RosenbergThe11thHour


 * The 11th Hour **

** The film // The 11th Hour //, released in 2007 and directed by Leila and Nadia Connors, strives to draw to the forefront the urgency and relevance of environmental degradation, and its potential impacts on the survival of the human race. Through the use of visually overwhelming imagery of manufacturing and consumption processes, interspersed with the stern commentary of environmentalists, scientists, and activists, the piece illuminates a world in which nearly all environmental systems have been declining in recent years, and one for which there are few remaining resources to sustain our modern, consumer driven society. In this sense, it is suggested that unless mankind acts quickly to utilize its technological and intellectual prowess to address these problems, there will be untold catastrophe across the globe. **

As a worldwide and intertwined challenge, the climate change and environmental crisis invokes a variety of competing and compromising interests across the global society. From one perspective, there are those of corporations, ranging from the energy sector to multinational entities which rely on fossil fuel driven production networks such as Wal-Mart. With perpetual motives of profit maximization and growth, these actors have much to lose from downsizing and the shift to more sustainable energy sources. Leveraging their significant financial and political advantages, many of these corporations, particularly in the oil sector, have contributed substantial funds to politicians and other government officials, who have in turn responded by providing concessions and delaying action on addressing these paramount environmental dilemmas.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the environmentalists, who recognizing the likelihood of extinctions, calamities, and other such consequences of these metamorphoses have pushed scientific evidence into the public eye to attempt to garner support for substantial reform of social and cultural institutions. However, they have often been outspoken stakeholders within the debates over these complex issues, as the film pointedly demonstrated through instances of politicians proclaiming their “beliefs” regarding global warming, as if science were a religious entity.

Placed in-between these ends of the spectrum are the individual citizens and consumers, whose cultural pressures towards “keeping up with the Joneses” have fueled a material lifestyle, but who are at times ignorant of the consequences of such and the implications of the necessary shift towards a more sustainable lifestyle. However, these individuals are also crucial pieces of resolving these debates over the impending crises, for they will feel the impacts in coming years through changes in the quality of life and standard of living as the climate evolves in response to human activity.

In a somewhat ironic fashion, the last major actor is nature itself, which lies entirely outside of the domain of human social activity, but arguably has the most to lose through the extinctions of species and the potentially permanent destruction of ocean and forest habitats.

Through its depiction of climate and environmental change, the film naturally touches on the importance of oil and other fossil fuels in accelerating the process. In particular, it is suggested that the political and financial conflicts of interest detailed above are a large contributor to maintaining our reliance on these damaging energy sources. This is demonstrated no more clearly by the piece than in its description of the process of developing climate change reports under the Bush administration, in which the White House Chief of Staff, a former oil lobbyist, edited and removed substantial content from impending publications which portrayed the energy industry in a negative light. Similarly, public officials provide contradictory statements regarding the importance of weaning ourselves off of oil, which was shown powerfully by the film through the juxtaposition of quotes from former President George W. Bush denying the severity of climate change with images of the devastation of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In addition to the role of government, it is suggested that the ever increasing demands of the consumer culture necessarily prevent the shift away from oil. With perpetual increases in demand, nature has been described as having been “converted into a resource” which was believed to be limitless at the time of the Industrial Revolution. With the economic pressures of providing mass transportation, employment, food production, and material wealth to citizens, it is inevitable that oil will remain a significant piece of our lifestyles until economically feasible alternatives are available. However, in the absence of social movement and reform, it seems likely that this will be a slowly evolving process in the future.

Additionally, with its emphasis on the damaging features of current consumption patterns, the film cites numerous problems caused in particular by our dependence on oil. The main theme among these is that of “subsidizing” living beyond our means on oil, which relies principally on the increased rate of extraction of other resources resulting from the powering of equipment such as drills and other tools. This tendency to live beyond our means has led to extraordinary externalities for society, including the phenomena of acid rain, air pollution which has led to increased rates of asthma among children, climate change caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, and the destruction of the ozone layer by CFC’s generated in manufacturing processes fueled by oil. This extraction of resources threatens to promote a hypothetically self-sustaining cycle of global warming, in which deforestation leads to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which in turn warms the seas and melts the polar ice caps, leading to the release of methane and other gasses from the ocean and the subsequent continuation of the process. In addition to these overarching processes, there are distinct examples cited throughout the film of the destruction of ecosystems resulting from petroleum-based products, including dead zones in the Mississippi River delta caused by fertilizers utilized in farming, overfishing leading to the loss of 90% of the large fish in the oceans, and the loss of 95% of native forests in the United States. Through such cases, it is clear that without further action these effects may be greatly amplified in the coming years, and that the uncertainty generated by a tumultuous environmental scenario may provide further reductions to the quality of life.

Although it is obvious that a shift away from oil is required to promote the sustainability of the human race, it is likely that such a change will be difficult. Among the most crucial alterations necessary to protect our natural resources is a shift away from the classification of nature as property under the jurisdiction of domestic and international law, but such a modification will be met with significant resistance. Presently, countries such as China have been utilizing export surpluses to acquire control of farmland, minerals, and other such resources, and they will be hesitant to divest this source of wealth and sustenance, likely generating political and possibly military conflict in coming years. In a similar fashion, there will be substantial confrontation with the oil industry itself, which will likely display a reluctance to invest in the research and development, in addition to a transformation of its business model which is necessary to move into a more sustainable age. With the significance of these interests from both a political and economic standpoint, there may be a slowing of growth as more expensive and less established infrastructures such as solar thermal power, wind farms, and hybrid vehicles are implemented. The last major effect of a shift away from oil is likely to be the modification of the lifestyle of the everyday citizen, which may not necessarily diminish in quality, but could require greater education as to the means of preventing reckless waste and servicing systems which are more wholly integrated into the environment. These attitude changes may require a return to localism in some sense, but also a reduction in the values of material acquisition and consumption. As such cultural changes take a substantial period of time to shift, it is likely that there will be initial hesitance on the part of the populace in adopting the reforms and sacrifices necessary to preserve the Earth in the long term.

Of those features of the film utilized to construct the perception of the relevance of addressing environmental and climate issues, those which I found most compelling were the statistics portraying both the limited role of Homo sapiens in the context of the history of the Earth, as well as the scope of the damage that has already been seen. As was described by the film, if the entire history of the Earth were condensed into a single year, human history would only occupy the last fifteen minutes before midnight on the final day. Since it is estimated that 99.9999% of all species that have ever lived on the Earth have gone extinct, this representation sends a powerful message that we are likely not immune to the natural forces which have consumed our ancestors, and that we are potentially “dragging down” numerous other species with us. In seeing how vastly human society has grown over the last few centuries, from less than 1 billion people prior to the Industrial Revolution to nearly 7 billion today, it is obvious that we are likely approaching a carrying capacity beyond which we may pass a tipping point that will forever alter the way we lead our lives.

Alternatively, I was much less convinced by the assertion that people would be willing to adopt a greener lifestyle and accept the kinds of changes necessary to make the adjustment towards a more sustainable future. As disposable income and standard of living have grown so astronomically, people have become accustomed to the luxuries afforded by the over-indulgent lifestyle criticized throughout the film. Particularly in suburban and rural environments, many families rely on technologies such as the automobile and internet to maintain a connection with principal economic and social centers of society. If families were forced in suburbia to reduce the number of automobiles utilized or the range of travel, they would have to drastically alter their lifestyles, and possibly take up less lucrative, local professions which would further diminish the quality of life. With the cultural shift among society towards an age of interconnectedness, through the internet, television, cellular phone, and other such technologies, it seems unlikely that people would be willing to sacrifice this sense of mobility that has defined their lifestyles for the last few generations. Although green solutions are in some cases indistinguishable from previous features, they are often costly and bring with them an uncertainty of benefit, which may discourage people from making these switches immediately.

In the area of corrective action, the film depicts a substantial number of experimental and viable projects which may yield solutions which are accepted by mainstream society. Among some of the sustainable alternatives shown in the piece are an entirely carbon-neutral city design, hybrid train engines which reduce emissions by over 80%, geothermal heating and cooling systems for homes, and the use of more efficient insulation in lieu of air conditioning and heating systems. In addition, there are numerous alternative energy sources recommended to replace oil and fossil fuels, among them solar thermal technologies, systems which harvest energy from the motion of ocean waves or the currents of rivers (such a system is already in place in the Hudson River), wind farms, and hydrogen fuel cells for use in vehicles. It is also suggested that a carbon tax, or perhaps more direct ones on “dirty” energy sources such as coal and oil, may help to speed up the process by making the “cleaner” options more competitive from an economic standpoint. These solutions are consistently grouped together under the film as a fundamental re-designing of the system, and it is suggested that human structures draw more from natural processes of recycling by utilizing waste products as inputs in other areas of society; such is currently being done in some eco-industrial parks.

In watching this film, I was inspired to search for additional technologies which are under development to provide cleaner lifestyles while preserving the standard of living. The following references provided useful in fulfilling this goal:

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For the first of these links, I turned to some of the tasks which Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is engaged in on its own campus. In living on campus this previous summer, I witnessed the work done to replace the bricks on the outside of the CII, which would improve the insulation of the building and reduce the costs of heating and cooling. Extending from this observation, I have now become aware of the fact that numerous other buildings on campus have implemented related systems. For instance, the East Campus Athletic Village makes the ice used at the Houston Field House using the energy extracted from its vast array of photovoltaic cells, and the Biotech Center can naturally heat and cool through its intrinsic design without the need for environmental systems. Although I was aware of some of these projects, I had not ascertained the extent of self-sufficiency provided by these programs.

From the second link, I observed some of the unintended consequences of the implementation of alternative energy sources, which in this case comprised tidal farms. Drawing from a scientific study performed by a research team consisting of numerous universities and a marine laboratory, it is suggested by computer models that these structures may alter the locations at which sediment and sands near the bottom of these regions become concentrated. Although the effects on ecosystems and bottom-dwelling organisms are considered to be ambiguous, dependent on where these build ups actually occur, they may serve to drastically modify the equilibrium of such, and could lead to either increased or decreased coastal erosion. Without the scientific tools to comprehend the results of these endeavors, it may be too soon to fully utilize the technology.