The 11th Hour

We are actually talking about the last few minutes before midnight; assuming the history of our world is expressed in terms of a 24-our clock, our species only appeared at 23.45, so we weren’t even around at the 11th hour.  And yet, in our short presence, we have catapulted Earth towards the destruction of all life on it.

Leonardo diCaprio produced this film in 2007, almost 5 years ago. For some reason or another I missed seeing it at the time. Last night I took out 3 hours to focus on the film and the 50 or so interviews it contains with leading thinkers and proponents for change that will take us back to becoming re-integrated with Earth. As a Red Indian chief reminds us in the film, the earth has endless time, our species does not..

The film’s sub-title is “turn mankind’s darkest hour into its finest”. By the time you have watched the main film and then the equally long addendum which gives a number of illustrations of what is already working, it becomes clear that we have much of the skill and knowledge to make some radical changes that could well make this one of our finest hours.

What therefore is clearly missing is the collective will and strong leadership towards change. And, as I argue elsewhere, this leadership will not, cannot, come from those currently in our traditional leadership positions. If ever we needed  to encourage the emergence of new forms of leadership and new leaders, it is now. Indeed, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is arguably such a new form of leadership, where the  massive majority says ‘enough’ and so encourages new leaders to step forward, lead the change and then merge back into their communities.

In meditating on the film, and the viable ideas and tools for change it enumerates (e.g. mimicking nature in the production of glass without huge energy consumption; self-cleaning buildings and cars; using nature’s technology that creates the illusion of colour to avoid having to apply polluting paints; are just a few examples of what was possible 5 years ago – imagine how much more must be around today), it became clear to me that while it is absolutely right to encourage every individual to make their life-style more sustainable, that alone is not enough – we also need to flex our collective muscle and allow the new leaders to emerge : e.g. exercise your shareholder rights, even if you only hold a minimal number of shares; urge institutional shareholders to encourage companies to adopt new technologies and use their lobbying power to influence government. Single and collective action need much more to go hand-in-hand.

If you have not yet seen the 11th Hour, please go and see it as soon as possible – better still, buy it from Amazon or download it, for you will want to watch it more than once. Leonardo diCaprio has undertaken a fine bit of reporting. I would like to see more and updates on the breakthrough solutions and technologies designed to emulate nature and will help take us back towards doing things nature’s way, which ultimately will enable us to re-integrate ourselves with our home planet.

One small statement by one of the interviewees in the film left an indelible impression – a survey of school children in the US showed that even the youngest could recognize up to 1,000 corporate logos, but none could identify more than 4 plants or trees in their neighbourhoods.

 

One thought on “The 11th Hour

  1. Peter,
    I read one of your responses on the Linkedin Spirituality & Consciousness group and felt compelled to research “you”.

    My blog is a bit “quirky” and has a small readership but I always take opportunities to sneak in “consciousness”. I will link to you and your work periodically as it is outstanding (and frankly, I was moved).

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