.
Wooo... No more pushing
, it's battery operated.
"So, I can't finish either.
" "Hey, grandpa... "
Jeh is descended from one of India's richest
and most powerful business dynasties.
They pioneered everything from ship building
from the 18 centuries to internet services in the 21st.
And around about way, his privileged up bringing
sparked the idea for the low cost airline.
What do you want me to do?
I'm going to the airport.
Throughout basically my life, at young age,
I mean, I used to hang out with tons of,
you know, servants' kids. You know, that sort of stuff.
You know, and when you go home,
you say..., you suddenly think,
why do I have so much,
and these guys have nothing.
And that sort of, and
that constantly adding up.
You know, everyone is here for a purpose.
The idea is to realize what your higher purpose is,
and then realize how you gonna fulfill it.
And eventually I realize
what my higher purpose was,
it was to insure that I eradicated poverty.
Jeh volunteers at the charity which helps
villagers lift themselves out of poverty.
But even by private jet and jeep,
it's a 5 hour, 900 kilometers journey.
Hiring a private jet is basically in
terms of costs as much as the village does,
you know, take a village from below
the poverty and put it above the poverty.
So effectively, in terms of it
defeats the purpose.
And therefore I decided to, you know..
try the trains, from Bombay takes about 26 hours.
I said to myself, "wow,
this is incredible. "
You know, people pay good money and
still have to basically put with this rubbish.
trains in India every single day.
Jeh's dream is to get them all off
the trains and into the skies.
We're not at war at
the moment. It's not a war.
But people actually recognize that
full implications of what's in store for us,
they would be treating it like a war.
If anybody takes Airfield Farm for example,
I mean that was the year it was airbase,
people flew out there and died.
Or of course, which was massive at the time,
the global problem, and we have ourselves out.
A real global problem that needs
that kind of level of commitment.
There are many, many other industries
that need to be looked in to first, before aviation.
it's not questionable
choosing one industry to target,
in ultimate deal, we all contribute
to to to greenhouse gases,
we all contribute to the crisis
that we have today with the planet.
So ultimately, in terms of, you know...
insuring our planet is safe and
healthy is each one's job, task.
Whether you do it in your own
way by using less tissue paper,
using less papers, less trees cut
buying green cars or not flying.
Obviously, if you're not doing it,
and the demand goes down,
the demand goes down, the supply goes down.
Life is about demand and supply
or supply and demand.
Strange. Watching this film fragment.
Like looking through binoculars
observing people of far of beach.
Running around in circle, fixated on
the small area of sand under their feet.
As a tsunami races toward the shore.
Here's Alvin. He's just taken early retirement
after thirty years on the oil industry salary.
And he's planning to spend his later
years outside enjoying nature.
Oh, certainly I'm ecologist, and
an environmentalist.
I really don't have
a problem squaring that...
Working for an oil company
that I feel... has...
done a pretty good job and
in being environmentally friendly.
When I started working in
the oil industries, about the mid 70's,
it was clear path for me,
as a scientist coming up college
And I didn't know the detail of what goes on
in the oil industry, the goods and the bad.
But indeed every industry
has that, goods and bad.
Would I do it again, knowing what I know now,
of course I would do it again,
I mean, you need to work,
you need to do something
The worst example I've had is a lady,
an old lady came up to me,
at the public exhibition.
And gave me a cutting from a newspaper,
with a picture of guy being shot
Local anti-campaign is
one of the key factors,
stopping about 80% of the proposed
wind energy project in Britain.
Had they all been built, 10% of our
Electricity would've been non-polluted.
How the heck are we meant to persuade
people in India and China
that they should develop in a more sustainable
way when we are not prepared to even to accept
you know, the old wind farming landscape.
"So how's it going?", "All right, yes. "
"Not too much trouble?", "Not really,
no, nobody's punched me up. "
Pierce has come back to the Ernie's farm
with a plan to make
the turbine less visible.
Trying to kick start the planning process
that the anti-campaign has now
held up for eighteen months.
Another eighteen months of climate change
Another eighteen months,
where I'm able to do nothing about it.
You must be feeling the same as me.
It just, I mean how long have we got...
Pierce's compromise reduces the number
of turbines from fifteen down to nine.
This is still the equivalent electrical
power to fair eleven thousand homes.
So there's still alot power.
Exactly the opposite is happening,
to the very thing that needs to happen.
These things need to be speeded up,
and actually, they're getting slowed down.
Plenty of politicians are talking about it,
but when it comes down to it,
It's just not happening.
It's Just not happening, folks.
Governments will only go as
far as the population demands.
And that means mass protest
on unprecedented scale.
Direct action like this is essential,
if you were going to turn an issue
around in a short period of time.
We've found that many many times in the past,
from the suffragettes onwards.
The very fact that the crisis is taking place in
our generations is happening right now,
means we are tremendously powerful people.
So this position of despair,
and I can't do anything, there's no point.
It's completely illogically,
it's exactly the opposite
There's no shortage of great matter in
the species, we can do some amazing things.
But I don't think we been very smart
about how we use our resources.
How we quite literally burn up something
as beautiful and useful as all.
We literally burn it up.
That's it, it's gone, it's done.
I think most people were
becoming disenchanted by this point.
We'd stop believing that this was
the golden era of human civilization,
and started questioning
our collective values.
All I can hope is,
an incredible disasters like Katrina,
and the horrible wars comes out and
what not, that are going on around the world
will snap us out of it.
Let's see if it's headed in
the right direction for the good of mankind.
For this disaster, I had a lot of stuff,
I was a classic consumer,
Two years later, I've learned lot about
happiness and the pursuit thereof.
The happiness is not in the latest gadgets,
the latest electric tooth brush, or something like that.
All of that stuff. It's just not the stuff
of life. Not for me anyway.
Climate scientist can estimate how much of
the remaining fossil fuels we can safely burn.
This amount is called the "global cap. "
Under this proposal, the world governments
will make a binding into international agreement
detailing how to distribute the global cap.
The earlier the start takes,
of greater the chance of not
triggering runaway climate change.
The total global emissions for the first year
say 2012, will be set for that current level.
Every year following they'll shrink until
by about 2065, they're almost zero.
Initially, each country would be
allocated an emissions quota,
according to how much
they currently consume.
But this would change over time
America would slash its emissions 90%
from its current over consuming position.
Europe too would decrease
massively, as would China.
But India and Africa would
increase until by about 2025.
Each human being on the planet would
have equal rights to the earth's resources.
Equity is the only option morally,
and also practically as the developing
countries won't sign up for anything less.
But total emissions would
then keep decreasing every year.
Until by 2065 we'll have
waned ourselves off of fossil fuels
and prevented the worst
impacts of climate change.
As to how each country divvies up its share to
the system, there were various options on the table.
The most promising of which
individual carbon rationing.
Mr. W.S Morrison is here to explain.
If in the culture of war, we are short
for a time of this or that article of food.
Rationing, will give every one,
rich and poor alike,
an equal share of all its goods.
Down to the scheme. Everyone in UK would
be allocated to annual carbon allowance.
So the electronic loyalty
as the supermarket loyalty card,
points will be deducted every time
we buy or use non-renewable energy.
For example, using electricity
to power appliances in the home,
or traveling somewhere by plane,
or even buying petro-fuel for the car
The best way you can help
is by rationing yourselves,
I'm sure that all of you will
buy your fair share and no more.
Airports were expanding all over the world,
to cope with the exploding number of
cheap flights we were all demanding.
And Jeh was doing everything
he could to join the party.
Ultimately, the odd is to hug and then kick.
She saying the PS is been payable, you're saying
the PS is not been payable. What's wrong with you?
Now!
Yes or no? That I ask you the question,
or did I not ask the question?
You're suspended, you're suspended.
Both of you go out now.
It's all in a day's work, haha...
Maintaining my plane means
something to me, ok!?
If I see my step ladder like this,
and if I find one piece of dirt
, you'll be fired.
OK?
Ok?
June 11. 2007, in the hotel room in Bedford.
Pierce is polishing his speech for tonight
showdown with the local planning committee.
This committee can approve this application.
If you do, you would
show courage and leadership.
He has just six minutes to convince
them to approve his wind farm.
I'm absolutely confident,
that if you approve this project,
you'll look back on the decision and
say "Thank goodness we said yes. "
But the committee
rejected pierce's application,
saying that his wind farm would be conspicuous and
out of place in the Bedfordshire landscape,
that it would decrease
enjoyment of nearby foot paths
and negatively impact the listed
buildings and the nation's monuments.
In other words, it would spoil the view.
Oh we're delighted
that it's been refused, yes.
It's a wonderful result.
It just shows if you work hard
if you look at all the facts,
if you do with fair and balance,
you can get a good outcome.
might even be 11 against one in favor.
But there only one guy who
actually,actually votes in favor.
Cheers, man.
Hi, mom. It's Piers. I think it's
I could have said, be honest.
It wouldn't make any difference
Of course we're worried
about global warming,
I mean, it's got to be something
we all concerned about.
I mean, we're doing our bit to try conserve
and looking for renewable energy.
Of course, absolutely, yeah, I mean,
we're part of the worldhaha... yes.
And it is global warming.
For the first time, Scientists confirm the link
between climate change and our awful weather.
An emergency services
scramble and Bedfordshire
And the flood water finally work
their way along the great tubes,
other parts of Bedfordshire
didn't escape, either.
We've lived at here for forty years,
and we've never ever
have anything like this.
after cyclone Nargis
emergency across Western Europe with
drinking water strictly rationing in Holland, France..
Forest fire is still sweep
across Vegas. Unfortunately,...
for motorists right to drive, said Lord Clarkson..
Good news for the UK wine
industries, especially
New Orleans will not be rebuilt at
this time, the Louisiana government
...Total Destruction of Indian Dams
would end Pakistan's drinking water crisis.
As U.S president's choices to
continue out because of.
San Francisco extraordinary
heat wave continue hit in Los Angeles
Extreme weather somewhere around
the planet increasing in these days
Skiing in the Alps is over
Channel Four documentaries ask is
global warming really happening, or natural
the highest land temperature
More than a hundred
million people are homeless tonight
Methane emitted in Siberia
The last Indonesian tree found,
but five fuel crisis
European Union today
permanently closed all of it
...must be reserved for food production
London Is under water again,
as last night 30 foot storm surge overcame
New Zealand has also now closed its
borders leaving 22 million stranded
...refugees in middle east and
continental Europe
...half of the species are now extinct,
scientist estimate, and eco systems are collapsing.
passing 2 degrees, we cannot
now stop runaway climate change
There are simply too many people to
feed and are remained famine
...suicide rates increasing
eight hundred percent
The Amazon rain forest is still burning
And anyone who cannot bear
to eat their own cats and dogs
we are entering
the eighth world food crisis
The world temperature
today is passing 4 degrees
retaliation nuclear strike
We wouldn't be the first life
form to wipe itself out.
But what would be unique about us
is that we did it knowingly.
And what's that say about us?
The question I've been asking is,
why didn't we save ourselves
when we had the chance?
Is the answer because on some level,
we weren't sure if we were worth saving?
Please proceed near the aircraft,
and take care of the responsibility.
You know if all of us stood united, in terms,
the world would be different in every way,
Unfortunately, that's not the reality.
If we can not even stand united on
eradicating poverty in the world,
what is the health of
the planet has any chance?
In my opinion, our use or misuse
of resources in the last hundreds years or so,
I probably would rename that,
age, something like the
The age of ignorance.
The age of stupid.
I just find it, surprising.
That after so much effort, the final act
of our existence, should be suicide.
So why did I build this archive?
It's a cautionary tale.
Not for us. Too late for us.
But for..., well...,
for whoever, whatever,
eventually finds this recording.
And away you go.
a vast storage structure
located 800km north of Norway.
It contains the artwork
from every national museum.
There are pickled animals
stack up two by two.
Every film, every book,
every scientific report,
all stored on banks of servers.
But the conditions we are experiencing now,
were actually cause by our behavior
in the period leading up to 2015.
In other words, we could've saved ourselves
We could've saved ourselves.
But we didn't, it's amazing!
What state of mind were we in,
to face extinction, and simply shrug it off?
By nature or by disinterest,
there is always an introvert.
For years, you know,
the non-business need, need a face
blah, blah, blah,personality.
The year 32-year-old entrepreneur Jeh Wadia,
he started up India's
third low-cost airline, in 2005.
Time for India's now, the time for
developing business in India is now.
He's got 1200 employees, most of whom
have never set foot on an airplane.
What are the different kinds of
hijackers that you might have?
Why are you scared of a little smoke?
Do want to be scared and run of fire?
It's not a toy, it's not a perfume bottle,
you've got to aim it, hold it. That's it.
I was at London at the time, where Stelios Haji-loannou,
you know, uh, he created the EZ jet,
and I was fascinated with
basically how he did it.
Evacuate, evacuate
Go this way, go this way
We've been offering fares from 600 rupees
, ok, all the way down to 1 rupee.
How many people can afford a 1 rupee fare?
I would imagine every single Indian can.
That the, a rickshaw driver
can, and servants.
You know in year 2005, I mean, you know,
having a elite class who can fly in
a country of a billion people, it's ridiculous.
Search: visible impacts of
climate change leading up to 2010.
it's the hottest day ever recorded.
ever-recorded days rain fall in India's history.
Now, it's official, the past year has
been the driest in Melbourne's history.
The dessert is advancing at
the phenomenal rate of 3 miles every year.
Dozens of Antarctic ice shelves
collapsing faster than anyone predicted.
a half million people are affected.
Fernand Pareau has climbed Europe's
highest mountain Mont Blanc over 150 times.
Here he's guiding a family from England.
At 82, Fernand is the oldest
guy still working in France.
All his lifetime he witnessed
huge changes in the mountains.
Now, there's an elaborate
extension on the bottom here.
Extraordinary to think that
these are the Alps in December.
Here in Chamonix is across the Alps,
there's a dramatic lack of snow
, and exceptionally warm temperatures.
It is a glimpse into the future.
More than half of ski resort in Europe could
shut down in the next 50 years because of global warming.
So nobody goes skiing, big deal. The thing
is it's not bad, is it? That's the whole point.
The fact you can't get skiing anymore or
the glaciers are melting is not really the point,
the point is that signals that
basically the earth is destabilizing.
And all the norms that have
allowed life to exist are changing.
List: climate change,
major events, up to the present day.
This is a couple of days
before Katrina struck.
Most people are following the evacuation
order in getting out of the city.
But New Orleans-borne Alvin DuVernay
had no intention of moving.
I got up at Saturday morning and
there's a buzz in the neighborhood,
everybody were running around and
I was like what's up, what's up?
You know, the hurricane's coming.
I checked on the web and sure enough all of
the models had it, aiming right for us. Bulls eye.
This is a monster, and it's coming.
Walk through the house a few times,
putting things up, you know.
My silk rug from Nepal up on
the top shelf, and my guitar,
I mean, you know, you just
do these things, you know.
I mean another way to do that is get
all you stuff and go, that's option 1,
probably the best option.
I didn't grow up in that option.
AlvinhFL84^aA
Alvin collected his 84-year-old father
than barricaded the two of theminside
this house as the hurricane approached.
You stare Mother Nature in
the eye, usually she's fairly benign.
And she comes along,
methodically, ruthlessly.
And then she stands toe to toe,
and dares you, dares you.
Go ahead and get your best equipment,
now, go ahead, do it, let's dance.
I think ones got to be very careful about
attaching a particular event to global warming.
But nevertheless the intensity of hurricanes
is related to surface sea temperature,
so increased intensity of hurricane
is associated with global warming.
By first light, the water in Alvin's house
is chest-deep and still rising.
So he helped Alvin Sr. into their boat
and headed for dry land.
There's just one boat that's floating, so it's no
big deal to launch the boat, it's launched.
There's no landmarks, really, to speak of
that's a real different perspective,
driving through your
neighborhood at tree level.
Then, all of a sudden you realize
there is a lot of people who stayed behind.
There's no coastguard or police or.
Most of our national guards were
elsewhere in the world, Iraq, Afghanistan.
Alvin rescued 200 people,
and their pets, over 2 long days,
including a 95-year-old man
and a six-week-old baby.
that little basket came out of the window,
that was a pretty special time.
And just as peaceful eyes-closed, it just
stops you, in your tracks, dead stop,
take a breath, you know, there's
nothing more precious than that.
Alvin's neighbors were the lucky ones,
hurricane Katrina was America's worst
weather related event to that date.
And it was just a taste of what was to come.
"It is our fault," after years of debate
, some of the world's top scientists.
"Unequivocable," this the word
they used, human activity is.
Contributing to changes in our earth climate,
and that issue is no longer up to debate.
bAndermattA
In Andermatt,
they've covered the glacier with a special
protective sheet reduce its summer melt.
One way I do my bit for the environment
is turning to 30 with Ariel.
This is offsetting all those flights that I take
that I have to for my job.
David Cameron even wears recycled shoes
made from old fireman's trousers.
Despite all the efforts to control pollution
and its effect in our climate,
the level of greenhouse gas emission has reached
a record highand shows no signs of being reversed.
Despite the Kyoto treaty, and all the talk
of reducing emission of carbon dioxide,
level of this key greenhouse gas
are rising faster than ever.
heading up to work, searching for more oil.
Ironically, the oil infrastructure off the coast of New Orleans
suffered major damage during the hurricane,
but Shell moved fast to carry
out repair and just 9 months later,
the rigs are online, and
everyone's back at work.
Oil was formed when ancient plant life in the ocean
absorbed energy from the ancient sun.
When these plants died, they settled in the ocean floor
along with the dead bodies of tons and tons of ocean creatures.
Over millennia, temperature increased
and the organic matter was gradually cooked
until the sun's energy
was stored inside oil.
analyzed where the oil might be,
and then drilled 3 miles down
into the seabed to collect samples.
Hey you go Al, get yourself. Thank you
We get the samples and analyze them
for the fossil contents. The microscopic fossils.
And it's just another geo-scientific tool
in order to improve your possibility of finding oil.
In my opinion, probably arrogantly so,
but it's pretty high calling
actually to try to do that,
to try to figure out or maybe
take apart, you know, time itself.
Go back a few thousand years,
and the energy available to grow our crops or feed animals
was limited by the daily sunlight falling on the earth.
But now,
we gorge ourselves on hundreds of years
worth of sunlight every single year.
Every part of modern life is
now literally made of oil.
From CDs to plastic bags,
to medicines and computers.
From clothes and carpets to
hair gel and cell phones.
It's a fantastically useful substance.
Then there's our food,
each calorie we eat used about 80 oil calories
to produce, package, refrigerate and transport.
And fossil fuel produce fertilizers now feed
about 2 billion people who could not otherwise stay alive.
It would be wise for humanity to use the remaining oil
to build the new society which could run without it.
But we are, instead, indiscriminately
burning tens of millions of barrels every day.
It'll all be gone in about 40 years,
leaving pretty much none for future generations.
And then you see it,
and you smell it, and, you know,
it's greasy and ugly and smell so much
like money, it's just beautiful, you know.
pounds an hour, 400 pounds a second.
And a hefty chunk of those
profits came from here, Nigeria,
where most of the population lives
on less than 1 dollar a day.
This is the water we drink.
an ambition to trained as a doctor
and then work in
a home village called Cojabanee,
where Shell started
building this medical center.
Like hundreds of other community projects
across Niger delta, construction has been abandoned.
Shell maintains that's because
of the risk of kidnapping.
to be spent on community development.
But the local people share is almost
all lost to the corrupt political system.
So despite being in the most
profitable oil region in West Africa,
Layefa's village has no health service,
no secondary school, no electricity, and no drinking water.
Layefa is describing a phenomenon
known as "the resource curse".
Paradoxically, finding oil usually
increases a country's poverty.
As the oil wealth is
concentrated in hands of a few,
so the agriculture, education, and health system
of the country become neglected and often collapsed.
The local people health problems
are compounded by gas flare,
burning nights and days
throughout the Niger delta,
asthma, bronchitis, skin diseases
, and cancer have all been linked.
That gas is found alongside oil,
but, as it's dangerous to transport,
it can't easily be sold to over sea markets
. It could be use for cooking and heating within Nigeria,
but building infrastructure is expensive
so the oil company just burn it off.
Its flares emit about 70 million tons
of carbon dioxide every year
more than the annual emissions
from 10 million British homes.
they just do whatever they like.
Why are American cities designed
so it's almost impossible not to have a car?
Why were a hundred railways in cities like New York,
Philadelphia, and Los Angles bought
up and then deliberately destroyed?
Why do the electric cars get scrapped?
Why were we, along with Australia,
Why was an oil company lobbyist allowed to change
official government reports on global warming?
Why was the same PR firm employed by the tobacco industry
to persuade the public that smoking is healthy,
then employed by the oil industry to convince us
there was still doubt about climate change?
Alternative energy has been available
for 50 years, why have we barely used it?
Why were solar panels
taking off the white house?
Because right from the
early days of the industry,
the oil men and their unseen profit have had
an unhealthy influence on the people running our country.
And now, they all are
the people running our country.
And they're providing the cash, too.
Oil business isn't just
in bed with the government,
it is the government.
Here, Layefa is going to a nearby village,
Oiama, that was massacre by the government.
The village was involved in a dispute
about ownership of a piece of land,
on which Shell planed to drill for oil.
The government claimed that
the village was harboring terrorists,
and when they sent
the military in to find those terrorists,
the villagers opened fire on the soldiers.
Layefa has gone to hear the villagers' side
of the story, from Omiekma Wekid
Amnesty international investigated
the massacre and concluded that,
although the government
was responsible for the killings,
Shell Nigeria should have made sure that
their activities did not contribute to the conflict.
they burned them off.
Human history is littered, with the corpses
of people who had stuff worth stealing.
Animals,
water,
shinny things,
fertile land,
spices.
Hmm! Nutmeg slice, tea?
But when it came to stuff worth
pinching one continent had it all,
ivory, copper, cotton, rubber, wood,
tin, gold, diamonds, and people.
As cheap energy, slaves were unbeatable,
until the less troublesome
energy source was discovered,
and the new era began.
Human numbers increased 5 times over.
And with each person
wanting more and more stuff,
oil became "the resource"
worth fighting for all around the world.
Well, you want to know
the real reason why to warn Iraq?
According to the former Federal Reserve
chairman Alan Greenspan, it's a simple, 3 letter answer.
Not WMD, it's O-I-L.
You might read the ex-chairman of Shell
that said over weekend that oil can hit over 150 dollars
a barrel as world production begins to peak,
not really good news for
a country whose entire economy,
not to mention its entire way of life,
is based on cheap oil.
we left the world in a better place,
then we found it, that was progress,
the wheel, rule of law, penicillin.
It was our covenant
to our children, grandchildren;
my children went angry with me
for breaking the covenant,
they were too busy trying to stay alive
to waste energy on blame,
trying to negotiate their way through food riots,
refugee camps, and the collapse of society.
But I think my grandchildren
would have been angry,
had they survived into adulthood.
Skiing in desserts,
heating the air,
lighting empty offices,
energy is so ridiculously cheap it makes
perfect economic sense to just pick it away.
China is new bad guy, because they're building
a new power station every 4 days.
But the quarter of that
energy makes stuffs for us.
Western company pay Chinese workers
crap wages to make crap plastic toys,
then ship them to Europe,
and wrap them in more plastic.
Punters drive to the out-of-town
megastore in their gas-guzzlers.
Plastic toy and plastic box
goes into plastic bag.
and back it goes to a Chinese landfill where it
stays for about, hmm, 50 thousand years?
Water from the bottle's
much better than the tap.
...Mountain spring spot.
and 10,000 times more expensive for you.
It's a tricky decision.
Lots of ideas have tried
to take over the world,
but there's only one winner.
Telling us we'll be happier,
more atracttive with better skin,
if only we buy their product.
To get there,
they create incentives and insatiable
desire to buy more and more stuff.
Americans have been advertised that longest,
and they now each consumed
twice as much energy as an European,
and 50 times more than someone from Kenya.
If all the 65 billion here on earth
consumed like European or Japanese,
we need two more planets worth of resources.
If everyone consumed like
American or Australian and Canadian,
we need another four.
And in 2040 or so when
there are about 90 billion of us,
we need two more again.
Capitalism's only goal
is ever expending growth,
but ever expending growth
on just a one not expending planet
It's impossible.
The con economic system is disastrous,
not just for the planet
, but for most people, too.
the richest one 1% to take 40% for themselves,
leaving just 1% for the poorest to have.
But anyone wanting to live
differently is fool ticket every time.
With profit, the only measuring step,
destroying the planet
is written into the system,
and run away climate change
is not very surprising result.
The logo effectively is color,
you know, light grey, you know,
orange telecom, they are orangey black.
Our logo is fluorescent color.
Where everything changes in economy
in minute, you have an airline moving in.
Because people can basically
do business alot faster,
if businesses grow a lot faster,
people have more disposable income,
then, you know, consumerism sets in,
and you know where the verge
where base consumerism is setting in,
just moving a lot like America.
Here, Jeh travels to
Airbus headquarter in France,
as they'll be supplying him
with 26 planes in his first 3 years.
We have only 200 aircrafts
commercially flying in India, China has 800.
Ultimately, you know,
we have a very long way to go,
playing catch up with China
catch up with Europe,
or, you know, say, America one airline
South West, has 417 aircrafts.
That's double the amount
of aircrafts we have as a country.
You know, we simple sentence
for me, summarizes it all.
Thing is gonna get better.
In my main house,
is has 10 feet of water in it,
marinated in that sludge
for 3 weeks, almost.
So it's current state of
my house, it's been demolished.
It's flat piece of a property waiting
for another house to go on that.
I lost everything, everything that i owned,
I mean everything from family heirlooms
to the paper towels sitting on your kitchen counter,
in everything in between, it goes on and on.
Two beautiful, beautiful
oak trees I did not lose,
you know, local, indigenous,
quikes, virginianas, live oaks
that sprawl all over the place,
beautiful, beautiful things.
That's what I have left, two old oak trees and
an empty lawn, everything else is gone.
That sucks.
Losing everything you have,
it's so overwhelming.
And the grief that comes
with that, it is just profound.
We have an unspoken collected pact
to pretend climate change wasn't happening,
as though as long we ignore it
hard enough, It wouldn't be true.
Not absolutely everyone,
a few were shouting fire.
Hello, come on in.
One of the greatest difficulties
with climate change
is that the effects of our emissions today are
not actually realized in terms of the temperature
for 30 or 40 years so there
is this time-lag system.
Which makes it difficult for us,
humans, to respond
because we're evolutionary equipped
to deal with the very immediate threats
like advancing armies or dangerous animals.
We're not so well-equipped with dealing rationally
with very long term problems like climate change.
So we have to act now to stop
something happening in the future,
if we wait until the full temperature
effects are already upon us,
then it's far too late to stop.
If you remember one single
number above all else,
make it two degrees,
now everyone in the world pretty much,
the European Union, big multi-national corporations,
Greenpeace, political parties,
all agreed that we have to stabilize global temperatures
within 2 degrees above pre-industrial level,
and the reason for that is because, if you cross that threshold,
the narrow tipping point in the earth system,
which could drive the warming
process essentially out of control.
Huge amount of carbon
could be coming out of the world,
trees and soils, methane could be coming
out of the perma-frost in Siberia
and it's that extra input of greenhouse gases
into the atmosphere,
which then leads us up to the worst case
scenario to 6 or more degrees
and the eventual wipeout of most
of the life on earth.
So power emission has been going up
, between, let's says, 1950,
and now they need to level out
, stabilize, and then decline
just as rapidly to sustainable
levels about an 80% cut by 2050.
But crucially, to keep the temperature
rise within 2 degrees,
this point of stabilization need
to be at around 2015.
And so that means, really, the time,
timeline we've got, ticking clock,
is that we have to stabilize global emission
within just 7 years from now as we speak 2008.
And scale of this task to achieve
a transformation to a low carbon economy
of the entire,
entirety of human civilization,
is obviously, is huge, monumental task,
probably the greatest humanity ever faced.
Remember the English family
who went to see the glacier?
They're back home in Cornwall,
south west England,
inspire to start tackling
their own energy wasting.
It says that the average Individual in the UK responsible
for emitting 10 tons of greenhouse gas a year.
They're calculating exactly how much
climate-change-gases their family currently produces,
and how it can be reduced.
Yeah, but that's the average
individual, there are five of us.
Whichever way you look at this,
it isn't good.
We produce about half of our food, and we try keep
our consumption of meat and dairy down.
My car runs on chick fat and
we do cycle when we can.
We just got our wind turbine,
which will produce all our own electricity.
We're aiming to cut down to
about one ton each per year,
which is apparently the sustainable amount
that the world's trees and plants can reabsorb.
But the big problem is flying,
just one mid-term flight, say, London to New York,
would blow our entire carbon
budget for about 3.5 years.
Apparently, other than
setting fire to a forest,
flying is the single worst thing an ordinary
individual can do to cause climate change.
So, it's a bit of a dilemma, because we've
just been invited to go skiing in France.
Then I am flying from Newquay
, which is our nearest airport,
say, 40 minutes from here, to Bergerac,
which is like, you know, an hour and
a half or something, from it.
And literally we could leave here in
the morning that's we leave like in, Cornwall,
we could leave Cornwall in the morning,
and be in Bergerac by sort of,
for lunch, after lunch.
But if you actually think, this is going to cause
the death of people, actually in effect
people are make that direct connection
, then it's a really scary thought.
Obviously, us not flying to France or not flying,
wherever it's hard to guess, will solve the problem.
But it's down to what you think
it's the correct thing to do.
Because everyone else's doing it, I mean,
that is not a good reason to do anything.
You know, to look at the terrible things
in our history that everyone regrets now,
you know, massacres,
the holocaust a lot of that,
was just going a long way what was
the predominant thinking at the time.
I almost jealous at the time,
just jump on a plane with impunity,
I didn't even think about it,it's blissful,
no moral dilemma there, whatsoever.
Needless to say,
they didn't take that flight.
And joining the climate change protest march
may not be everybody's idea
of the 10th wedding anniversary,
but Piers and Lisa have share
ideals from the moment they met.
My friend, we went along
to the party together,
and she just basically took me
straight over to Piers and said,
"Hey, look," you know "Piers
, this is Lisa. " And, dah dah dah
And that was it, that was it. We just...
and spent the whole evening
talking about wind turbines.
Piers has been developing wind farms in Africa,
America, and Britain for over 15 years.
But he knows that they only
help slow the climate crisis
as a small part of a total
reordering of western society.
And there still is an idea that somehow
we have to find the solution,
you know, the silver bullet.
No single renewable source is going to
be the solution, absolutely not.
And Piers doesn't think
much of the other option,
whereby everyone crosses their fingers
and hopes that the miracle
technology will be invented in time.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be developing
other stuff, absolutely, we should be.
We should be throwing everything after it.
But, you've got to make
use of what's available now.
And in the UK, we've
got a great wind resource,
and we just got to bite
the bullet and go for it.
Piers has purposed a new wind farm as airfield farm
at Airfield Farm in Bedfordshire, central England.
He could have 15 turbines installed and generating
Well, the process balloon is now going up, but
while that's happening, I'll just explain where we are.
We all have our thumb down as well.
UK-wise surveys point to about 70 ~ 80%
in favor of wind farm as a concept.
The difficulty is when you
got one on your own doorstep,
and then there is the sort of
"not-in-my-backyard" syndrome.
Jim, what's the problem?
The problem really is that this is one of the
least windy sites in the country.
I hope it's not gonna get too windy tomorrow
and it wraps itself around the church.
Well, I live in Coddington, and we're going to be
absolutely surrounded by these high moss.
They're going to obliterate the view.
What it normally always comes down to
with wind farms is the aesthetics, you know.
Everything else is basically put together
to try and back up the ultimate thing,
the ultimate thing is they
don't want to spoil their view.
But I'm bit concern about
the low level noise as well.
The wind farm site is right next to world
famous Santa Pod drag-racing strip.
Anybody you ask it, nobody's against
wind energy, that's the point,
t's against inappropriate wind energy use.
Hypnotic, you're driving alone, and
you tend to saw this sails revolving,
and you're not concentrating on the driving.
Eurney Braddock will benefit
financially having turbine on his farm,
but now he's in conflict
with his neighbor, Victoria Reeves.
Well, everyone is very unhappy about it,
we're gonna lose the value of our properties,
we are not going to be able to sleep, it will make
a difference, Eurney you have no idea, believe me.
According to Victoria,
they stop to wind farm up in
Scotland on the other estate in Scotland.
Back in the mid-90's
that was a great victory.
"It can't rely on the wind, it can
only deliver ", "It's an additive. "
"Additive? Do you mean additional? Yes, it is additional. "
"It's a economics resources, put it that way. "
"No, Eurney, it doesn't. It's got to, it's got to.
It does nothing of the sort, believe me. "
It's an emotional campaign, it's about fear
mostly based on complete BS, frankly.
But never mind, facts are not
a problem, you know.
"It's a fair fight, and
I hope you lose. ", "Alright. "
This is august 2005, just after
Mumbai's worst ever floods.
And a couple of months
before Jeh's first flight.
Show daddy how good you ride this,
show daddy how fast you can go, come on.
Wooo... No more pushing
, it's battery operated.
"So, I can't finish either.
" "Hey, grandpa... "
Jeh is descended from one of India's richest
and most powerful business dynasties.
They pioneered everything from ship building
from the 18 centuries to internet services in the 21st.
And around about way, his privileged up bringing
sparked the idea for the low cost airline.
What do you want me to do?
I'm going to the airport.
Throughout basically my life, at young age,
I mean, I used to hang out with tons of,
you know, servants' kids. You know, that sort of stuff.
You know, and when you go home,
you say..., you suddenly think,
why do I have so much,
and these guys have nothing.
And that sort of, and
that constantly adding up.
You know, everyone is here for a purpose.
The idea is to realize what your higher purpose is,
and then realize how you gonna fulfill it.
And eventually I realize
what my higher purpose was,
it was to insure that I eradicated poverty.
Jeh volunteers at the charity which helps
villagers lift themselves out of poverty.
But even by private jet and jeep,
it's a 5 hour, 900 kilometers journey.
Hiring a private jet is basically in
terms of costs as much as the village does,
you know, take a village from below
the poverty and put it above the poverty.
So effectively, in terms of it
defeats the purpose.
And therefore I decided to, you know..
try the trains, from Bombay takes about 26 hours.
I said to myself, "wow,
this is incredible. "
You know, people pay good money and
still have to basically put with this rubbish.
trains in India every single day.
Jeh's dream is to get them all off
the trains and into the skies.
We're not at war at
the moment. It's not a war.
But people actually recognize that
full implications of what's in store for us,
they would be treating it like a war.
If anybody takes Airfield Farm for example,
I mean that was the year it was airbase,
people flew out there and died.
Or of course, which was massive at the time,
the global problem, and we have ourselves out.
A real global problem that needs
that kind of level of commitment.
There are many, many other industries
that need to be looked in to first, before aviation.
it's not questionable
choosing one industry to target,
in ultimate deal, we all contribute
to to to greenhouse gases,
we all contribute to the crisis
that we have today with the planet.
So ultimately, in terms of, you know...
insuring our planet is safe and
healthy is each one's job, task.
Whether you do it in your own
way by using less tissue paper,
using less papers, less trees cut
buying green cars or not flying.
Obviously, if you're not doing it,
and the demand goes down,
the demand goes down, the supply goes down.
Life is about demand and supply
or supply and demand.
Strange. Watching this film fragment.
Like looking through binoculars
observing people of far of beach.
Running around in circle, fixated on
the small area of sand under their feet.
As a tsunami races toward the shore.
Here's Alvin. He's just taken early retirement
after thirty years on the oil industry salary.
And he's planning to spend his later
years outside enjoying nature.
Oh, certainly I'm ecologist, and
an environmentalist.
I really don't have
a problem squaring that...
Working for an oil company
that I feel... has...
done a pretty good job and
in being environmentally friendly.
When I started working in
the oil industries, about the mid 70's,
it was clear path for me,
as a scientist coming up college
And I didn't know the detail of what goes on
in the oil industry, the goods and the bad.
But indeed every industry
has that, goods and bad.
Would I do it again, knowing what I know now,
of course I would do it again,
I mean, you need to work,
you need to do something
The worst example I've had is a lady,
an old lady came up to me,
at the public exhibition.
And gave me a cutting from a newspaper,
with a picture of guy being shot
Local anti-campaign is
one of the key factors,
stopping about 80% of the proposed
wind energy project in Britain.
Had they all been built, 10% of our
Electricity would've been non-polluted.
How the heck are we meant to persuade
people in India and China
that they should develop in a more sustainable
way when we are not prepared to even to accept
you know, the old wind farming landscape.
"So how's it going?", "All right, yes. "
"Not too much trouble?", "Not really,
no, nobody's punched me up. "
Pierce has come back to the Ernie's farm
with a plan to make
the turbine less visible.
Trying to kick start the planning process
that the anti-campaign has now
held up for eighteen months.
Another eighteen months of climate change
Another eighteen months,
where I'm able to do nothing about it.
You must be feeling the same as me.
It just, I mean how long have we got...
Pierce's compromise reduces the number
of turbines from fifteen down to nine.
This is still the equivalent electrical
power to fair eleven thousand homes.
So there's still alot power.
Exactly the opposite is happening,
to the very thing that needs to happen.
These things need to be speeded up,
and actually, they're getting slowed down.
Plenty of politicians are talking about it,
but when it comes down to it,
It's just not happening.
It's Just not happening, folks.
Governments will only go as
far as the population demands.
And that means mass protest
on unprecedented scale.
Direct action like this is essential,
if you were going to turn an issue
around in a short period of time.
We've found that many many times in the past,
from the suffragettes onwards.
The very fact that the crisis is taking place in
our generations is happening right now,
means we are tremendously powerful people.
So this position of despair,
and I can't do anything, there's no point.
It's completely illogically,
it's exactly the opposite
There's no shortage of great matter in
the species, we can do some amazing things.
But I don't think we been very smart
about how we use our resources.
How we quite literally burn up something
as beautiful and useful as all.
We literally burn it up.
That's it, it's gone, it's done.
I think most people were
becoming disenchanted by this point.
We'd stop believing that this was
the golden era of human civilization,
and started questioning
our collective values.
All I can hope is,
an incredible disasters like Katrina,
and the horrible wars comes out and
what not, that are going on around the world
will snap us out of it.
Let's see if it's headed in
the right direction for the good of mankind.
For this disaster, I had a lot of stuff,
I was a classic consumer,
Two years later, I've learned lot about
happiness and the pursuit thereof.
The happiness is not in the latest gadgets,
the latest electric tooth brush, or something like that.
All of that stuff. It's just not the stuff
of life. Not for me anyway.
Climate scientist can estimate how much of
the remaining fossil fuels we can safely burn.
This amount is called the "global cap. "
Under this proposal, the world governments
will make a binding into international agreement
detailing how to distribute the global cap.
The earlier the start takes,
of greater the chance of not
triggering runaway climate change.
The total global emissions for the first year
say 2012, will be set for that current level.
Every year following they'll shrink until
by about 2065, they're almost zero.
Initially, each country would be
allocated an emissions quota,
according to how much
they currently consume.
But this would change over time
America would slash its emissions 90%
from its current over consuming position.
Europe too would decrease
massively, as would China.
But India and Africa would
increase until by about 2025.
Each human being on the planet would
have equal rights to the earth's resources.
Equity is the only option morally,
and also practically as the developing
countries won't sign up for anything less.
But total emissions would
then keep decreasing every year.
Until by 2065 we'll have
waned ourselves off of fossil fuels
and prevented the worst
impacts of climate change.
As to how each country divvies up its share to
the system, there were various options on the table.
The most promising of which
individual carbon rationing.
Mr. W.S Morrison is here to explain.
If in the culture of war, we are short
for a time of this or that article of food.
Rationing, will give every one,
rich and poor alike,
an equal share of all its goods.
Down to the scheme. Everyone in UK would
be allocated to annual carbon allowance.
So the electronic loyalty
as the supermarket loyalty card,
points will be deducted every time
we buy or use non-renewable energy.
For example, using electricity
to power appliances in the home,
or traveling somewhere by plane,
or even buying petro-fuel for the car
The best way you can help
is by rationing yourselves,
I'm sure that all of you will
buy your fair share and no more.
Airports were expanding all over the world,
to cope with the exploding number of
cheap flights we were all demanding.
And Jeh was doing everything
he could to join the party.
Ultimately, the odd is to hug and then kick.
She saying the PS is been payable, you're saying
the PS is not been payable. What's wrong with you?
Now!
Yes or no? That I ask you the question,
or did I not ask the question?
You're suspended, you're suspended.
Both of you go out now.
It's all in a day's work, haha...
Maintaining my plane means
something to me, ok!?
If I see my step ladder like this,
and if I find one piece of dirt
, you'll be fired.
OK?
Ok?
June 11. 2007, in the hotel room in Bedford.
Pierce is polishing his speech for tonight
showdown with the local planning committee.
This committee can approve this application.
If you do, you would
show courage and leadership.
He has just six minutes to convince
them to approve his wind farm.
I'm absolutely confident,
that if you approve this project,
you'll look back on the decision and
say "Thank goodness we said yes. "
But the committee
rejected pierce's application,
saying that his wind farm would be conspicuous and
out of place in the Bedfordshire landscape,
that it would decrease
enjoyment of nearby foot paths
and negatively impact the listed
buildings and the nation's monuments.
In other words, it would spoil the view.
Oh we're delighted
that it's been refused, yes.
It's a wonderful result.
It just shows if you work hard
if you look at all the facts,
if you do with fair and balance,
you can get a good outcome.
might even be 11 against one in favor.
But there only one guy who
actually,actually votes in favor.
Cheers, man.
Hi, mom. It's Piers. I think it's
I could have said, be honest.
It wouldn't make any difference
Of course we're worried
about global warming,
I mean, it's got to be something
we all concerned about.
I mean, we're doing our bit to try conserve
and looking for renewable energy.
Of course, absolutely, yeah, I mean,
we're part of the worldhaha... yes.
And it is global warming.
For the first time, Scientists confirm the link
between climate change and our awful weather.
An emergency services
scramble and Bedfordshire
And the flood water finally work
their way along the great tubes,
other parts of Bedfordshire
didn't escape, either.
We've lived at here for forty years,
and we've never ever
have anything like this.
after cyclone Nargis
emergency across Western Europe with
drinking water strictly rationing in Holland, France..
Forest fire is still sweep
across Vegas. Unfortunately,...
for motorists right to drive, said Lord Clarkson..
Good news for the UK wine
industries, especially
New Orleans will not be rebuilt at
this time, the Louisiana government
...Total Destruction of Indian Dams
would end Pakistan's drinking water crisis.
As U.S president's choices to
continue out because of.
San Francisco extraordinary
heat wave continue hit in Los Angeles
Extreme weather somewhere around
the planet increasing in these days
Skiing in the Alps is over
Channel Four documentaries ask is
global warming really happening, or natural
the highest land temperature
More than a hundred
million people are homeless tonight
Methane emitted in Siberia
The last Indonesian tree found,
but five fuel crisis
European Union today
permanently closed all of it
...must be reserved for food production
London Is under water again,
as last night 30 foot storm surge overcame
New Zealand has also now closed its
borders leaving 22 million stranded
...refugees in middle east and
continental Europe
...half of the species are now extinct,
scientist estimate, and eco systems are collapsing.
passing 2 degrees, we cannot
now stop runaway climate change
There are simply too many people to
feed and are remained famine
...suicide rates increasing
eight hundred percent
The Amazon rain forest is still burning
And anyone who cannot bear
to eat their own cats and dogs
we are entering
the eighth world food crisis
The world temperature
today is passing 4 degrees
retaliation nuclear strike
We wouldn't be the first life
form to wipe itself out.
But what would be unique about us
is that we did it knowingly.
And what's that say about us?
The question I've been asking is,
why didn't we save ourselves
when we had the chance?
Is the answer because on some level,
we weren't sure if we were worth saving?
Please proceed near the aircraft,
and take care of the responsibility.
You know if all of us stood united, in terms,
the world would be different in every way,
Unfortunately, that's not the reality.
If we can not even stand united on
eradicating poverty in the world,
what is the health of
the planet has any chance?
In my opinion, our use or misuse
of resources in the last hundreds years or so,
I probably would rename that,
age, something like the
The age of ignorance.
The age of stupid.
I just find it, surprising.
That after so much effort, the final act
of our existence, should be suicide.
So why did I build this archive?
It's a cautionary tale.
Not for us. Too late for us.
But for..., well...,
for whoever, whatever,
eventually finds this recording.
And away you go.