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Critical Review of Eco-Film: Age of Stupid |
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I am very much delightful to watch the movie screening of The Age of Stupid directed by Franny Armstrong. The entire movie took me about 90 minutes and indeed, the Age of Stupid is an eye-opening movie which gave me a serious impact on how I should think and react towards the conservation of the Mother Nature to ensure a secure living in the year 2055. Living in a clean and peaceful environment has now been challenged when human continuously neglected the importance of our Mother Nature. The core subject to be discussed in the whole movie is about the global climate problems. To be frank, I was a little sceptical about this environmental related movie which able to foretell what will happen in our future. Inevitably, I could not deny there are similar motions taken by many famous environmentalists to represent the potential dangers and damage of climatic change to the Earth in our future. For instance, Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and Leonardo Di Caprio's Eleventh Hour have somehow portrait the same message with The Age of Stupid to raise public attention on the significance of global environmental challenges in our mankind history. Ultimately to me, these forms of enlightening movies have reasonably slapped the world and brought the environmental issues into a wider attention that urgently need an immediate action taken to resolve the matters. The movie storyline is set up in the modern day looked through the eyes of 45 years in the very bleak future that took place in the anticipated year of 2055. The beginning of the movie showed a sequence of natural disasters occurring in the metropolitan cities in the world. Nearly all of London city is flooded, Sydney is in flames, Las Vegas is being swallowed by the desert and nuclear combat has laid waste to India. It simply signified the end of the world where most of the places by 2055 is vanished due to catastrophic climatic change. In this case, it has practically thrown a big question to us to ponder about. Many of us have never thought of the doomsday including myself. What will us going to be and how Homo sapiens would be surviving after that is something that we are worried about now. The movie highlighted six main stories, lighting from Jeh Wadia, a dynamic Indian entrepreneur on the edge of opening a low-cost airline while also soaring a decent dream of eradicating domestic poverty in the country, to Fernand Pareau, a French mountain guide living in the Alps who has witnessed the rapid erosion of glaciers and many more. By consulting wind as an alternative energy is merely a wise step to reduce the cost of creating much carbon emission releasing to the environment instead of machine generated electricity energy. The main reason why the people of England opposed Guy?s initiatives because through building wind turbines would eventually altered the natural panoramic view of the country. To me, it sounded so foolish with the reason provided hence building wind turbines would able to disturb the natural scenic view of England. It can be both promising if proper wind turbine management plan is made in order to create energy supply to the city as well as to maintain the landscape of the country. The people in England need to be more open-minded and daring in trying new things especially when it is involving a holistic benefit purposes to many people. I am very much expectant if Malaysia is competent to build wind turbines and generally creating wind energy for all domestic use. However, it is disheartening that Malaysia is not potentially able to support and utilise wind as an alternative energy in the country. Meticulously, I admired Guy?s boundless determination on fighting for the sake of its people regardless that he has failed to convince his people about the importance of wind turbine as renewable resource energy in his country. On the other hand, I am completely stunned to Guy?s action when he and his family members essentially calculated on how much of greenhouse gasses they produced to the environment in their daily life routine. Not only that, Guy and his family members also have a positive minded attitude on recovering how much of carbon gasses they have emitted to the environment. As according to Guy, by taking an air flight, it would have cost much carbon emission to the environment, and for that particularly reason, Guy and his family members need to plant extra trees to recover the loss of carbon gasses into the air. This is indeed an amazing mindset that Guy and his family members practised. Not many could actually able to conduct the same action like what Guy?s family have done so far. I wish I could act the same like him but I understand it is certainly difficult for an individual to recover the same amount of carbon gasses he or she produced just by planting trees. It is tough but not totally impossible. A specific calculation need to be made in order to self-check how much carbon gasses that one?s produces in a day. It sounds interesting to be carried out but culturally not easily able to be done by everyone. Only persistent and continuously motivated tree-huggers will be able to work on this as it is definitely a pleasant move for the sake of our environment. As a matter of fact, if energy is at alarmed to be deliberate, much energy is wasted and normally energy is being unwisely use by consumers. I still do remember a particular hilarious tagline in the movie, ?Water from the bottle is better from the tap?. It was a scene that the narrator wished to illustrate the wastage of energy in an analogical way. I laughed when I saw the bottle from the drinking vending machine ?singing? to promote the so-called ?better? water in contrasting to the tap water. It is something odd yet interesting to debate about when wastage of energy is being discussed. A drinking water is easily obtained from the tap but majestically most people preferred spending money on buying plastics drinking water bottle. China was indirectly being condemned of manufacturing too many unnecessary plastics to the entire world as shown in the movie. If we look from another angle of viewpoint, it is actually the demand of plastics should be the main concern here. Human ethics is challenged when global consumers are buying too many unnecessary items which contributed to wastage. Countries like America, Canada and Australia were among the few that consumed too much of unneeded plastics as according to the movie. World wealth is not enough if we continue to create and waste our own capital resources in manufacturing less important products. The appropriate source of energy should be channelled to suitable related field to reduce the exaggerated consumption in just a particular industry. As a consumer, we need to be wise in choosing and even buying materials. It is about a subject of either being wise or otherwise. I am very much flabbergasted about the 'Global Archive' which captured all records of human life before we were wiped off the face of the Earth. The Global Archive was known to be in a concrete tower in the middle of the oily ocean somewhere around Norway with a museum collection of animals and priceless works of art as can be seen through the movie. This archive is vital to mankind because it kept and gives protection to most of the important human life records. These records are very much needed for future reference as it showed how our origins are evolved. Therefore, we should start keeping our human life records and at the same time, virtue project like world seed bank that kept underground of ice in Norway by Cary Fowler should be much appreciated that help the mankind to ensure the diversity of human crops if there are any misfortunes tragedy occur to our environment. Not forgetting also, there is another miserable story explained in the movie that took place in Nigeria. The issues of poverty and human rights are touched in this section. The people of Nigeria are suffering from social community development. Nigeria has a population of 150 million people which is the largest country in Africa. As shown in the movie, it illustrated Nigeria as a country which lack of basic facilities and public development from the local government. The people in Nigeria have no clean water, no health services and no proper food materials. There was a young lady called Layefa Malemi showed us the poverty of life in an oil-rich country, which from Shell derived share of its country?s profits. Malemi often thinks of to study medicine and she also wants to be rich enough "to live like an American". Everyone wants to be rich and to live in a luxurious life hence it is not surprising that Malemi have the desire to be rich. In the meantime, Shell left a big implication to the environment in the country that further jeopardise the condition in the country. Shell company have promised to reduce the poverty rate in the country as well as to development the community by creating job opportunities in oil drilling. But to my sorrow, what Shell has done was nothing more than polluting the sea with much of their careless action in oil spill that killed many fishes in Nigeria seas. This has perpetually affected the fish supply in the Nigeria sea where most of the fishes are contaminated with the chemical pollutants that contributed to food scarcity of the people. Believe or not, in certain places such as Niger Delta, the villagers have to go to the sea to get fish as the only source of food they can find. What is shocking was that the villager needs to use detergent to clean the dark-contaminated fish first before it is cooked to be eaten. This is because the fish was completely polluted due to the oil spill over the sea in Niger Delta, Nigeria. The poor state of life living in Nigeria is at the stake line to be of our concern now. The contaminated fish only showed a part of the problems in the country. How about oil burning done by the oil processing factories which released much carbon dioxide gas to the country that able to cause many health diseases to the people? How much Shell and the local government have taken action in order to curb these community problems in their country? Despite of all, we as a citizen of the globe, we should give a helping hand to improve the ill situation occurring within Nigeria in whichever way we could. It is all back to the question of global oil consumption. None of us can escape from contributing to this matter. As from the moment we use our own car to go to work or even taking a public vehicle to go to school. We are contributing to the world demand of petroleum. No matter what field you are in, every single field also contributing to the same consumption of global oil needs. Not many of us did really bother to think about the post-effect oil drawbacks but the time will come when we are experiencing the scarcity of petroleum. If we can connect money as the root of all evil, then I shall re-quote it to oil as the root of all evil. Oil consumption has constantly brought our world community to a lower level of humanity. Because of the crude oil, humans have fought to search for additional petroleum in foreign lands by invading their countries and created much social tension as what we can easily see in Iraq today. What I could comment about, The Age of Stupid is worth to serve as a wake-up call to both the general population and global elites, even though it is a shade over-hyped and offers nothing particular revelatory to those familiar with the subject of global climatic change that will greatly influence our future. And as for now, the big issue is what can be done to help the environment. How can we really show our sympathy and empathy to our Mother Nature? We have learned much about it when we were still in school but how much have we really put in practised to conserve and preserve our environment? The selfishness of an individual towards the environment is another big contributor to the problem. Nonetheless, it is always come to ponder in my mind, why should we care much about the environment while many people actually careless about it. That is the common human mentality perspective we have. The thoughts are naturally created by human. [1]There are two kind of intrinsic values live in human, first it is subjective values that created by human kind and attached to their lives and second the objective values that refer to intrinsic values already existing in nature. The environment indirectly has been a good teacher to us which influence the way of how we think with respect to the surroundings. As a result of the environmental emergency, many proactive steps need to be taken to solve the environmental problems that have been addressing from the movie before it is too late. As for the narrator in The Age of Stupid, Pete Postlethwaite once asked ?Why did not we stop climate change when we had the chance?. Were we not sure we were worth saving or what? And my reply to his question will be there is no sense of urgency to stop what we are facing now. Many people do not realise on how important the nature is, as we have yet to experience the loss of it. Human has preoccupied living in the comfort zone too long ever since the technology advances the growth of human life to a greater level from time to time. Nevertheless, we always tend to forget about how we should treat the environment. Everyone needs to be educated with much environment knowledge as possible. In that case, I would suggest the carrot and stick method to be implemented in the society in turn to create awareness among the people on the global climate change. In a nutshell, it is still not too late for each and every one of us to stop harming the Mother Nature now and react towards our global environmental change. Everyone wants a better life and everyone deserves a better life. Do cherish with what we have today before we are going to regret in the year 2055 or perhaps earlier than that. The Earth is our only Earth, everyone earns a living in the Earth thus we need to act now in line to secure our living for our own future. Reviewed and written by, NG CHUCK CHUAN References: Film Review: Age of Stupid. Retrieved on 4 April 2010 from http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/01/the-age-of-stupid.html
Joseph, R. D. (2000). Environmental Ethics: An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy. 3rd Ed. Australia: Wadsworth. 67-88
Movie Review: The Age of Stupid - A Lot of Stick and Not Much Carrot. Retrieved on 4 April 2010 from http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/the-age-of-stupid-review.php
Nigeria Statistics. Retrieved on 4 April 2010 from http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/web/guest/country/statistics/tags/nigeria
Palmer, C. (2003). An Overview if Environmental Ethics. In Environmental Ethnics an Anthology. Light, A. (ed.) Malden: Blackwell publishing. pg16
Press Reviews. Retrieved on 4 April 2010 from http://www.ageofstupid.net/press_reviews
The Age of Stupid. Retrieved on 4 April 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Stupid
White, L. J. (1967). The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis. Science 155 |
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6 Comments
Thanks for interpreting the movie for us . It is so horrifying that villagers have to use detergent to clean the fish of pollutants from sea-How sad!. I also agree with your statement "Oil consumption has constantly brought our world community to a lower level of humanity". Very nicely written movie review. Thanks so much, Ng Chuck.
Posted 22-03-2014 02:17
@Raunak Same here in Korea.
Posted 20-03-2014 08:17
There are many things in our lifestyle that we do not realize but it is not Eco-friendly. Thanks for the article.
Tap water is potable in Singapore & here in Dubai also but nobody drinks Tap water in Dubai. The culture is like that only. In Singapore hotels I have noticed that they keep empty glass bottles in your room & encourage you to fill with tap water & refrigerate. This is commendable indeed.
Posted 19-03-2014 16:46
Wow, it's a really well-organized review! First of all, I would like to thank you for your time and effort to summarize the contents of the movie. What alerted me was that we don't usually have the feeling of guilty while we enjoy consumption, like buying plastic bottled water and buying trendy cloths. Even me, haven't thought about CO2 emission from flights. Well, your review made me think a lot about my life style. great :)
Posted 19-03-2014 14:14
Well analysed Ng Chuck, its very wonderful to see that you have analysed the movie from each and every angle.
Definitely tap water is better bottled water, but in context of western societies only as authorities ensure quality of water. However in the developing countries like Nepal where people rarely get water in tap, they have no options left but to buy bottled water. if government can manage water efficiently, at least people in the developing countries would prefer tap wateralso because of their economic condition.
Posted 19-03-2014 13:39
It is wonderful to know about such unique and at the same time eye-opening eco-awareness movies. Thanks for sharing :)
Posted 19-03-2014 00:24