0:00:26.023,0:00:30.119
The picture you are about to see deals[br]with the problem of self-destruction.

0:00:31.329,0:00:37.427
Its purpose was to enable people to better[br]understand the nature of this strange, tragic act.

0:00:38.035,0:00:42.206
We shall not be able to diminish[br]this great human affliction

0:00:42.206,0:00:47.337
until more people do understand it[br]and appreciate its seriousness.

0:00:50.481,0:00:52.312
Voices in the Dark

0:00:53.651,0:00:57.246
A lot of things about the world[br]these days are very scary.

0:01:07.832,0:01:13.237
My generation may be one of the first[br]generations where a lot of us die...[br]...not of old age.

0:01:13.237,0:01:15.501
Because a lot of us may not make it there.

0:01:20.411,0:01:26.350
Global warming... it's gonna do this[br]and our climate's gonna go weird and...

0:01:27.351,0:01:30.047
...like another ice age or something.

0:01:38.196,0:01:41.256
I think the scariest things aren't for me.

0:01:41.666,0:01:48.504
The scariest things are thinking that I[br]might leave a world to my children

0:01:49.307,0:01:56.975
that would be really difficult and painful for them.

0:01:57.915,0:02:00.418
I think we're all fucked. All of us.

0:02:00.418,0:02:04.355
I think most of us in this room are[br]gonna die before we reach...

0:02:04.355,0:02:07.191
I don't believe that we would[br]wipe ourselves out entirely.

0:02:07.191,0:02:10.728
I believe that... I believe that[br]we can probably fall down to...

0:02:10.728,0:02:13.898
There's gotta be a way. There's[br]gotta be a way to live through it...

0:02:13.898,0:02:21.205
Once we're able to look at the world[br]without blinders and see the[br]really horrific mess we're making of it...

0:02:21.205,0:02:25.977
We have got to change our whole idea[br]of the way that the world works...

0:02:25.977,0:02:29.547
I generally just feel like[br]everything is out of balance.

0:02:29.547,0:02:32.516
Nothing that I can do will make[br]any impact on the planet.

0:02:32.516,0:02:37.922
We're living a way that doesn't work.[br]We have to live a way that does work.[br]So it's gonna change.

0:02:37.922,0:02:42.552
You can't change what's happening in[br]Washington. You can't change what's[br]happening over in Iraq.

0:02:57.375,0:02:59.605
"We've met the enemy and he is us. "

0:03:05.549,0:03:11.283
I guess I just tell myself that it's all gonna[br]be OK. You kinda have to to keep going.

0:03:16.394,0:03:19.158
It's not a happy thing to think about.

0:03:36.347,0:03:40.249
There was a time in my life when I[br]was having this recurring daydream.

0:03:43.821,0:03:50.727
I'd be sitting in my car, radio blaring,[br]slowly making my way forward[br]through a fast food drive thru.

0:03:54.932,0:03:59.164
I'd get to the window and they'd hand[br]me my drink and my burger and fries.

0:04:00.271,0:04:05.038
And as i waited for me change. . .[br]off in the distance. . .

0:04:06.477,0:04:10.607
a bright flash... and a rising cloud.

0:04:12.316,0:04:16.116
And as the full force of the[br]nuclear blast washed over me...

0:04:17.053,0:04:21.184
...as the icy cold of my overturned[br]Coke seeped into my jeans...

0:04:25.730,0:04:27.357
I'd think to myself...

0:04:28.666,0:04:30.497
... what a way to go.

0:04:37.141,0:04:42.813
Yeah I think that we might[br]wipe ourselves off the Earth.

0:04:42.813,0:04:46.943
Definitely. I feel like that's where we're headed.

0:04:47.551,0:04:50.554
There's an emptiness that other needs...

0:04:50.554,0:04:51.922
the real needs...

0:04:51.922,0:04:54.759
the real desires aren't being met.

0:04:54.759,0:04:57.928
And we're just scrambling[br]with what our culture offers us.

0:04:57.928,0:05:02.433
And our culture tells us... you know[br]our culture tells us we will find love

0:05:02.433,0:05:06.937
if we buy this lipstick and that[br]make-up and these clothes and this car.

0:05:06.937,0:05:09.974
I think it would be OK if we gave the Earth back

0:05:09.974,0:05:14.078
to everybody else why is not as destructive.

0:05:14.078,0:05:16.512
All the rest of the life on Earth.

0:05:25.589,0:05:31.323
I was born in the American Midwest, central[br]Michigan, the "water winter wonderland".

0:05:31.996,0:05:37.195
I was raised in the arms of an extended[br]rural family.: mostly farming folk...

0:05:37.435,0:05:41.462
...solid, hard working, quiet, giving.

0:05:41.972,0:05:48.275
I was bom into warmth and plenty to eat, a[br]sense of place, and a surety of security.

0:05:49.079,0:05:51.138
And I was born into stories.

0:05:51.449,0:05:54.850
Stories about the value of work[br]and the right way to live.

0:05:54.952,0:06:01.050
Stories about God and country, about[br]community, loyalty, steadfastness, and resolve.

0:06:01.358,0:06:04.987
Stories about the role and place[br]of humans on this planet.

0:06:05.863,0:06:09.890
Stories about our relationship[br]to something we called "nature".

0:06:11.368,0:06:13.427
I was born into stories.

0:06:16.106,0:06:18.131
Nobody told me these stories.

0:06:18.375,0:06:19.706
They didn't have to.

0:06:19.977,0:06:25.847
The stories were the air I breathed, the water in[br]which I swam, the ground upon which I walked.

0:06:26.116,0:06:27.777
They were all around me.

0:06:28.185,0:06:30.210
We didn't even know they were stories.

0:06:30.988,0:06:33.354
We just thought they were the way things are.

0:06:34.325,0:06:36.225
My world was a playground.

0:06:36.327,0:06:41.065
There were fish to catch, boats to row,[br]parades to watch, trails to hike,

0:06:41.065,0:06:49.473
lakes to swim, snowmobiles to rlde,[br]games to play, presents to open,[br]and family to share it all with.

0:06:50.674,0:06:53.444
The days would end with sunsets and fireworks

0:06:53.444,0:06:56.880
and sometimes I would dance[br]until I collapsed with joy.

0:06:58.649,0:07:02.486
It was a magical land...[br]cherry Popsicles and warm milk,

0:07:02.486,0:07:06.855
birthday cakes and store-bought costumes[br]and brand-new chairs under the tree.

0:07:07.191,0:07:10.361
A land of giant geese, well-dressed poodles,

0:07:10.361,0:07:13.819
talented birds and even more talented people.

0:07:15.065,0:07:19.703
The Earth was our merry-go-round,[br]our monkey bars, our swing set.

0:07:19.703,0:07:23.833
As long as we didn't look down,[br]everything would be just fine.

0:07:27.945,0:07:31.039
I was born halfway up the population explosion.

0:07:31.482,0:07:34.474
I was born on the slope of rising CO2 levels.

0:07:34.852,0:07:37.878
I was born in the foothills of a mass extinction.

0:07:38.322,0:07:41.416
I was born on the rocky rise of oil production.

0:07:42.059,0:07:48.032
I was bom facing forward, looking ever[br]upward, my first step a step upslope,

0:07:48.032,0:07:52.937
a step into progress, a step into a[br]vast and glorious human future.

0:07:52.937,0:07:56.574
We were moving on up.[br]There was no looking back.

0:07:56.574,0:08:00.277
There was a mountain to conquer,[br]and conquer it we would.

0:08:00.277,0:08:03.110
All we had to do was climb a bit further.

0:08:03.180,0:08:06.750
But the mountain we were climbing[br]was not what we thought it was.

0:08:06.750,0:08:13.679
Rather than rising from natural forces, the[br]slopes up which we were headed were the[br]results of imbalance and shortsightedness.

0:08:13.958,0:08:18.729
In our efforts to progress, to succeed, to[br]improve, to strive, to overcome,

0:08:18.729,0:08:21.799
to manage, to shape, to solve, and to grow,

0:08:21.799,0:08:24.927
we wielded huge new forces across the globe.

0:08:25.402,0:08:30.362
We walked as giants upon the Earth,:[br]unaware of the footprints we left behind.

0:08:32.842,0:08:38.682
I have walked that path, unaware of my own[br]big feet, enacting the stories of our culture,

0:08:38.682,0:08:43.176
not stopping long enough to feel[br]the instability of the slope underfoot.

0:08:45.089,0:08:51.153
But in the late 80s, news of the ozone[br]hole and global warming first hit me,[br]and the ground began to shake.

0:08:52.930,0:08:56.233
I stopped and looked[br]around me for the first time.

0:08:56.233,0:08:59.031
I got scared. I got involved.

0:08:59.703,0:09:04.163
And then the shaking subsided.[br]Or rather, I just got used to it.

0:09:05.209,0:09:11.248
Life got more complex with the births of my three[br]children. And there was climbing still to do.

0:09:11.248,0:09:13.113
So I continued to climb.

0:09:14.351,0:09:16.587
But the tremors were still there, underfoot.

0:09:16.587,0:09:21.091
At night I slept, but fitfully, clenched with worries,

0:09:21.091,0:09:24.686
my dreams assaulted by[br]vague rumblings from the future.

0:09:25.462,0:09:31.402
In my dreams, I would stand at the[br]pinnacle of the present, and look[br]out over the surrounding terrain.

0:09:31.402,0:09:34.860
And it didn't look like I had thought it would. . .

0:09:48.285,0:09:51.345
A faint howling in the distance pierces the night

0:09:51.922,0:09:56.586
The monsters we have created[br]Lumbering to rampant life

0:09:57.094,0:10:00.495
Are heading even now toward our village

0:10:02.700,0:10:05.168
Nuclear weapons[br]biding their time

0:10:05.569,0:10:08.265
Itching with purposes unfulfilled

0:10:09.740,0:10:12.732
As hopeful fingers tremble near buttons

0:10:15.045,0:10:17.240
Bunker Busters and Tactical nukes

0:10:19.450,0:10:21.850
Suitcase bombs and terrorist acts

0:10:23.654,0:10:26.248
Power plant accidents and leaking wastes

0:10:28.358,0:10:32.294
Plutonium launched into space[br]In rockets known to explode

0:10:35.365,0:10:40.325
And depleted uranium poisoning the battlefield[br]Depopulating the land

0:10:47.077,0:10:50.342
Chemical warheads[br]And biological black magicks

0:10:51.181,0:10:54.275
Sarin and Soman and VX and phosgene

0:10:55.586,0:10:58.054
Anthrax and smallpox and plague

0:10:58.555,0:11:03.515
Enough to take out entire cities[br]Enough to cover the planet

0:11:04.495,0:11:08.864
And they don't care who lets them out[br]As long as they get to play

0:11:09.800,0:11:12.564
Others nasties lurch toward us on their own

0:11:13.003,0:11:16.495
Old friends, new creations and recent escapees

0:11:17.608,0:11:20.577
Ebola, Marburg, Lassa and SARS

0:11:20.577,0:11:23.876
Swine Flu, Bird Flu, HIV and AIDS

0:11:25.215,0:11:29.515
The rebound of tuberculosis,[br]Cholera, malaria, and typhus

0:11:30.687,0:11:35.249
Prions and mad cows[br]Scrapie sheep and chronic wasting disease

0:11:35.793,0:11:41.595
Cancers that eat away our lungs our brains[br]Our breasts our testlcles and our ovaries

0:11:44.601,0:11:47.126
And new monsters peer over the horizon

0:11:48.705,0:11:52.971
Good intentions spliced to[br]Blind arrogance and numbing greed

0:11:55.445,0:11:58.175
Frankenfoods and Terminator seeds

0:11:58.849,0:12:02.012
Herbicide tolerant and pesticide laced crops

0:12:03.520,0:12:08.184
Patented Life[br]Barely tested, quietly ticking. . .

0:12:08.692,0:12:10.592
Let loose upon the land

0:12:11.261,0:12:14.355
As if their creators, having looked at the world,

0:12:14.798,0:12:17.733
Managed to learn nothing at all

0:12:20.137,0:12:22.372
The monsters howls grow frenzied

0:12:22.372,0:12:28.208
Chemicals in our land our sky our rain[br]Our rivers our food our bodies our babies

0:12:28.946,0:12:33.576
Rising male infertility rates and[br]Superfund sites and ozone depletion

0:12:35.619,0:12:38.383
Rivers dammed and salmon doomed

0:12:38.889,0:12:41.517
Topsoil loss and fertilizer run-off

0:12:42.359,0:12:45.817
Huge oceanic dead zones[br]And depleted fisheries

0:12:46.396,0:12:51.026
And the ghosts of silent whales[br]Scraping over the corpses of coral reefs

0:12:55.239,0:12:59.039
The monsters advance[br]And forests collapse under their feet

0:13:00.777,0:13:06.044
Leaving indigenous cultures battered,[br]Homeless, soul-sick, or dead

0:13:06.717,0:13:11.221
Disrupting water and oxygen cycles[br]And turning soil into deserts

0:13:11.221,0:13:16.853
As tigers and salmon and tree frogs and falcons[br]Stumble down the path toward extinction

0:13:17.527,0:13:20.664
Their heartrending voices[br]Lost in the chatter of chainsaws

0:13:20.664,0:13:23.394
And the coughing insults of bulldozers

0:13:26.670,0:13:29.298
And all the while the climate is changing. . .

0:13:30.741,0:13:35.412
Angry summers, insistent floods,[br]Belligerent blizzards

0:13:35.412,0:13:38.973
Grudging droughts and pissed-off hurricanes

0:13:39.349,0:13:44.988
with poles warming and ice shelves calving[br]Permafrost slumping and glaciers receding

0:13:44.988,0:13:47.821
Sea levels rising and big cities sinking

0:13:48.325,0:13:53.897
As ocean currents halt and superstorms gust,[br]Deserts expand and rabbits run

0:13:53.897,0:13:59.267
And locusts horde and army ants march[br]And mosquitoes hunt and rodents overrun

0:14:00.971,0:14:03.769
The balance undone

0:14:05.142,0:14:10.580
Leaving crops destroyed and diseases vectored[br]And famine and rioting and looting and war

0:14:10.580,0:14:15.108
The ocean turns acld and corals[br]And shellfish and planktons dissolve

0:14:15.419,0:14:19.456
The disruption of food chains,[br]The collapsing of ecosystems

0:14:19.456,0:14:21.947
Tonight on the Weather Channel

0:14:24.828,0:14:28.389
(commentator blathering)

0:14:28.832,0:14:30.467
Watch it now, while you can

0:14:30.467,0:14:33.903
Because oil is peaking,[br]with no clear replacements

0:14:35.005,0:14:37.741
Production will falter[br]As demand keeps increasing

0:14:37.741,0:14:42.838
And the price, which is rising now,[br]will just keep on rising

0:14:45.515,0:14:50.487
Imagine the impact to the global economy[br]To the truckers and farmers

0:14:50.487,0:14:52.387
To your neighbors

0:14:52.990,0:14:54.423
Yourself

0:14:55.192,0:14:59.196
Watch the bidding war rage[br]From trade floors to battlefields

0:14:59.196,0:15:02.859
Watch the Pentagon plan and the patriots act

0:15:03.834,0:15:07.099
Go look out the window[br]Do you feel a draft?

0:15:08.071,0:15:14.169
World population is fueled by the input of oil[br]We could reach 7 billion by 2013

0:15:14.711,0:15:18.704
That's billions of bodies more[br]Than the planet can sustain without oll

0:15:21.051,0:15:26.490
We're consuming the planet and[br]Poisoning the soil and the air and[br]The water that we all need to live

0:15:26.490,0:15:29.357
We're driving a high-speed train[br]To the end of life

0:15:29.659,0:15:31.795
And we're taking the rest of the planet

0:15:31.795,0:15:34.531
Trillions upon trillions of living souls

0:15:34.531,0:15:36.624
Along with us

0:15:39.636,0:15:41.194
And all of this

0:15:42.272,0:15:43.739
All of this

0:15:44.908,0:15:46.375
All of this

0:15:47.878,0:15:49.470
All of this

0:15:50.647,0:15:55.452
is wrapped tightly inside a culture of denials and[br]lies and absurdities so complex

0:15:55.452,0:15:56.520
And so powerful

0:15:56.520,0:15:58.886
That we can barely see through the smog

0:15:59.389,0:16:02.325
The monsters are screeching[br]At the village's edge

0:16:02.325,0:16:06.056
So huge and so horrible[br]That we cannot bear to look at them

0:16:06.396,0:16:07.226
And we,

0:16:07.964,0:16:11.301
Bound in a cultural straightjacket[br]Of our own making,

0:16:11.301,0:16:13.804
Slumber on as they draw near

0:16:13.804,0:16:18.208
Working jobs we hate[br]Consuming products that do not fulfill

0:16:18.208,0:16:24.169
Distracting ourselves as best we can with[br]Television drugs food sex and entertainments

0:16:24.748,0:16:27.808
Hoping our leaders will find some answers

0:16:28.452,0:16:32.556
Awakening, finally,[br]In the still hours of early morning

0:16:32.556,0:16:36.959
To the shapeless realization[br]That they will not

0:16:40.897,0:16:47.962
(alarm clock begins to beep and grows louder...)

0:16:48.472,0:16:49.905
(click off)

0:16:51.608,0:16:55.635
Ah. . . what a nightmare. . .

0:16:57.981,0:17:02.786
Well, Johnny, you are in a pretty serious situation.

0:17:02.786,0:17:10.318
But we believe - your mother and[br]Mr. Benton and I - that you can[br]make good without being sent away.

0:17:15.866,0:17:22.294
There has always been a part of me that has[br]suspected that I would see the end-of-the-world-[br]as-we-know-it in my lifetime.

0:17:23.205,0:17:28.178
It seemed built into the situation,[br]a certainty of population dynamics,

0:17:28.178,0:17:31.773
the inevitable end to Mr. Malthus' musings.

0:17:32.983,0:17:35.051
At some point we would near the sun,

0:17:35.051,0:17:38.851
our wings would fail, and we would[br]plummet back to the earth.

0:17:38.989,0:17:39.683
"Fuck!"

0:17:40.190,0:17:42.959
New voices spoke of possible futures.

0:17:42.959,0:17:44.794
"Hey can i have some of those purple berries?"

0:17:44.794,0:17:47.597
Crosby, Stills and Nash[br]sailed the Wooden Ships.

0:17:47.597,0:17:49.166
"Shit, not again!"

0:17:49.166,0:17:51.930
Riddley Walker wrote his connexions.

0:17:52.802,0:17:58.175
And Charlton Heston ate Soylent Green with[br]The Omega Man on the Planet of the Apes.

0:17:58.175,0:18:00.405
"You maniacs!"

0:18:01.711,0:18:08.947
The world looked insane to me but nobody[br]else seemed to notice so I buried[br]my thoughts and muddled on.

0:18:09.819,0:18:12.722
Deep inside, this was tearing me to pieces.

0:18:12.722,0:18:19.252
I remember looking in at night on my[br]sleeping children, and feeling a deep[br]and gnawing terror for their futures.

0:18:20.397,0:18:26.302
But I locked my fears tightly in my heart, hit the[br]snooze button, and slept a while longer.

0:18:26.836,0:18:31.841
And then I came across Daniel Quinn and[br]Derrick Jensen, two writers who helped me,

0:18:31.841,0:18:35.312
with books such as Ishmael and[br]The Culture of Make Believe,

0:18:35.312,0:18:42.185
to recognize the stories of our culture,[br]the beliefs and assumptions and fables[br]that have shaped our lives,

0:18:42.185,0:18:48.124
the fairy-tales we have told ourselves, the[br]madness we have made manifest in the world.

0:18:49.092,0:18:54.764
Quinn speaks of the Nazi regime, of Adolph[br]Hitler and the story he told the German people.:

0:18:54.764,0:19:00.670
a story about the lost destiny of the Aryan race,[br]a story of oppression and defilement,

0:19:00.670,0:19:04.407
a story of victory and vengeance[br]and greatness regained.

0:19:04.407,0:19:08.678
And Quinn explained how the entire nation,[br]oppressors and oppressed alike,

0:19:08.678,0:19:14.514
Jews and Good Germans and Gypsies and[br]Gays, were all held captive by that story.

0:19:15.485,0:19:21.224
We who live today inside the dominant global[br]culture are similarly captives of stories.:

0:19:21.224,0:19:24.227
stories that surround us like the air we breathe,:

0:19:24.227,0:19:27.097
stories that we enact at our own peril,:

0:19:27.097,0:19:30.362
stories that threaten the community of life itself.

0:19:31.534,0:19:38.497
Have you heard the one about humans[br]being separate from "nature", different,[br]special, the pinnacle of creation?

0:19:39.709,0:19:44.373
Or about humans being innately flawed -[br]violent, selfish and greedy?

0:19:45.482,0:19:52.122
How about the one that says that the world[br]was made for human beings, to manage,[br]control, and exploit as a resource,

0:19:52.122,0:19:56.252
and that the world has[br]no value beyond its utility?

0:19:57.193,0:20:03.496
Or the story about there being only one[br]right way to live, and one right way to[br]understand and view the world?

0:20:04.367,0:20:09.896
Or about how unlimited growth, competition,[br]and production are all unquestionably good?

0:20:10.373,0:20:13.043
Or the story that tells us[br]that we can have and do

0:20:13.043,0:20:16.877
anything we think we want,[br]because there are no limits?

0:20:18.615,0:20:22.385
There were people in the world looking[br]squarely at our cultural stories,

0:20:22.385,0:20:23.887
and at the global predicament,

0:20:23.887,0:20:25.722
and seeing what I saw.:

0:20:25.722,0:20:30.682
our culture, in its present[br]configuration, could not last.

0:20:31.328,0:20:33.228
I was not alone.

0:20:33.530,0:20:38.297
But the transformation, or the[br]collapse, still seemed far away.

0:20:38.568,0:20:41.799
It would come one day. But not now.

0:20:42.238,0:20:45.537
There was time. There was hope.

0:20:46.276,0:20:49.712
Somewhere, there were[br]people taking care of it all.

0:20:50.447,0:20:53.983
And that's how it was for me, year after year.

0:20:53.983,0:20:56.586
I lived the middle class American life.

0:20:56.586,0:21:04.686
I lived the stories I had learned as a child[br]and tried as best I could to ignore the[br]rumblings of fear that haunted my depths.

0:21:06.196,0:21:09.632
And then I started to work[br]on this documentary. . .

0:21:10.433,0:21:18.274
Three years later, having chewed our way[br]through a mountain of books, articles, websites,[br]magazines, newspapers, and documentaries,

0:21:18.274,0:21:21.911
having attended lectures and[br]meetings and salons and rallies,

0:21:21.911,0:21:29.340
and having interviews with friends and neighbors,[br]scientists and researchers and writers and[br]activity and thinkers and feelers and more,

0:21:29.753,0:21:36.559
and having talked and written and laughed and[br]cried and worried and despaired and regained[br]our power to plunge ahead again,

0:21:36.559,0:21:38.117
one thing seems clear.:

0:21:38.728,0:21:43.733
the global environmental, political and economic[br]predicament we live in today is critical,

0:21:43.733,0:21:47.404
the possible scenarios range[br]into the highly disturbing,

0:21:47.404,0:21:52.068
and the timeframe seems. . . well. . . imminent.

0:21:52.242,0:21:55.879
It's as though we've awakened[br]to find ourselves on a runaway train,

0:21:55.879,0:22:00.884
hurtling wildly down the tracks, held[br]in place by powerful cultural stories

0:22:00.884,0:22:07.255
and fueled by our desperate consumption of the[br]very heart, blood, bones and flesh of this planet.

0:22:07.824,0:22:10.894
If we don't find some way to stop this train soon,

0:22:10.894,0:22:13.260
we're going to reach the end of the line.

0:22:30.814,0:22:35.485
So what do you see when you wake up[br]on the train? I can tell you what I saw.

0:22:35.485,0:22:43.358
I saw the ground beneath the pavement,[br]the man behind the curtain, the monster[br]under the bed, the real below the rails.

0:22:44.694,0:22:51.701
The culture of Empire works every[br]moment of every day to distract my attention,[br]like a magician using sleight-of-hand.

0:22:51.701,0:22:55.637
What happens when I look where[br]the conjurer does not want me to look?

0:22:56.172,0:22:57.662
I see the trick.

0:22:58.708,0:23:01.575
I see the reality behind the illusion.

0:23:03.346,0:23:08.306
I see, if I look long enough,[br]that the Empire has no clothes.

0:23:11.120,0:23:12.622
Ride with me a while.

0:23:12.622,0:23:17.627
Look more closely at the train, and the tracks,[br]and the terrain through which we're speeding.

0:23:17.627,0:23:23.691
If we are to respond effectively, we'll need a[br]clear understanding of the whole of the situation.

0:23:24.634,0:23:27.937
For me, four aspects of our[br]predicament stand out.:

0:23:27.937,0:23:33.109
Peak oil, climate change, mass[br]extinction and population overshoot.

0:23:33.109,0:23:37.714
In the fall of 2005, Sally Erickson[br]and I circled the country by train,

0:23:37.714,0:23:41.673
meeting with people to talk[br]about these issues, and many others.

0:23:42.886,0:23:47.757
At some point you reach the place

0:23:47.757,0:23:50.783
where you can't get it out any faster.

0:23:52.195,0:23:56.733
So, when you get to that point you've reached[br]the peak. Then we start downhill.

0:23:56.733,0:24:02.228
And once we start downhill that's when[br]economic collapse will occur.

0:24:03.072,0:24:07.877
That's my friend Tom, talking about oll.[br]Peak Oil. And Economic Collapse.

0:24:07.877,0:24:15.409
At first I didn't get it. So I started reading.[br]And on our trip I met with some people[br]who knew more about the situation.

0:24:15.919,0:24:20.924
Over the last 150 years we've[br]created a society that runs on oil.

0:24:20.924,0:24:23.626
And it's inevitable that we would have done so,

0:24:23.626,0:24:26.896
because it's just such incredible inexpensive,

0:24:26.896,0:24:29.228
convenient, energy-dense stuff.

0:24:29.532,0:24:37.098
I spoke with Richard Heinberg, a core[br]faculty member of New College of Callfornla[br]and author of three books on Peak Oil.

0:24:37.574,0:24:46.583
The problem, of course, is that oil is a[br]non-renewable resource. So even[br]when we first started using the stuff[br]we knew that eventually we'd run out.

0:24:46.583,0:24:51.543
I met with the journalist Paul Roberts,[br]who wrote a book about oil depletion in 2004.

0:24:52.522,0:24:54.891
At some point, since oil is a finite resource,

0:24:54.891,0:24:57.594
you can't keep raising production.

0:24:57.594,0:24:59.162
Usually this is about the halfway point.

0:24:59.162,0:25:01.297
When you've depleted half of the resource

0:25:01.297,0:25:03.967
it becomes harder and harder to raise[br]production. Doesn't mean you run out.

0:25:03.967,0:25:06.369
And a great deal of oil is still[br]coming out of the ground.

0:25:06.369,0:25:11.374
If we were to peak tomorrow we'd still have[br]eighty-two and a half million barrels[br]coming out of the ground every day.

0:25:11.374,0:25:14.537
But it would be really hard to get[br]eighty-three and a half million barrels.

0:25:14.978,0:25:25.288
Gerald Cecil, a professor of Astrophysics at the[br]University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has[br]been so taken by the oil situation that he's now[br]writing a book about it.

0:25:25.288,0:25:29.258
The rate with which oil has been[br]coming out of the ground has stagnated.

0:25:29.258,0:25:33.062
It's stagnated at eighty four[br]million barrels of oil a day,

0:25:33.062,0:25:39.535
which sounds like an incredible number.[br]But that's what we use to power[br]ourselves at today's rate of use.

0:25:39.535,0:25:46.843
And as the world population continues to grow,[br]and as prosperity presumably continues to grow[br]and people power up in their energy use,

0:25:46.843,0:25:51.514
we get to a situation where there isn't any[br]excess capacity to keep that powering going.

0:25:51.514,0:25:58.187
And at some point you end up with a[br]flat supply and a growing demand[br]and you have serious problems.

0:25:58.187,0:26:00.314
And that's the nature of peak oil.

0:26:01.858,0:26:06.818
Are we at or near the peak of oil extraction?[br]There are many signs that we are.

0:26:07.997,0:26:13.002
Discoveries of new oil peaked[br]right around 1963, '64.

0:26:13.002,0:26:15.004
That was a long time ago.

0:26:15.004,0:26:19.275
So we're not talking about a couple[br]years of bad luck in exploration.

0:26:19.275,0:26:21.077
This is a long-established trend.

0:26:21.077,0:26:30.850
We've been discovering less oil with every[br]passing year, to the point now where we're[br]extracting and using about four or five barrels of[br]oil for everyone that we discover.

0:26:31.154,0:26:39.357
Now the oil industry responded in a number of[br]ways. But one of the things it did was begin[br]developing some amazing new technologies to[br]help it find more oil faster.

0:26:39.729,0:26:46.157
And despite this huge investment in technology,[br]and these great leaps forward, the rates of[br]discovery are still declining.

0:26:46.569,0:26:51.441
Country after country is reaching its own[br]national all-time oil production peak

0:26:51.441,0:26:52.942
and going into decline.

0:26:52.942,0:27:01.250
The US was one of the first to do it back[br]in 1970. And now something like[br]30 or 33 countries are past their peak.

0:27:01.250,0:27:07.623
And so it's inevitable that within the[br]very next few years we'll see the[br]global peak in oil production.

0:27:07.623,0:27:09.181
Nobody's ready for that.

0:27:10.059,0:27:14.723
Not ready for what, exactly? What will[br]the end of cheap oil mean for the world?

0:27:14.997,0:27:17.625
I went to speak with the writer[br]and activist Jerry Mander.

0:27:17.967,0:27:24.463
I'd let myself believe that the real problems[br]were decades away. Turns out they're[br]probably right around the corner.

0:27:25.308,0:27:27.503
All the structures that now exist -

0:27:28.211,0:27:30.702
our urban formations,

0:27:31.547,0:27:34.539
our transportation systems,

0:27:35.451,0:27:37.282
our means of getting food,

0:27:37.954,0:27:40.787
globalization as an economic model,

0:27:42.125,0:27:44.116
capitalism as an economic model,

0:27:44.360,0:27:48.820
which depends on constant expansion and[br]growth and ever-more resources -

0:27:49.332,0:27:53.302
cannot possibly continue to exist.

0:27:53.302,0:28:02.335
Because they're all based on - the root base of[br]all of it - is the existence of cheap energy.

0:28:02.779,0:28:08.718
In order to avoid a deflationary[br]depression we have to have continual[br]growth in the money supply,

0:28:08.718,0:28:13.723
which has to be based on continual[br]growth in economic activity,

0:28:13.723,0:28:19.662
which must be based on the continual[br]growth in available energy and raw materials.

0:28:19.662,0:28:27.034
We've built an economy based on the idea that[br]It has to grow every year or else collapse.

0:28:27.570,0:28:30.273
So, soon, the economy won't be able to grow.

0:28:30.273,0:28:37.304
And all signs are that we may be facing a kind of[br]global economic collapse because of peak oil.

0:28:38.548,0:28:44.316
It seems that, if our economy is poised for[br]meltdown, our agricultural system is doubly so.

0:28:44.787,0:28:52.717
I spoke with local sustainable designer[br]Harvey Harman and with writer Richard[br]Manning about what he calls "the oil we eat".

0:28:52.962,0:28:58.491
The average piece of food in your supermarket[br]has traveled 3,000 miles or more to get there.

0:28:59.202,0:29:04.140
So not only is it based on petroleum to grow it,

0:29:04.140,0:29:07.076
but then it's transported, and refrigerated.

0:29:07.076,0:29:08.744
And, you know, it's a system

0:29:08.744,0:29:15.484
that's very dependent on cheap energy,[br]and it's very energy-intensive.

0:29:15.484,0:29:21.858
If we take a look at about 1940, and an[br]American farmer, that farmer was using roughly

0:29:21.858,0:29:27.125
a calorie of fossil fuel to make a calorie of food.

0:29:27.663,0:29:29.899
Today that same farmer

0:29:29.899,0:29:35.201
uses something like 10 calories of[br]fossil fuel to make a calorie of food.

0:29:36.239,0:29:42.645
That means that petrochemicals, fossil fuel,[br]have become embedded in our food supply.

0:29:42.645,0:29:48.811
if we run out of fossil fuel that strategy[br]will collapse in a heartbeat.

0:29:49.518,0:29:54.323
Sadly, with so much at stake, oil[br]grows increasingly worth fighting for.

0:29:54.323,0:29:56.587
My friend Ray said it best.

0:29:57.026,0:29:59.262
Prices will naturally begin to rise

0:29:59.262,0:30:01.364
and people will probably fight over it more.

0:30:01.364,0:30:07.603
And the US will, almost certainly, with[br]whatever means are necessary, make[br]sure that we get everything we need.

0:30:07.603,0:30:11.664
And so that will probably make[br]for an unhappy rest of the planet.

0:30:13.109,0:30:15.711
It's a permanent state of affairs. You know?

0:30:15.711,0:30:19.977
The fuel crisis will be over in a[br]couple of hundred million years.

0:30:20.316,0:30:30.459
When everything has settled down and there's a[br]lot more having been made from all of us[br]having, you know, been squished back under.

0:30:30.459,0:30:32.528
(laughs)

0:30:32.528,0:30:34.257
It takes a long time.

0:30:36.265,0:30:40.436
Peak oil got my attention.[br]The ramifications are enormous.

0:30:40.436,0:30:45.805
And if the oil situation is bleak, some say[br]that the natural gas situation is even worse.

0:30:46.142,0:30:48.633
As writer and professor Otis Graham said.:

0:30:48.944,0:30:50.645
We've had three or four hundred years of

0:30:50.645,0:30:53.082
fossil fuel - it's coming to an end.

0:30:53.082,0:30:54.850
is that an historic turning point?

0:30:54.850,0:30:56.317
it's breathtaking!

0:30:57.920,0:31:01.657
Even more breathtaking is what[br]happens when we burn the stuff.

0:31:01.657,0:31:07.595
Scientists used to talk about climate[br]change in terms of centuries. Now[br]they're talking about decades.

0:31:07.595,0:31:12.969
Now they're talking about next year.[br]Now they're talking about now.

0:31:12.969,0:31:16.005
My friends and neighbors[br]are talking about it too.

0:31:16.005,0:31:19.308
We've increased the levels of carbon[br]dioxide in the atmosphere.

0:31:19.308,0:31:24.880
Which traps heat in the earth's atmosphere.[br]Which raises the temperature.

0:31:24.880,0:31:27.750
The glaciers are melting. The sea ice is melting.

0:31:27.750,0:31:30.453
The polar ice caps are basically melting.

0:31:30.453,0:31:36.692
And I hate it. I hate feeling like[br]we've done this to nature.

0:31:36.692,0:31:41.697
Not to mention all of the animals,[br]all of the wildlife, that are going to die.

0:31:41.697,0:31:44.166
it'll begin to happen.[br]it's already beginning to happen.

0:31:44.166,0:31:47.236
it's happening everywhere.[br]You know. it's happening!

0:31:47.236,0:31:48.497
it's terrifying.

0:31:49.071,0:31:50.868
it's a drag.

0:31:51.640,0:31:53.475
That's putting it mildly.

0:31:53.475,0:32:00.814
The only good thing I can think to say[br]about climate change is that when I[br]understood the climate situation, I[br]spent less time worrying about oil.

0:32:01.617,0:32:03.986
some people have said, and I[br]think they're right about this,

0:32:03.986,0:32:08.189
we're gonna run out of air to burn[br]before we run out of fossil fuels to burn.

0:32:08.189,0:32:13.595
in other words, the fossil fuels are[br]creating the global warming problem,

0:32:13.595,0:32:16.298
the CO2, and the pollution problems.

0:32:16.298,0:32:20.301
And, if we keep using those, it's not really a[br]matter of when we run out of fossil fuels.

0:32:20.301,0:32:28.004
It's when we befoul the atmosphere so much,[br]and create so much global warming, it's[br]irrelevant how much gas we've got left.

0:32:28.744,0:32:32.373
There. See what I mean? You feel[br]better already, don't you?

0:32:33.382,0:32:38.342
So, whom else could I speak with about the[br]climate? Turns out I didn't have to go very far.

0:32:38.654,0:32:45.628
William Schlesinger, Dean of the Nicholas[br]School of the Environment and Earth Sciences[br]at Duke University had this to say.

0:32:45.628,0:32:49.632
We have raised, globally in our atmosphere,

0:32:49.632,0:32:51.967
the concentration of carbon dioxide

0:32:51.967,0:33:00.242
from about 280 parts-per-million in the late[br]1800's to close to 380 parts-per-million today.

0:33:00.242,0:33:08.317
That's roughly a 30% increase.[br]And the projection is that it will[br]be 550, 560, in the year 2050.

0:33:08.317,0:33:14.323
Schlesinger's colleague at Duke, Professor of[br]Conservation Ecology Stuart Pimm, added this.:

0:33:14.323,0:33:17.293
There is now a strong scientific consensus that

0:33:17.293,0:33:19.728
that has caused warming over the last

0:33:19.728,0:33:26.224
several decades, maybe centuries, and there's a[br]strong expectation that it will continue to do so.

0:33:26.569,0:33:33.642
So. . .greenhouse gases on the rise.[br]Temperature on the rise. More floods.[br]More droughts. Rising sea level.

0:33:33.642,0:33:38.647
It's been in the news for some time now.[br]How does this impact the community of life?

0:33:38.647,0:33:48.557
Birds are arriving earlier in the springtime.[br]Plants are flowering earlier. Species'[br]ranges are moving northward.

0:33:48.557,0:33:55.831
We are seeing an extraordinary,[br]strong signal, biological signal,

0:33:55.831,0:33:58.267
of what global warming is doing for us.

0:33:58.267,0:34:02.238
Crops and trees will grow in[br]places they don't grow today.

0:34:02.238,0:34:06.075
We have a lot of suspicion that[br]they may not grow as well.

0:34:06.075,0:34:14.915
And we're beginning to see extinctions of[br]species that have literally no place[br]else to go as the climate gets warmer.

0:34:15.284,0:34:18.420
There's one impact I found particularly sobering.

0:34:18.420,0:34:22.690
The carbon in the atmosphere. The carbon in[br]the atmosphere goes into the ocean,

0:34:22.690,0:34:25.460
it gets absorbed in the ocean as,[br]I want to say, carbonic acid. . .

0:34:25.460,0:34:27.263
Changes in the atmosphere, for example,

0:34:27.263,0:34:30.299
of carbon dioxide can be buffered by absorption

0:34:30.299,0:34:32.434
of the carbon dioxide into the oceans.

0:34:32.434,0:34:40.476
That as you do that, you do change the acidity of[br]the oceans. And we are finding that there's a[br]measurable change in the acidity of the oceans.

0:34:40.476,0:34:48.645
And that is making it harder for the plankton to[br]form their shells. And if there's a plankton die-[br]off. . . that's the bottom of the food chain.

0:34:49.784,0:34:56.525
Plankton, as well as corals, are threatened not[br]only by rising acidity, but by rising temperatures.

0:34:56.525,0:35:00.963
Phytoplankton levels have declined by as much[br]as a third in some northern oceans.

0:35:00.963,0:35:06.569
And this has resulted in significant[br]impacts to fish and krill and bird populations.

0:35:06.569,0:35:11.574
But the reported dangers go far beyond a[br]breaking of food chains, which is bad enough.

0:35:11.574,0:35:16.011
Phytoplanktons produce half of[br]the oxygen we breathe. Half.

0:35:16.979,0:35:19.072
And they are a major carbon sink.

0:35:19.481,0:35:25.181
When plankton dies, more carbon remains[br]in the air. Which means more warming.

0:35:26.522,0:35:31.160
On top of this, new evidence shows[br]that climate can shift very rapidly.

0:35:31.160,0:35:37.827
Slow changes can build. . . to a[br]tipping point. . .and the system can[br]then shift abruptly to a new state.

0:35:38.634,0:35:47.576
this is happening in the oceans, where a global[br]current known as the grand conveyor belt is now[br]being impacted, with possibly disastrous results.

0:35:47.576,0:35:56.118
As Douglas Crawford-Brown, Director[br]of the Carolina Environmental[br]Program at the University of North[br]Carolina at Chapel Hill told me.:

0:35:56.118,0:36:01.690
The amount of carbon dioxide that we're putting[br]out into the atmosphere is rising to a point now

0:36:01.690,0:36:06.462
where most scientists would agree[br]that we may be at a sort of tipping point.

0:36:06.462,0:36:13.302
We may be at a point where we're going to[br]start to get so much carbon dioxide into the[br]atmosphere that feedback mechanisms

0:36:13.302,0:36:18.307
that control the temperature of the earth will[br]start to be stretched a little bit too far.

0:36:18.307,0:36:25.447
The classic one is you get too much[br]melting of ice, it flows into the ocean,[br]and you shut off the conveyor belt.

0:36:25.447,0:36:30.219
And if that happens, this will cause dramatic[br]changes in the climate in England.

0:36:30.219,0:36:37.426
I mean, England would literally become Norway[br]or Sweden, if you look at them on the globe, if[br]the conveyor belt were to be slowed down.

0:36:37.426,0:36:40.327
And we're starting to see[br]changes of those magnitudes.

0:36:41.163,0:36:45.200
this is why I tend to use the term climate[br]change, rather than global warming.

0:36:45.200,0:36:54.131
A warming planet can have heating and drought[br]in some areas, and freezing in others, such as[br]Europe and North America would experience if[br]the Gulf Steam shut down.

0:36:54.777,0:36:56.938
The impact of that would be huge.

0:36:57.379,0:37:05.788
those portions, much of which supply the[br]agricultural bounty for Europe and the US,

0:37:05.788,0:37:10.748
would have dramatic changes in climate,[br]particularly affecting agriculture.

0:37:11.894,0:37:18.561
There are a number of self-reinforcing[br]feedback loops now in operation.[br]Here are two such processes.

0:37:19.168,0:37:27.303
You know the polar ice melting, which is opening[br]huge areas of sea in the polar regions.

0:37:28.644,0:37:32.444
Without that ice, which normally reflects sunlight,

0:37:33.515,0:37:40.148
that polar sea is now going to be absorbing[br]a lot more sunlight and, therefore, heat.

0:37:40.789,0:37:47.196
We have a lot of carbon stored in the[br]permafrost. And those permafrosts[br]are starting to defrost.

0:37:47.196,0:37:50.899
And when they defrost that carbon dioxide - that[br]carbon - is going to be oxidized

0:37:50.899,0:37:54.069
to carbon dioxide, or brought out[br]as methane and so on.

0:37:54.069,0:37:57.673
And that will be a dramatic[br]increase in greenhouse gases.

0:37:57.673,0:38:05.045
This may get out of hand and we'll suddenly[br]be looking at a very rapid warming of the planet.

0:38:05.514,0:38:07.414
This may get out of hand.

0:38:07.716,0:38:13.422
given that there seems to be a[br]consensus that we need to reduce carbon[br]emissions by 70 percent or more,

0:38:13.422,0:38:17.426
and given that we live in a world where[br]economies must grow or die,

0:38:17.426,0:38:21.296
and given that our carbon emissions grow[br]along with our economies,

0:38:21.296,0:38:26.301
and given that many countries are working[br]feverishly to emulate the American way of life,

0:38:26.301,0:38:30.005
it's difficult to see a way to STOP[br]it from getting out of hand.

0:38:30.005,0:38:35.841
I've yet to see a proposed solution[br]that even comes close to realistically[br]addressing the situation.

0:38:37.045,0:38:39.741
Talk about a snowball's chance in hell.

0:38:40.315,0:38:44.520
I used to take this martial arts class. And a lot of[br]these guys, it was kind of a kung-fu thing,

0:38:44.520,0:38:46.989
a lot of the guys in class would be saying,[br]'well, what if i meet a guy that's really good

0:38:46.989,0:38:49.892
in tae-kwon-do?',[br]or "what if i meet a really good boxer?"

0:38:49.892,0:38:52.494
And the teacher would say, "well, you're[br]going to get your butt kicked". You know?

0:38:52.494,0:38:58.033
You say, "what if we run into a tipping point[br]where we have this kind of accelerated[br]scenario of climate change?"

0:38:58.033,0:38:59.301
We're going to get our butts kicked.

0:38:59.301,0:39:05.941
It's very possible that global climate[br]change is out of our control at this[br]point no matter what we do.

0:39:05.941,0:39:11.380
Whether we implement Kyoto, or[br]Kyoto on steroids, or whatever it is.

0:39:11.380,0:39:18.320
I don't know how it will be manageable.[br]If they can't manage the fallout from[br]the New Orleans catastrophe

0:39:18.320,0:39:23.622
what's going to happen when they try to[br]manage a society-wide catastrophic situation?

0:39:24.927,0:39:31.266
We can take a lot of punches.[br]Nature takes punches pretty readily.

0:39:31.266,0:39:34.292
Global warming is a really severe punch.

0:39:35.270,0:39:41.510
And all that we depend on for[br]natural systems and agricultural systems

0:39:41.510,0:39:43.774
is about to be wiped out pretty drastically.

0:39:45.314,0:39:51.487
About to be? What is he saying? Do we[br]dare speak of such disasters as inevitable?

0:39:51.487,0:39:55.123
If we speak of inevitability,[br]will that overwhelm people?

0:39:55.123,0:39:58.460
Will they slide into apathy and diversion?

0:39:58.460,0:40:01.396
Isn't that where people already are?

0:40:01.396,0:40:04.900
I don't feel like I can afford to look[br]at anything less than the truth.

0:40:04.900,0:40:08.570
And then I must ask.: what are we made of?

0:40:08.570,0:40:11.471
Who will we be in the face of such truths?

0:40:11.874,0:40:15.537
If we don't look at these[br]things, one thing seems certain.

0:40:15.944,0:40:23.719
Generations to come are not going to be very[br]happy with us for refusing to get serious

0:40:23.719,0:40:26.745
about these hugely important issues.

0:40:28.423,0:40:35.664
What really gets me is it's not just our human[br]descendents. Millions of species and more are[br]now threatened by our behavior.

0:40:35.664,0:40:40.569
And for many of them, there will[br]be no "generations to come".

0:40:40.569,0:40:45.741
We're killing off all the life forms that give us life.

0:40:45.741,0:40:49.978
We have black holes in the ocean.[br]There are no fish in places in the ocean.

0:40:49.978,0:40:54.677
What's happened to the fish?[br]What's happened?

0:40:55.250,0:41:01.246
That's my friend Barbara, who spent[br]her life as a teacher and activist,[br]working for the life of this planet.

0:41:01.723,0:41:07.992
The thing is, we know what's happened. My son[br]Jack knows. He's known since he was a kid.

0:41:08.363,0:41:12.568
I mean, everyone knows the problems -[br]the deforestation, the pollution of rivers,[br]the garbage, overpopulation.

0:41:12.568,0:41:19.308
All of these things the planet[br]isn't built for us to do that.

0:41:19.308,0:41:22.044
It's not built in such a way that it can take that.

0:41:22.044,0:41:27.607
I mean, we have to live on the planet, so[br]if we're going to destroy where we're[br]living then that's going to be a problem.

0:41:30.352,0:41:36.985
Hmm. Destroy where you're living. A problem?[br]What are the analysts and scientists saying?

0:41:39.061,0:41:42.297
Geologists mark geological time by catastrophe.

0:41:42.297,0:41:46.768
When did the comet hit and wipe out all those[br]species? When did the fossil record change?

0:41:46.768,0:41:53.909
so what was there yesterday was not[br]there the next day? And we're in one of those[br]periods right now. But it's human-caused.

0:41:53.909,0:41:59.779
And we're seeing an order of extinctions[br]now that ranks with the great[br]catastrophes on the planet.

0:41:59.915,0:42:09.187
Currently we are driving species to[br]extinction probably a thousand[br]times faster than they should be.

0:42:09.458,0:42:14.794
We will lose somewhere between a[br]quarter, maybe as many as a half,

0:42:15.263,0:42:19.468
of all the species on earth[br]within the next century.

0:42:19.468,0:42:22.801
I think what he's saying is.:[br]that would be bad.

0:42:23.305,0:42:26.241
When I spoke with Daniel Quinn,[br]he seemed to agree.

0:42:26.241,0:42:34.916
if this goes on, and on and on and on,[br]there's going to come a point

0:42:34.916,0:42:37.111
when the system is going to collapse.

0:42:38.220,0:42:45.888
What is it that's going on and on? Nothing[br]less than the people of Empire devouring[br]the world. As my friend Kevin put it.:

0:42:48.263,0:42:50.766
Humans are taking over the whole planet.

0:42:50.766,0:42:53.168
And everything else is being crowded out.

0:42:53.168,0:43:02.844
Crowded out. Felled and milled. Caught,[br]cleaned and canned. The numbers show[br]that the culture of civilization is eating[br]itself out of house and home.

0:43:02.844,0:43:08.717
On land, we consume forty percent of what's[br]known as the primary productivity of the planet.

0:43:08.717,0:43:15.290
If you look at how much green[br]"stuff" the planet produces every year,

0:43:15.290,0:43:17.693
we use about two-fifths of that.

0:43:17.693,0:43:24.933
We consume it, our domestic animals consume[br]it, and we use wood, and fibers like cotton.

0:43:24.933,0:43:30.839
I drive through the country and see it. Forests[br]are now fields and parking lots and box stores.

0:43:30.839,0:43:37.938
We grow crops and livestock and billboards[br]and cell phone towers, bulldozing and bush-[br]hogging our way around the globe.

0:43:38.714,0:43:46.985
And it's the destruction of the places[br]where species live that's the principal[br]cause of species becoming extinct.

0:43:48.824,0:43:51.359
It's the same story in the oceans.

0:43:51.359,0:44:02.904
Many people think that the oceans are vast and[br]untouched. And in actual fact we take about a[br]third of the production from the oceans, too.

0:44:02.904,0:44:07.008
Our fish stocks, all over the coast of the[br]United States and certainly around the world,

0:44:07.008,0:44:10.412
are getting perilously close to collapsing.

0:44:10.412,0:44:19.254
Most of the desirable, large, predatory[br]fish - snapper, swordfish, and the like -[br]have been reduced

0:44:19.254,0:44:23.020
down to ten percent of their previous population.

0:44:23.592,0:44:28.962
Down to ten percent? Maybe that's why[br]we're now eating tilapia instead of cod.

0:44:29.598,0:44:31.964
The cod is almost gone.

0:44:33.068,0:44:37.300
And with your tilapia may I suggest a[br]big tall glass of drinkable water?

0:44:37.572,0:44:44.679
When it comes to fresh water we probably[br]take about half of the available fresh water.

0:44:44.679,0:44:50.519
Part of the way we've fed the planet over[br]the last thirty years, as we've doubled[br]population, is to use a whole lot of water.

0:44:50.519,0:44:54.489
Our agriculture's now the leading[br]user of water in the world.

0:44:54.489,0:44:56.091
And in this nation as well.

0:44:56.091,0:45:04.633
Our watersheds in the United States have[br]been so highly developed that even small[br]changes in the amount of water that falls

0:45:04.633,0:45:10.071
are beginning to cause large implications[br]for society's availability of water.

0:45:11.106,0:45:16.011
Multiplying the impact of consumption[br]and habitat destruction is the fact that,

0:45:16.011,0:45:20.248
with fuels, with pesticides and[br]herbicides and industrial chemicals,

0:45:20.248,0:45:22.851
with noise and with electromagnetic waves

0:45:22.851,0:45:26.855
and with human activity and with[br]structures of control and domination,

0:45:26.855,0:45:32.694
Empire is literally and metaphorically[br]poisoning every square inch of the planet.

0:45:32.694,0:45:36.998
Yes, life will recover from[br]what we are doing to the planet.

0:45:36.998,0:45:38.400
But don't hold your breath.

0:45:38.400,0:45:40.335
It's going to take millions of years.

0:45:40.335,0:45:45.540
It's going to take an incredible[br]number of human generations.

0:45:45.540,0:45:50.879
Trillions of people will live in a[br]biologically impoverished world

0:45:50.879,0:45:56.078
if we don't stop our human impacts now.

0:45:57.552,0:46:00.822
I spoke with Daniel Quinn[br]about this mass extinction.

0:46:00.822,0:46:03.518
He gave me a metaphor[br]that has haunted me since.

0:46:04.759,0:46:10.823
We are like people who live in a[br]very tall building. . . brick building.[br]We live on the top floor.

0:46:11.399,0:46:21.775
And every day we go out, go down to the lower[br]floors and at random we knock bricks out, take[br]them upstairs to the top, and build higher.

0:46:23.578,0:46:28.709
Every day. Downstairs, 200 bricks.[br]Take them upstairs.

0:46:30.018,0:46:36.992
And the building is perfectly stable.[br]But it's not going to be stable forever.

0:46:36.992,0:46:42.464
Because we are attacking the[br]structural integrity of the building.

0:46:42.464,0:46:46.601
Two hundred species a day, day after[br]day after day, year after year. . .

0:46:46.601,0:46:49.069
And as our population increases

0:46:50.305,0:46:55.043
it's going to turn into 400 species[br]a day, a thousand species a day.

0:46:55.043,0:46:59.343
And there's going to come a day[br]when the system is going to collapse.

0:46:59.814,0:47:02.374
Two hundred species a day!?

0:47:04.152,0:47:06.950
This is calamitous.

0:47:07.689,0:47:14.496
We may already be well above 200 bricks[br]each day. And it looks to me like the[br]building is not far from collapse.

0:47:14.496,0:47:19.593
Everything in me wants to run out of the building[br]before it comes crashing down around my ears.

0:47:19.968,0:47:23.571
But where would I run?[br]Empire now covers the planet.

0:47:23.571,0:47:28.304
The building is everywhere.[br]And almost all of us are inside of it.

0:47:28.810,0:47:29.902
All of us.

0:47:30.478,0:47:33.106
All six and a half billion of us.

0:47:34.082,0:47:38.086
One of the hardest things to talk about[br]is the human population explosion.

0:47:38.086,0:47:45.583
The friends and neighbors I spoke with all[br]seemed to agree that the enormous[br]increase in human population would[br]soon have to be reckoned with.

0:47:45.860,0:47:48.196
We're approaching full tilt, I think,

0:47:48.196,0:47:54.226
in terms of what the planet can sustain.

0:47:54.869,0:48:00.308
Any species that has outgrown its environment

0:48:00.308,0:48:02.544
is pressed for resources.

0:48:02.544,0:48:04.346
is it just all going to end,

0:48:04.346,0:48:06.414
and is that going to be the solution?

0:48:06.414,0:48:10.285
You know, are we gonna become extinct

0:48:10.285,0:48:11.653
like the dinosaurs?

0:48:11.653,0:48:18.217
Equilibrium will be re-achieved.

0:48:18.960,0:48:22.597
Unfortunately, nature is a harsh taskmaster.

0:48:22.597,0:48:24.299
Because we're so intelligent,

0:48:24.299,0:48:27.369
because we're such a different class of animal,

0:48:27.369,0:48:35.477
with such a big brain, we have the ability[br]to understand and foresee and prepare[br]and stuff for these things,

0:48:35.477,0:48:37.206
doesn't mean we will.

0:48:37.846,0:48:40.982
How will we face into the[br]issue of human population?

0:48:40.982,0:48:47.522
I went to speak with William Catton, a[br]professor of Sociology & Human Ecology[br]at Washington State University,

0:48:47.522,0:48:53.290
now retired, and author of an amazing[br]book on ecology and human[br]population called Overshoot.

0:48:53.728,0:48:57.459
According to Catton's assessment[br]of the carrying capacity of the planet.:

0:48:57.832,0:49:00.402
I think the way we're living now,

0:49:00.402,0:49:03.705
the world was overpopulated already

0:49:03.705,0:49:05.536
by the time of our civil war.

0:49:06.474,0:49:10.712
The population at the time of the US[br]Civil War was just over one billion.

0:49:10.712,0:49:15.672
So we've now overshot that number by[br]more than 5 billion. As Catton told me.:

0:49:16.484,0:49:20.388
It is possible to exceed carrying[br]capacity. But only temporarily.

0:49:20.388,0:49:26.020
if you exceed carrying capacity[br]you then damage the environment[br]upon which you're depending.

0:49:26.461,0:49:33.367
Looking closely, I've come to see that[br]population numbers for humans, in and of[br]themselves, are only part of the story.

0:49:33.902,0:49:37.839
As Catton points out, it's the damage[br]those numbers do that counts.

0:49:37.839,0:49:41.331
And that damage is intimately[br]connected to our way of life.

0:49:41.843,0:49:45.914
The Earth supports as great a collective[br]mass of ants as it does people.

0:49:45.914,0:49:52.787
It can do so because ants aren't[br]building 6000-square-foot homes,[br]driving two hours to their jobs,

0:49:52.787,0:49:57.747
buying plasma TV sets, and killing each[br]other with depleted uranium munitions.

0:49:58.393,0:50:03.731
We in the developed world have[br]32 times the footprint on the planet,

0:50:03.731,0:50:07.792
on resources... depletion...[br]32 times a person in india.

0:50:10.705,0:50:13.606
I think we all know that[br]though the figure is stunning.

0:50:13.942,0:50:19.903
And it ought to make us really think,[br]and start to talk with each other about this.

0:50:20.548,0:50:25.508
You talk about how many "energy[br]slaves", per capita, do we have?

0:50:27.088,0:50:29.991
In this country we've got something like 70 times

0:50:29.991,0:50:34.996
as many energy slaves per capita[br]as people in Bangladesh.

0:50:34.996,0:50:39.067
instead of thinking of Bangladesh[br]as the overpopulated country,

0:50:39.067,0:50:41.503
if you multiply each of us by seventy

0:50:41.503,0:50:47.242
- take that 290 million, or whatever number of[br]us there are now, multiple it be seventy - wow.

0:50:47.242,0:50:49.938
We are an overpopulated country.

0:50:50.245,0:50:58.050
In those terms, the US is a nation of[br]21 billion people. And my own three[br]children add 210 to that number.

0:50:58.386,0:51:03.691
To speak of population, then, as the root[br]cause of our problem makes little sense to me.

0:51:03.691,0:51:13.657
It conjures images of crowded third-world[br]cities and teeming masses of human flesh,[br]while the global impacts of rich first-world[br]lifestyles go unexamined.

0:51:15.970,0:51:21.306
Big feet. More and more feet. And more[br]and more feet getting bigger and bigger.

0:51:21.709,0:51:26.908
And if these feet just keep on walking, one of[br]these days they're gonna walk right into oblivion.

0:51:28.416,0:51:31.351
It cannot be sustained for much longer.

0:51:33.755,0:51:37.158
There are any number of catastrophic[br]forces that could lower our numbers,

0:51:37.158,0:51:41.424
as oil depletion, climate change and[br]environmental collapses play out.

0:51:41.863,0:51:45.799
One thing large populations are[br]especially prone to is disease.

0:51:46.668,0:51:51.628
Microbes are gonna have a lot more to do with it[br]than humans have to do with it in the end.

0:51:52.407,0:51:57.071
Nature - we're still governed by natural rules,[br]we like to think we're not, but we are -

0:51:57.512,0:52:02.074
when you put together the kind of biomass[br]that humans represent on this planet,

0:52:02.951,0:52:05.818
we're an asset to somebody. We're a resource.

0:52:07.288,0:52:11.725
But it may be possible to meet the[br]situation with consciousness and intention.

0:52:11.960,0:52:16.590
Once we get to the peak human[br]population, wherever that is -

0:52:16.864,0:52:22.564
I hope it is 8 1/2 billion rather than[br]12 billion but it's gonna be high -

0:52:22.904,0:52:26.774
whenever we get there, what -[br]do we have a vision of what we should do?

0:52:26.774,0:52:31.246
I mean, we got to the peak,[br]and there's trouble all around us!

0:52:31.246,0:52:33.077
What should we do?

0:52:33.648,0:52:43.683
Somehow we've got to devise a way[br]for obtaining a soft landing as we[br]reduce the population from six-plus[br]billion down toward one billion.

0:52:43.992,0:52:48.763
If we decide we want to reduce it we can[br]see to it that the reduction occurs

0:52:48.763,0:52:54.998
in a more humane way than it will occur if we[br]just try to keep on business as usual.

0:52:55.470,0:53:03.036
Humanity has never been in this. This is[br]new. This is new. And this is big.[br]And this is not being talked about.

0:53:03.578,0:53:09.574
And because it is not being talked about,[br]we have no clear idea how we might[br]device that softer landing.

0:53:10.018,0:53:14.478
Talking about it, then, clearly[br]and honestly, is the first step.

0:53:14.989,0:53:19.050
Without that, catastrophe[br]is inevitable. But either way,

0:53:19.460,0:53:22.554
Our global population is going to be reduced.

0:53:24.365,0:53:29.928
this is what I had to face.: the population[br]of my species is going to be reduced.

0:53:30.004,0:53:35.610
I had to face it just like the grizzly[br]bears have had to face it, and the[br]wild salmon have had to face it,

0:53:35.610,0:53:40.348
just like the right whales and the piping plovers[br]and the mountain gorillas have had to face it,

0:53:40.348,0:53:46.912
just like the great auks and the golden[br]toads and the blackfin cisco had to[br]face it before they went extinct.

0:53:47.422,0:53:51.722
And I had to face something else.:[br]I have a choice about how I meet it.

0:53:52.160,0:53:54.529
My friend Lyle gave it some perspective.

0:53:54.529,0:54:01.569
The fact is that there have been die-offs[br]of civilizations. There have been[br]collapses of great, mighty civilizations.

0:54:01.569,0:54:06.802
Sophisticated, powerful, unbelievable[br]civilizations have collapsed.

0:54:07.008,0:54:10.239
And it's a choice.

0:54:10.978,0:54:18.453
it's a choice that we can decide to succeed[br]or fail. And i'm going to go ahead and[br]decide to succeed, thank you

0:54:18.453,0:54:21.217
And i'd really like it if you'd come with me.

0:54:23.424,0:54:28.384
What choices do we now have? What would[br]that success Lyle speaks of look like?

0:54:28.963,0:54:34.924
What is inevitable at this point? And[br]what remains to be created, if only we[br]awaken to our power?

0:54:36.270,0:54:41.230
Most importantly, why have we[br]not already awakened?

0:54:42.610,0:54:48.883
And you know something? The more[br]you talk about your problems the[br]easier they are to solve.

0:54:48.883,0:54:52.720
This bottling things up inside is bad!

0:54:52.720,0:54:56.087
We can't survive apart from the earth.

0:54:56.691,0:54:58.818
And so. . . we're killing it!

0:54:59.427,0:55:08.236
i think part of looking at things exactly[br]the way they are is feeling how isolated

0:55:08.236,0:55:13.341
and alienated we have become from ourselves,

0:55:13.341,0:55:16.878
from the people around us,[br]and from the natural world.

0:55:16.878,0:55:25.479
And when you look at that, and experience[br]that, the natural response is deep grief.

0:55:26.254,0:55:29.052
Deep grief at the loss of connection.

0:55:39.467,0:55:42.231
There are other issues we could have looked at.

0:55:45.072,0:55:47.700
How do we face into all of this information?

0:55:48.543,0:55:52.673
It looks as though our very survival[br]as a species is now in question.

0:55:54.315,0:55:59.878
As I gaze unflinchingly at the world situation,[br]the information goes right into my body.

0:56:00.221,0:56:01.916
I feel shaken to the core.

0:56:02.457,0:56:04.118
I feel like running away.

0:56:04.559,0:56:08.120
I feel, at times, like I've been hit head on.

0:56:09.063,0:56:10.963
I know I'm not alone.

0:56:11.399,0:56:15.733
I wish I had some magic potion.[br]I wish I had some easy fix.

0:56:16.103,0:56:19.334
I wish I could just tell you that[br]everything is going to be OK.

0:56:20.274,0:56:22.743
But of course I can't tell you that.

0:56:22.743,0:56:26.770
And probably, deep down,[br]you already know that.

0:56:28.382,0:56:30.680
What chance do I really have, doctor?

0:56:32.086,0:56:37.758
Mr. Marshall, I have no desire to mislead you.

0:56:37.758,0:56:41.489
I'm sure you realize that[br]recovery is not a sure thing.

0:56:43.798,0:56:48.803
Thirty-six years after the first Earth Day,[br]forty-four years after Silent Spring,

0:56:48.803,0:56:53.604
the planet is closer now to ecological[br]meltdown than it has ever been.

0:56:54.942,0:57:01.782
If what we want is to stop the destruction[br]of the life of this planet, then what[br]we have been doing has not been working.

0:57:01.782,0:57:04.182
We will have to do something else.

0:57:05.853,0:57:08.879
When we stay focused on[br]the question, "what do we do?"

0:57:10.091,0:57:15.586
we don't ask the more basic[br]questions about "how did we get here?"

0:57:17.765,0:57:28.075
And if we don't ask those questions i don't[br]think we've got much chance of effecting

0:57:28.075,0:57:33.035
the kind of radical change that we're going to[br]have to effect if we're going to make it.

0:57:33.347,0:57:38.046
Well, i appreciate your being so[br]frank with me, Dr Swenson.

0:57:39.353,0:57:42.447
I guess I don't have to tell you how i feel.

0:57:43.591,0:57:48.462
From my experience, talking about how[br]we feel is exactly what we need to be doing.

0:57:48.462,0:57:51.363
And we'll also need to[br]question some assumptions.

0:57:52.066,0:57:58.472
One assumption I question is the one[br]that tells us that, since scientists can[br]help us understand the situation,

0:57:58.472,0:58:02.135
they are automatically equipped[br]to tell us how to "solve" it.

0:58:02.677,0:58:07.637
But there are forces at work in the world that[br]cannot be understood through a microscope.

0:58:09.450,0:58:15.150
What are the forces that brought us[br]to this point? And what are the[br]forces that keep us stuck here?

0:58:16.090,0:58:19.582
I went to speak with the people who are[br]trying to answer these questions.

0:58:21.162,0:58:27.226
I realized that I would have to step[br]outside of the culture, so that I could[br]see it from a new perspective.

0:58:28.302,0:58:35.042
Deep inside the tangle of problems that[br]threatens the entire world there rages a[br]boundless blaze of cultural fire,

0:58:35.042,0:58:38.910
the locomotive power for the[br]cultural train we're all now riding.:

0:58:39.580,0:58:44.950
an engine not of steam or diesel, but of[br]story, and myth, habit and belief.

0:58:45.319,0:58:47.412
An engine racing out of control.

0:58:47.922,0:58:51.085
It's time to look more closely[br]at the culture of Empire.

0:58:51.492,0:58:53.585
So, how did we get into this mess?

0:58:54.061,0:58:57.997
wow. That's a cosmic question.

0:58:58.499,0:59:07.897
Many analysts think it started about ten[br]thousand years ago when humans began to[br]engage in a new and fundamentally[br]unsustainable style of food production.

0:59:08.342,0:59:12.278
What we invented was something[br]that I call totalitarian agriculture,

0:59:12.546,0:59:19.787
which is predicated on the[br]notion that it all belongs to us.

0:59:19.787,0:59:24.792
We can kill off anything we don't want on[br]the land, put a fence around the land.

0:59:24.792,0:59:29.497
We can grow the food we want on[br]the land and Nobody else can touch it.

0:59:29.497,0:59:35.834
That slippery slope that we're on right now. . . we[br]started walking on that ten thousand years ago.

0:59:37.471,0:59:44.111
And it is because of an inherent[br]problem in "agriculture". "Agriculture"[br]really depends on disturbance.

0:59:44.111,0:59:49.116
There's no way you can do "agriculture"[br]without doing that catastrophic damage.

0:59:49.116,0:59:53.246
So it makes "agriculture"[br]fundamentally unsustainable.

0:59:54.288,0:59:58.392
The surplus from this new way[br]of getting food had immediate effects.

0:59:58.392,1:00:04.098
It has fueled this tremendous[br]population growth of ours.

1:00:04.098,1:00:07.966
Our growing population is always[br]catching up with our food production.

1:00:08.803,1:00:11.567
We have a food race on our hands.

1:00:11.806,1:00:17.144
We grow more food and the population[br]increases. So we grow more food.

1:00:17.144,1:00:19.547
It's a race that can't be won.

1:00:19.547,1:00:27.154
On top of that, totalitarian agriculture[br]also consigned its practitioners to[br]a life of hard work and poor health.

1:00:27.154,1:00:33.527
As a species, we had food before us for[br]all of our history, which is two hundred. . .[br]three hundred thousand years.

1:00:33.527,1:00:38.487
When you look at ten thousand years[br]it's relatively minor in that space.

1:00:38.999,1:00:40.668
But we were hunter-gatherers.

1:00:40.668,1:00:46.300
So nature grew our food in its way. As[br]opposed to our way, which is "agriculture".

1:00:47.508,1:00:49.840
We didn't grow food. Food grew.

1:00:51.345,1:00:55.281
it's hard for people to accept the fact that

1:00:57.918,1:01:05.326
the more you base your society[br]on agriculture, the harder you work.

1:01:05.326,1:01:09.230
if we look at archaeological sites around[br]the world - and people have done this -

1:01:09.230,1:01:11.665
in all the locations - this is not a cultural issue -

1:01:11.665,1:01:17.404
in all the locations where agriculture[br]began, in Asia, the Mid-East, South[br]America, and Central America,

1:01:17.404,1:01:20.207
we will find people who are stunted, short,

1:01:20.207,1:01:24.345
their teeth are invariable gone because of the[br]carbohydrates they're eating turn into sugars

1:01:24.345,1:01:25.946
and rot their teeth out,

1:01:25.946,1:01:32.351
they're misshapen, they're asymmetrical,[br]they show every evidence of suffering[br]all sorts of disease.

1:01:33.320,1:01:40.895
this new type of agriculture both required and[br]allowed more settlement, and with that came the[br]beginnings of wealth and inequality.

1:01:40.895,1:01:47.868
if you go to pre-agricultural towns you'll see a[br]series of houses, all about the same size.

1:01:47.868,1:01:56.076
And almost instantly, when agriculture occurred,[br]you can go to any town, in any agricultural site in[br]the world, not just in Western culture,

1:01:56.076,1:02:01.749
and see a few very large houses with[br]granaries connected to them, and a[br]whole series of smaller houses.

1:02:01.749,1:02:06.709
That kind of social inequity began[br]almost immediately with agriculture.

1:02:07.888,1:02:15.090
As Quinn and Manning point out, early[br]agricultural peoples were not better off[br]than their hunter-gatherer predecessors.

1:02:15.329,1:02:16.990
this was news to me.

1:02:17.264,1:02:23.760
The psychologist and cultural analyst[br]Chellis Glendinning points to other[br]consequences of settlement and agriculture.

1:02:24.205,1:02:28.869
Before, when women were moving around,[br]and very athletic, and carrying their babies,

1:02:29.977,1:02:34.114
and having a diet that[br]wasn't so high in carbohydrates,

1:02:34.114,1:02:37.084
and nursing their babies for long periods of time,

1:02:37.084,1:02:39.687
then women didn't ovulate very often.

1:02:39.687,1:02:44.692
But when women became sedentary,[br]women began to have regular cycles.

1:02:44.692,1:02:47.561
And so, more babies were born.[br]And so guess what?

1:02:47.561,1:02:52.794
Then you have to make more farms. And then[br]you have to expand the area that's fenced off.

1:02:53.434,1:02:57.972
And then, ooh, maybe you're going to[br]meet up with someone else who's[br]coming that way, another group.

1:02:57.972,1:02:59.963
And so then you have to have a war.

1:03:00.875,1:03:05.938
We're taught to regard agriculture and[br]settlement as the normal and[br]natural way for humans to live.

1:03:06.447,1:03:15.480
So it was a bit of a shock, to learn how these[br]basic cultural changes were the fundamental[br]cause of so many of the problems that have[br]dogged us through the centuries.

1:03:16.156,1:03:19.990
Derrick Jensen speaks to the[br]end result of all of this cultural change.

1:03:20.527,1:03:26.300
I think one of the best lines i ever wrote was that[br]"forests precede us and deserts dog our heels."

1:03:26.300,1:03:32.106
When I think of - or when you think of -[br]the plains and hillsides of Iraq,

1:03:32.106,1:03:37.169
is the first thing that you normally[br]think of cedar forests so thick the sunlight[br]never touches the ground?

1:03:37.978,1:03:39.613
I think for most of us that's not the case.

1:03:39.613,1:03:47.247
But the first written myth of this[br]culture is Gilgamesh cutting down[br]those forests to make cities.

1:03:48.789,1:03:53.749
Cities. Settlements begat villages[br]which begat towns which begat cities.

1:03:54.295,1:03:59.300
Totalitarian and catastrophic agriculture,[br]the accumulation of wealth and power,

1:03:59.300,1:04:05.139
and increases in population all came together to[br]give rise to a new form of human culture.:

1:04:05.139,1:04:08.575
the culture of cities, the culture of civilization,

1:04:08.575,1:04:10.270
the culture of Empire.

1:04:10.778,1:04:21.722
I realized, as I was writing the newest book,[br]Endgame, that i'd been bashing[br]civilization for probably, eh, ten years now.

1:04:21.722,1:04:24.825
And i'd never defined it.[br]I didn't know what i was talking about.

1:04:24.825,1:04:33.324
And so I define it in that book as a way of life[br]characterized by the growth of cities.

1:04:34.368,1:04:41.241
I've defined a city as a collection of people[br]living in numbers large enough to require[br]the importation of resources.

1:04:41.241,1:04:45.846
A city could be defined, almost, as a[br]human ecosystem that grossly exceeds

1:04:45.846,1:04:48.747
the carrying capacity of its local environment.

1:04:49.817,1:04:59.426
As Jensen and Catton point out, because[br]cities exceed the carrying capacity of their[br]local environment, and because they require[br]the importation of resources,

1:04:59.426,1:05:06.133
then those who live in cities are locked[br]into the inevitability of getting those[br]resources from somewhere else,

1:05:06.133,1:05:11.093
from somebody else,[br]by whatever means is necessary.

1:05:12.206,1:05:14.575
Often that means is trade.

1:05:14.575,1:05:22.349
But trade requires transport, and transport[br]requires energy, and energy has to come from[br]somewhere, and it eventually runs out.

1:05:22.349,1:05:27.286
And trade requires willing partners.[br]But people do not always want to trade.

1:05:27.654,1:05:32.682
When trade breaks down, and you need[br]those resources, what remains is war.

1:05:34.028,1:05:36.826
We now need oil to keep our cities going.

1:05:37.097,1:05:40.968
Watch the bidding war rage from[br]trade floors to battlefields.

1:05:40.968,1:05:44.529
Watch the Pentagon plan and the patriots act.

1:05:45.906,1:05:50.911
Let's stop for a second and regroup. I told you[br]I've had to challenge some assumptions.

1:05:50.911,1:05:57.684
We've been doing agriculture and expanding[br]and growing and building cities and[br]accumulating material wealth for so long now

1:05:57.684,1:06:01.288
that it just feels like this is how[br]things are supposed to be.

1:06:01.288,1:06:08.387
But how can a way of life that is destroying[br]its own support systems be considered[br]"how things are supposed to be"?

1:06:09.596,1:06:19.471
"...they did eat every herb of the land,[br]and all the fruit of the trees, and there[br]remained not any green thing... "[br]Exodus 10.:1 5

1:06:23.343,1:06:24.469
Let's move on.

1:06:25.579,1:06:33.687
Once our native human intelligence and[br]creativity was combined with the defining[br]impulses of empire, things began to snowball.

1:06:33.687,1:06:40.127
We kept using more and more sophisticated[br]technology so we could put off the inevitable.

1:06:40.127,1:06:42.721
Which is.: we've got physical limits.

1:06:43.063,1:06:47.768
Using the power of technology, we could break[br]through the limits and laws and rules

1:06:47.768,1:06:52.728
that kept the community of life in balance[br]for millions of years . . . temporarily. . .

1:06:53.140,1:06:58.378
Rules! All the time rules! i'm sick of 'em.

1:06:58.378,1:07:01.081
Offscreen Narrator.: Excuse me for[br]interrupting, boys and girls,

1:07:01.081,1:07:05.185
but maybe you would like to find out just[br]what it would be like if there were no rules.

1:07:05.185,1:07:07.087
But how could we do that?

1:07:07.087,1:07:09.715
By going someplace where there are no rules.

1:07:09.957,1:07:12.126
There's no such place.

1:07:12.126,1:07:16.230
But maybe there is a way we[br]could go to a place without rules.

1:07:16.230,1:07:17.397
how?

1:07:17.397,1:07:23.461
By using our imagination.[br]Now let's all pretend real hard. . .

1:07:25.506,1:07:28.041
And pretend we did.

1:07:28.041,1:07:32.279
thinking we had no limits, our power[br]to control went right to our heads.

1:07:32.279,1:07:35.442
As historian and "geologian"[br]Thomas Berry put it.:

1:07:57.504,1:08:02.464
What i say goes, see? i'm the law around here!

1:08:02.809,1:08:05.369
(laughs)

1:08:06.580,1:08:12.815
But the belief in the power to control has[br]proceeded on some faulty assumptions[br]about the limits of science.

1:08:40.981,1:08:43.450
I've been confused about technology.

1:08:43.450,1:08:49.122
I've heard all my life that technologies[br]themselves are neutral, that it all[br]depends on how we use them,

1:08:49.122,1:08:54.354
that they can be used for good or ill, depending[br]on the wisdom and intelligence of the user.

1:08:54.828,1:08:57.296
But, as Jerry Mander explains.:

1:08:57.296,1:09:02.301
That's completely wrong. You can[br]do an analysis of every technology

1:09:02.301,1:09:09.376
and find its beneficial aspects[br]and its negative aspects.

1:09:09.376,1:09:17.647
The idea that it's just about the way we use it is[br]absurd. Because these are built-in factors.

1:09:18.185,1:09:23.145
As an example, the difference between nuclear[br]and solar is more than in how we use them.

1:09:23.657,1:09:28.528
Each technology has built-in characteristics[br]that determine how they end up being used,

1:09:28.528,1:09:29.962
and who uses them,

1:09:29.962,1:09:31.231
and for what.

1:09:31.231,1:09:35.402
Military scientists are not now[br]working on a solar powered warhead.

1:09:35.402,1:09:39.236
And neither am I looking to put a[br]nuclear water heater on my roof.

1:09:40.907,1:09:45.867
Because of this misunderstanding, it's easy to[br]get trapped in the myth of the technofix. . .

1:09:46.446,1:09:52.886
Ever since that division of humans and[br]human space away from the rest of the world,

1:09:52.886,1:09:57.846
there's been one problem arising from[br]that situation after another, you know.

1:09:58.458,1:10:02.292
"Oh dear, we have to pipe in more[br]water for the more farms", you know.

1:10:03.130,1:10:05.499
"Oh dear, now we have to[br]travel great distances".

1:10:05.499,1:10:08.559
"Oh dear, now we need more[br]resources, we need more land".

1:10:09.102,1:10:13.507
Whatever. It's been one[br]technological fix after another.

1:10:13.507,1:10:19.146
And then as soon as you try to answer[br]something with some kind of a technological fix[br]that doesn't really go to the root of the problem

1:10:19.146,1:10:20.480
then there's going to be new problems.

1:10:20.480,1:10:22.749
And then it just rolls along.

1:10:22.749,1:10:28.922
And so now, I mean, you look at the state[br]of the world now and half the people in the[br]world are living in urban areas.

1:10:28.922,1:10:31.458
so how do you answer that?

1:10:31.458,1:10:35.128
And the population explosion[br]has gone to such an extreme.

1:10:35.128,1:10:39.326
How do you answer that, but[br]with another technological fix?

1:10:39.700,1:10:42.169
Half the people in the world live in cities.

1:10:42.169,1:10:47.174
And cities, by definition, exceed the[br]carrying capacity of their local environments.

1:10:47.174,1:10:49.267
I don't think most people know this.

1:10:49.609,1:10:53.705
But you'll agree that to make up your[br]mind fairly you have to know all the facts.

1:10:54.214,1:10:56.444
See, I don't think you know all the facts.

1:10:57.617,1:11:02.577
If we knew all the facts we'd have discarded[br]the myth of the technofix a long time ago.

1:11:02.889,1:11:10.864
To my eye our crisis, at its deepest[br]levels, is a crisis not of technology[br]but of meaning and purpose.

1:11:10.864,1:11:17.738
We keep acting like all we need do is[br]throw more technology at it while we[br]fall to understand, or even see,

1:11:17.738,1:11:25.702
the clearly cultural issues that doom to[br]fantastic failure these ever more desperate[br]attempts to keep the present system going.

1:11:26.346,1:11:30.784
We've been pretending for so long[br]we've forgotten what we once knew.:

1:11:30.784,1:11:34.982
you can't survive in the long run[br]if you don't follow the laws of life.

1:11:36.156,1:11:42.396
As we settled into agriculture and civilization,[br]agriculture and civilization settled into us.

1:11:42.396,1:11:45.098
We fenced ourselves off from the world. . .

1:11:45.098,1:11:48.969
And everything inside the fence[br]became what we needed to survive.

1:11:48.969,1:11:55.135
And everything outside the fence[br]became threatening, wild, you know,[br]uncontrollable, keep it out!

1:11:55.842,1:11:59.379
And our technologies cut us[br]off from our own experience. . .

1:11:59.379,1:12:06.420
We can build a culture that sits[br]between us and the world.

1:12:06.420,1:12:11.491
And it mediates our behavior toward the world.

1:12:11.491,1:12:14.227
And it mediates what we do[br]and what we perceive.

1:12:14.227,1:12:19.499
If you have a spear, it becomes a lot easier. You[br]don't have to kill somebody right in front of you.

1:12:19.499,1:12:24.204
You can kill somebody thirty feet away.[br]And that distance makes it easier to kill.

1:12:24.204,1:12:31.445
And if you've been sent into war with a B2[br]bomber strapped to your back and an array[br]of high-tech sensors at your fingertips,

1:12:31.445,1:12:38.214
you can kill Iraqis with no more thought[br]or feeling than you might have wasting[br]the Covenant on your X-Box at home.

1:12:40.787,1:12:44.858
this disconnection from the world,[br]from other people and other creatures,

1:12:44.858,1:12:48.624
altered our relationships,[br]and left us confused and wounded.

1:13:16.456,1:13:22.229
At what point do we stop and listen? And if we[br]stop and listen, what will we be able to hear?

1:13:22.229,1:13:30.500
Disconnection has stopped our ears.[br]The planet's voice barely registers.[br]Our minds are clogged with stories.

1:13:30.871,1:13:36.309
Central to my understanding of the world is[br]this.: all cultures are based on stories.

1:13:36.309,1:13:42.215
The culture of civilization and empire comes[br]with its own unique set of beliefs and impulses.

1:13:42.215,1:13:46.515
Listen to some of the stories that have[br]brought us to our present predicament.

1:13:46.586,1:13:49.256
"There's never quite enough"

1:13:49.256,1:13:50.624
"We're innately flawed"

1:13:50.624,1:13:53.493
"it's heresy today to say, 'let's stop growing"'

1:13:53.493,1:13:55.161
"Hard work is morally virtuous"

1:13:55.161,1:13:56.463
"More is better"

1:13:56.463,1:13:59.766
"The physical world as i see it is everything"

1:13:59.766,1:14:02.235
"We can solve any problem"

1:14:02.235,1:14:06.740
"I mean... they actually say that the[br]way to be happy is to own more stuff"

1:14:06.740,1:14:11.478
"We are to subdue the earth[br]and have dominion over it"

1:14:11.478,1:14:16.783
"We own. . . we own the planet. We own[br]everything here. We own these resources"

1:14:16.783,1:14:21.354
"Humans have rights. Nothing else has rights"

1:14:21.354,1:14:27.224
"There are many times in which people just[br]don't want to be told that such-and-such[br]a place is off-limits to them"

1:14:27.894,1:14:32.194
Living with stories like this, is it any[br]wonder we're devouring the planet?

1:14:33.033,1:14:37.026
In some ways we're kind of -[br]we're in a culture of two-year-olds.

1:14:37.704,1:14:41.708
Where we just won't look at the limits.

1:14:41.708,1:14:49.740
Dominion over the Earth, in Genesis, didn't[br]mean to leave this pillaged and smoking.

1:14:50.684,1:14:54.211
Daniel Quinn has named some[br]of the basic stories of Empire.

1:14:54.588,1:14:58.391
The ambient voice of our[br]culture tells us that

1:14:58.391,1:15:03.997
this is the best that[br]humans could ever hope for.

1:15:03.997,1:15:06.666
What we've got right now,[br]where we're going.

1:15:06.666,1:15:08.827
It's just unsurpassable.

1:15:09.402,1:15:13.640
Ergo, any alternative[br]has got to be worse.

1:15:13.640,1:15:17.310
There were other[br]civilizations besides ours;

1:15:17.310,1:15:20.580
they did not think that they[br]had the one right way to live,

1:15:20.580,1:15:24.017
and that everyone in the world[br]should be made to live that way.

1:15:24.017,1:15:27.020
We're taught to think[br]that we are Humanity.

1:15:27.020,1:15:33.526
if there are other people out[br]there that are different from us,[br]well they're degenerates,

1:15:33.526,1:15:36.296
or they're just not as[br]far advanced as we are.

1:15:36.296,1:15:40.700
We came along,[br]and began doing things,

1:15:40.700,1:15:42.463
and building civilization,

1:15:42.802,1:15:46.397
and this is the way humans[br]were meant to live from the beginning.

1:15:47.240,1:15:50.141
Which is one reason why we can't give it up.

1:15:51.911,1:15:55.904
Here, perhaps, is the most[br]dangerous story of them all. . .

1:15:57.384,1:16:06.526
We are superior to all other creatures[br]and our lives are independent of theirs.

1:16:06.526,1:16:15.491
Narrator.: Through his intellect man[br]has developed a superiority over[br]every other form of animal life.

1:16:17.537,1:16:22.909
with the stories of Empire in place, civilization[br]was ready to spread around the planet.

1:16:22.909,1:16:27.013
Ran Prieur explains the core idea of[br]"The Parable of the Tribes",

1:16:27.013,1:16:33.316
which reveals how the culture[br]of Empire prevailed in a process of[br]cultural evolution that selects for power.

1:16:33.687,1:16:36.456
imagine there's a bunch of tribes[br]that are living together peacefully.

1:16:36.456,1:16:42.929
And one of the tribes, for some reason,[br]instead of living in balance and in peace,

1:16:42.929,1:16:48.697
they decide that they're going to make[br]a bunch of weapons and conquer[br]the next tribe and turn them into slaves.

1:16:49.736,1:16:51.966
The next tribe has three choices.

1:16:53.239,1:16:59.701
if they run away the paradigm of the[br]violent tribe expands into their territory.

1:17:00.080,1:17:05.985
if they submit into slavery the paradigm[br]of the violent tribe expands into their territory.

1:17:05.985,1:17:11.825
if they build weapons to fight back the paradigm[br]of the violent tribe expands into their territory.

1:17:11.825,1:17:20.028
And that just goes on until the whole[br]world is made up of people who make[br]weapons and fight and enslave other people.

1:17:21.468,1:17:25.438
After ten thousand years of this,[br]we've forgotten who we are. . .

1:17:25.438,1:17:30.398
How could three million years of[br]human life be meaningless?

1:17:30.710,1:17:36.282
The way people were living at[br]that time, during that vast period,:

1:17:36.282,1:17:43.882
they were living in a way in which[br]humans could live for millions of years.

1:17:44.557,1:17:49.517
Tens of millions of years. And that's something!

1:17:50.096,1:17:56.035
Man, now we're saying "how[br]many decades can we have?"

1:17:56.035,1:18:00.267
And if we go on living this way, it's not many.

1:18:04.144,1:18:07.881
It strikes me as critical that we[br]remember who we really are.

1:18:07.881,1:18:12.719
We have these huge brains and a great[br]capacity for innovation and adaptation.

1:18:12.719,1:18:17.679
But we can get trapped inside of stories and[br]fantasies that block us from our own greatness.

1:18:18.324,1:18:26.065
Well, human beings can act either[br]as members of climax ecosystems,

1:18:26.065,1:18:30.136
where we integrate ourselves into[br]everything else that's going on,

1:18:30.136,1:18:33.206
or we can act as invasive[br]species, like the cane toad.

1:18:33.206,1:18:41.170
The classic example of human beings acting as[br]an invasive species, of course, is Europeans[br]over the last five hundred years or so.

1:18:42.215,1:18:47.220
It doesn't have to be this way.[br]Not all human cultures have followed this path.

1:18:47.220,1:18:54.854
When I look closely, what I see is that human[br]capacities and characteristics have always been[br]medlated by the larger society.

1:18:55.929,1:18:57.294
Always.

1:18:58.832,1:19:05.795
One person I spoke with who discussed our[br]present predicament in terms of inherent human[br]characteristics was Richard Manning.

1:19:06.272,1:19:11.110
to survive in our hunter-gatherer[br]days. . . a very narrow field of vision.

1:19:11.110,1:19:16.082
You had to be concerned with what[br]was happening around you in the[br]immediate hundred yards.

1:19:16.082,1:19:21.454
You had to be worried about what was going to[br]happen in the next ten seconds or five minutes.

1:19:21.454,1:19:25.258
Where was that tiger going to come from that[br]was going to bite your neck and kill you?

1:19:25.258,1:19:28.795
So our strongest instincts are[br]geared to the immediate.

1:19:28.795,1:19:32.832
Our adrenaline doesn't start to flow[br]when we read about global warming.

1:19:32.832,1:19:35.665
It starts to flow when somebody[br]put a fist in our face.

1:19:36.636,1:19:42.008
And yet the Haudenosaunee evolved a[br]culture that balanced those strong instincts.

1:19:42.008,1:19:46.179
They make decisions based on their[br]impact on the seventh generation.

1:19:46.179,1:19:49.315
Contrast that with the culture of Empire.

1:19:49.315,1:19:54.020
What we've never been able to do is recognize[br]a limit coming from thirty or forty years out

1:19:54.020,1:19:55.455
and behave accordingly.

1:19:55.455,1:20:01.121
And so we haven't seen climate change coming.[br]And most people don't see oil depletion coming.

1:20:01.961,1:20:06.165
And there are other forces in the universe[br]that play out over the long term.

1:20:06.165,1:20:12.005
Exponential growth and population dynamics[br]can both unfold over generations making them,

1:20:12.005,1:20:16.509
for humans blinded by their[br]own culture, difficult to see.

1:20:16.509,1:20:19.879
William Catton explains[br]another long-term process.

1:20:19.879,1:20:27.253
C. Wright Mills of Columbia University -[br]kind of a maverick - gave a nice[br]physiological definition of fate.

1:20:27.253,1:20:38.965
Fate is what happens when innumerable[br]people make innumerable small decisions[br]about other matters that have a collective,[br]cumulative effect that Nobody intended.

1:20:38.965,1:20:42.302
Ok. That's what's happened[br]when we overpopulated the world.

1:20:42.302,1:20:50.437
Nobody intended to overpopulate the world.[br]Nobody intended to pollute the oceans. Nobody[br]intended to start the greenhouse effect.

1:20:52.111,1:20:55.648
So this is part of what I've come[br]to about how we got here.:

1:20:55.648,1:20:59.419
a snarl of assumptions and[br]behaviors and beliefs and stories

1:20:59.419,1:21:02.288
that form the backbone of the culture of Empire,

1:21:02.288,1:21:06.122
a fusion of forces that severed[br]us from the laws of life.

1:21:06.559,1:21:09.796
this culture tells us that we can[br]live apart from those laws.

1:21:09.796,1:21:12.332
Without limits. Without rules.

1:21:12.332,1:21:16.936
But doing so has left us,[br]and the planet, battered and beaten.

1:21:16.936,1:21:20.770
It isn't working out the way[br]we've been taught to think it will.

1:21:22.108,1:21:25.545
Offscreen Narrator.: Well boys and girls,[br]how do you like living without rules?

1:21:25.545,1:21:27.246
I hate it!

1:21:27.246,1:21:30.016
This is no fun.

1:21:30.016,1:21:32.450
It stinks.

1:21:34.220,1:21:43.390
Over and over I've had to ask.: why do we keep[br]destroying the planet, even now, when the[br]evidence that we are doing so is overwhelming?

1:21:43.930,1:21:48.735
The first thing to note is that all of[br]these historical forces are still in play.

1:21:48.735,1:21:52.238
And some new forces have arisen in our time.

1:21:52.238,1:21:57.198
It's sobering to consider that we're[br]trapped in an economy that must grow or die.

1:21:57.543,1:22:01.914
The economy will, can and[br]must continue to grow.

1:22:01.914,1:22:06.078
Now of course this is an absurdity.[br]Because we live on a finite spherical planet.

1:22:07.153,1:22:10.748
so there's only so much stuff[br]to chew up and spit out.

1:22:11.824,1:22:16.022
We're assaulted by corporately[br]controlled media that keep us delusional.

1:22:16.496,1:22:23.459
People tend to think that they have a choice[br]about what information they take from television.

1:22:24.404,1:22:32.011
And we are sitting and receiving a[br]form of information, which is very very[br]powerful. It comes in the form of images.

1:22:32.011,1:22:34.002
And once the images go in, they don't come out.

1:22:34.414,1:22:37.717
it's almost science fiction in its implications.

1:22:37.717,1:22:42.155
It's Big Brother.[br]And yet we think it's perfectly normal.

1:22:42.155,1:22:47.160
As people's real lives become more[br]and more degraded and unsatisfying

1:22:47.160,1:22:54.328
and petty and vulgar and irritating and sterile,

1:22:55.501,1:23:01.841
then the appeals of those glorified[br]images became all the more powerful.

1:23:01.841,1:23:05.211
There's a great line be Zygmunt Bauman that -

1:23:05.211,1:23:10.583
he says that rational people will go[br]quietly and meekly into a gas chamber

1:23:10.583,1:23:13.074
if only you allow them to believe it's a bathroom.

1:23:15.755,1:23:21.091
And I've lost all hope that my government is[br]capable of looking clearly at the situation.

1:23:25.565,1:23:32.872
Sadly, it looks as though much of our[br]educational system leaves us totally unprepared[br]to question the dominant culture.

1:23:32.872,1:23:37.877
It numbs our critical thinking[br]skills, instead of developing them.

1:23:37.877,1:23:48.185
And it goes along with technical, industrialized[br]society because you need to turn people into[br]interchangeable machine parts

1:23:48.554,1:23:52.820
where you can pull one person out,[br]stick another person in the same spot.

1:23:53.359,1:23:58.194
Narrator.: These children are being taught[br]to accept uncritically whatever they're told.

1:23:58.731,1:24:01.199
Questions are not encouraged.

1:24:02.201,1:24:07.006
I've certainly never been encouraged to question[br]how our culture creates disconnection.

1:24:07.006,1:24:12.745
Every one of us is living in this little comfortable[br]bubble that's completely disconnected

1:24:12.745,1:24:18.584
from the real world of animals and plants[br]and soil and water and natural forces

1:24:18.584,1:24:23.289
that produces everything that's of[br]any meaning whatsoever on this planet.

1:24:23.289,1:24:28.728
If your experience is that your food[br]comes from the grocery store,

1:24:28.728,1:24:30.930
and that your water comes from a tap,

1:24:30.930,1:24:34.467
you will defend to the death the[br]system that brings those to you.

1:24:34.467,1:24:36.102
Because your life depends on it.

1:24:36.102,1:24:38.871
If your experience is that[br]your water comes from a stream

1:24:38.871,1:24:41.507
and that your food comes from a land base,

1:24:41.507,1:24:45.967
you will defend to the death that stream and that[br]land base because your life depends on it.

1:24:47.480,1:24:55.855
Systems of manipulation and exploitation.[br]Structures of disconnection and delusion.[br]Institutions of domination and deceit.

1:24:55.855,1:24:59.689
I had to ask.: who would create such things?

1:25:00.393,1:25:04.730
Only people who have become almost[br]wholly disconnected from their world.

1:25:04.730,1:25:07.733
People who have forgotten who they once were.

1:25:07.733,1:25:10.395
People who have been deeply wounded.

1:25:11.971,1:25:14.540
We've gotten lost in a hall of mirrors.

1:25:14.540,1:25:24.083
Everything that we receive - everything[br]we see, hear, smell, taste, feel - originates in,[br]or is mediated by, humans and machines.

1:25:24.083,1:25:28.621
That affects our consciousness.[br]It gives us an inflated sense

1:25:28.621,1:25:32.358
of our own importance and of what reality is.

1:25:32.358,1:25:37.096
As if, because we've made it,[br]It makes it most real.

1:25:37.096,1:25:44.937
As any narcissist knows, it's endless.[br]We can never get enough of that:[br]enough of that reflection of ourselves.

1:25:44.937,1:25:47.667
What we're really aching for is real relationship.

1:25:49.575,1:25:57.216
Our animal bodies, I think, formed by[br]the Earth itself, want and require a[br]real relationship to the world.

1:25:57.216,1:25:59.252
To the water, wind and soil.

1:25:59.252,1:26:04.212
To the animals, plants and fellow[br]humans that comprise the[br]community into which we were born.

1:26:05.124,1:26:10.084
But we're stuck in the hall of mirrors.[br]And we've begun to lose our sanity.

1:26:10.730,1:26:16.335
So that you see the beginning of something like[br]dissociation, like post-traumatic stress disorder,

1:26:16.335,1:26:19.905
like schizophrenia, like multiple[br]personalities, you know.

1:26:19.905,1:26:28.938
You see that the fragmentation in the world[br]today is being mirrored in all of these kind of[br]very severe psychological disorders.

1:26:29.615,1:26:35.187
if you're in that sort of solitary confinement[br]you're going to start hallucinating.

1:26:35.187,1:26:40.192
And you may end up believing strange things.

1:26:40.192,1:26:42.820
Like the idea that humans are superior.

1:26:44.096,1:26:51.604
Acting out of that belief of superiority,[br]of entitlement, of invincibility,[br]Empire has conquered the world.

1:26:51.604,1:26:56.375
But that conquering has bounced back on[br]the conquerors, leaving everyone wounded.

1:26:56.375,1:27:03.716
if the world, the system that we're[br]living in, is harming other people,

1:27:03.716,1:27:06.619
then that's something that, you[br]know, you can't live with that.

1:27:06.619,1:27:12.825
So if you look at the people who have[br]been assimilated into Empire,

1:27:12.825,1:27:15.461
and if you look at the Imperialists themselves,

1:27:15.461,1:27:21.764
you find an incredible dissociation from reality.

1:27:22.735,1:27:27.239
Dissociated from the reality of the[br]planet, we don't act on its behalf.

1:27:27.239,1:27:35.581
Feeling for nature is diminishing to the[br]degree that people are less desiring

1:27:35.581,1:27:39.352
and less able to influence policy about nature,

1:27:39.352,1:27:42.515
to do anything to protect nature,[br]to have any feeling for nature.

1:27:42.988,1:27:46.719
it's hard to have feeling for it if you[br]never have any contact with it.

1:27:47.360,1:27:50.429
And it's hard to have any contact[br]with the rest of the world

1:27:50.429,1:27:53.432
because we're living like an animal in a cage.

1:27:53.432,1:27:55.798
Just think about an animal in a zoo.

1:27:56.902,1:28:04.775
An animal's deprived of the very things that keep[br]that animal going.: the smells, the sights, the[br]sounds, the instincts, the hunting.

1:28:05.544,1:28:09.480
And they become psychotic. Literally psychotic.

1:28:10.216,1:28:14.587
I think that we've done something to[br]ourselves that is exactly analogous to that.

1:28:14.587,1:28:19.125
We've put ourselves in a cage -[br]this cage of civilization, of cities.

1:28:19.125,1:28:21.560
And it's made us, in a way, psychotic.

1:28:21.560,1:28:26.932
That - if you would have a group of hunter-[br]gatherers - and this has happened a lot -

1:28:26.932,1:28:34.673
hunter-gatherers watch behavior of people[br]in our society, they would think we[br]were crazy for the way we behave.

1:28:34.673,1:28:36.004
Because we are.

1:28:37.510,1:28:43.749
I stop. I listen. I watch the world.[br]The disconnection is everywhere.

1:28:43.749,1:28:54.455
You learn it as a child. You learn to not[br]feel the kind of pain that is inflicted[br]upon you by the lack of connection.

1:28:55.194,1:28:58.595
By being in a crib by yourself in a dark room.

1:28:59.031,1:29:05.438
By not having the breastfeeding. By not having[br]the constant contact with other people's bodies.

1:29:05.438,1:29:11.877
Television viewing for children, and[br]I think to some degree for adults,

1:29:11.877,1:29:23.022
is a training for more hyperactive lifestyles[br]and hyperactive informational systems.

1:29:23.022,1:29:33.466
And that is putting people into a kind of[br]emotional psychological state, which[br]makes it impossible to relate to nature.

1:29:33.466,1:29:36.335
So, I mean, it's concrete alienation again.

1:29:36.335,1:29:46.579
most of us don't have a human community[br]where we can rest and feel safe and feel like[br]"i'm going to be taken care of".

1:29:46.579,1:29:54.887
in our culture there's so many things that are[br]set up to stop us from connecting directly.

1:29:54.887,1:29:58.691
If you go to a bar- we take this for granted -[br]if you go to a bar it's dark.

1:29:58.691,1:30:00.522
There's really loud music playing.

1:30:01.861,1:30:08.289
Because if it were quiet and there were good[br]light people would get freaked out to have to[br]deal with each other so directly.

1:30:11.604,1:30:14.340
Our economy thrives on this.

1:30:14.340,1:30:20.040
It's pretty easy to sell stuff to people[br]who are so disconnected from the[br]things that they most need.

1:30:20.713,1:30:24.513
The stores are filled with bandages[br]for the wounds of Empire.

1:30:26.018,1:30:28.621
There are other ways to look at this wounding.

1:30:28.621,1:30:36.795
Derrick Jensen sees the dominant culture as an[br]abusive system, leaving its members suffering[br]from Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

1:30:36.795,1:30:42.968
What happens if you're not traumatized once[br]or twice, but if you're actually in captivity[br]for a long time? if you're held as prisoner?

1:30:42.968,1:30:47.973
One of the things that happens is you[br]become afraid of all relationships and you[br]have to control everything around you.

1:30:47.973,1:30:53.946
You forget that mutual relationships are[br]possible and you begin to believe that all[br]relationships are based upon hierarchy.

1:30:53.946,1:30:56.482
Because that was your experience.

1:30:56.482,1:31:03.455
And you come to believe that all relationships[br]are based on power. And, of course, when we[br]look around that's what we see.

1:31:03.455,1:31:12.765
So we are too frightened to enter[br]into a relationship with these trees,[br]with all of our neighbors.

1:31:12.765,1:31:16.098
And so we call them resources:[br]those to be exploited.

1:31:17.303,1:31:22.575
Everything within an abusive family structure is[br]set up to protect the abuser. Everything.

1:31:22.575,1:31:30.141
And by the same token, everything[br]within this culture is setup to protect the rich.[br]That's what this culture is about.

1:31:31.784,1:31:38.424
Why do so many victims of abuse[br]stay with their abusers?

1:31:38.424,1:31:45.965
Because they're identified with the system.[br]And they've been taught since they were[br]very - since early on - that everything[br]is about protecting that system.

1:31:45.965,1:31:52.071
with civilization, we've been taught to identify[br]with this larger whole that isn't us.

1:31:52.071,1:32:00.171
We identify more strongly as "civilized"[br]than we do as living beings.

1:32:02.047,1:32:06.352
Over the years I've begun to break my own[br]identification with the dominant culture,

1:32:06.352,1:32:10.356
to reconnect with myself as a[br]living creature walking the Earth.

1:32:10.356,1:32:14.493
I'm still not finished with the task.[br]A daunting challenge.

1:32:14.493,1:32:18.452
And yet one of the most[br]rewarding things I've ever done.

1:32:20.065,1:32:23.694
I've also learned to view this culture[br]through the lens of addiction.

1:32:24.536,1:32:34.468
Addiction is based on continually seeking[br]more of what it is we don't really want.

1:32:35.214,1:32:38.775
And therefore, never being fully satisfied.

1:32:39.151,1:32:44.156
There's a deep need. There's[br]a deep hole, a deep longing,

1:32:44.156,1:32:50.129
a deep fear, a deep grief, a deep rage.

1:32:50.129,1:32:55.134
And so there's food, there's cigarettes, there's[br]alcohol, there's drugs, there's computers,

1:32:55.134,1:33:00.606
there's TV, there's movies, there's[br]shopping, there's music. . .it's endless.

1:33:00.606,1:33:10.249
Chellis Glendinning.: All of that, that[br]we've now determined people can be[br]addicted to, it's like a technological fix.

1:33:10.249,1:33:18.123
So as long as that's working, why would I stop?[br]I won't stop. An alcoholic doesn't stop.

1:33:18.123,1:33:22.753
A drug addict doesn't stop as long[br]as it's working. But you reach a point[br]where it doesn't work any more.

1:33:23.829,1:33:30.636
After centuries of abuse, disconnection,[br]delusion and addiction, it looks as though[br]we're desperate to hit bottom.

1:33:30.636,1:33:39.144
it's almost as if we're wanting to hit[br]bottom so hard that we either shift or die.

1:33:39.144,1:33:41.772
Cause it's not worth continuing like this.

1:33:42.514,1:33:47.886
so many people are so very, very unhappy.[br]And they want this nightmare to end.

1:33:47.886,1:33:58.194
And they don't recognize that the death that[br]they want is a cultural death, and is a[br]spiritual and metaphorical death.

1:33:59.531,1:34:02.868
That would explain why we[br]continue to foul our nest.

1:34:02.868,1:34:07.237
If what we want is to hit bottom, we've[br]found the perfect means to get us there.

1:34:07.639,1:34:08.128
Denial.

1:34:08.240,1:34:08.831
Denial.

1:34:08.941,1:34:09.464
Denial.

1:34:09.575,1:34:10.200
Denial.

1:34:10.309,1:34:11.139
Denial.

1:34:11.243,1:34:12.232
Denial.

1:34:12.344,1:34:17.082
Denial in huge neon letters that blink on and off

1:34:17.082,1:34:20.574
like the old Rocky and Bullwinkle[br]credits at the end of the show!

1:34:22.287,1:34:27.960
Again I stop. And listen. And watch[br]as I move through the landscape of Empire.

1:34:27.960,1:34:31.263
The denial is so thick that you[br]could cut it with a paper knife.

1:34:31.263,1:34:34.600
If only you weren't still using it to frost that cake.

1:34:34.600,1:34:39.605
Denial takes tremendous energy.[br]And if you have to work really, really hard

1:34:39.605,1:34:47.137
to not acknowledge the fact that[br]this culture's killing everything,

1:34:47.679,1:34:49.840
you're not going to have much energy left over.

1:34:50.582,1:34:56.155
It's the energy I freed up when I stepped[br]out of my own denial that has made this[br]documentary possible.

1:34:56.155,1:35:01.115
The more I let down my defenses, the more I[br]find the power to look more deeply at the world.

1:35:01.994,1:35:09.301
And when I look I find the story of[br]"somehow", a fantasy that keeps us[br]passive in the face of the world situation.

1:35:09.301,1:35:13.772
"We've muddled through things before. And[br]somehow we'll muddle through this one."

1:35:13.772,1:35:15.507
"somehow, everything's ok."

1:35:15.507,1:35:18.076
somehow? How do we get there? You know?

1:35:18.076,1:35:23.173
It's like - it doesn't do any good to fantasize if[br]there's no way to get from here to there.

1:35:24.616,1:35:30.680
Is there a way to get from here to there?[br]And where is there, exactly?[br]Where do go from here?

1:35:31.557,1:35:37.928
As world events break through our[br]walls of denial, voices of helplessness[br]and resignation fill the air.

1:35:38.530,1:35:42.296
Voice 1 : If we knew some way to[br]get out of it we would. But we don't.

1:35:42.701,1:35:44.498
Voice 2: Whatever's gonna[br]happen is gonna happen.

1:35:44.870,1:35:47.498
Voice 3: There's gonna have to be[br]some sort of catastrophic event.

1:35:47.873,1:35:51.844
Voice 4: A meltdown of all of these[br]systems that we've been depending on.

1:35:51.844,1:35:58.750
Voice 5: We figure there's no way to stop the[br]train from heading off the end of the bridge, you[br]know. We're just gonna go down screaming.

1:35:58.750,1:36:04.656
Voice 6: And finally you just say, "Aww fuck it.[br]this is. . . you know. . . let's just fuck it.[br]Who cares?"

1:36:04.656,1:36:11.289
Voice 7: You know, we might as well go out and[br]party and have a good time. Because[br]the world's not going anywhere good.

1:36:14.299,1:36:18.292
this system feels like a trap,[br]a madhouse, a prison.

1:36:18.971,1:36:23.308
With resignation this profound,[br]It seems as though there is little left to do

1:36:23.308,1:36:24.309
but to make the prison

1:36:24.309,1:36:26.709
as comfortable as is possible.

1:36:31.083,1:36:36.355
Narrator.: Personalized. And with accessories[br]engineered to our personalized taste.

1:36:36.355,1:36:39.153
For convenience. For comfort.

1:36:40.626,1:36:42.958
For convenience and safety.

1:36:43.795,1:36:45.786
With protection from rain.

1:36:48.800,1:36:53.430
Blocking out the wintry gale[br]with comforting warmth.

1:36:56.308,1:37:00.301
To hold out the searing heat[br]with cooling comfort.

1:37:02.281,1:37:08.987
Capitalist culture is telling us to buy.[br]And we will feel better if we buy more...

1:37:08.987,1:37:17.262
. . .that we are incomplete and that we need to fill[br]this emptiness within us by consuming.

1:37:17.262,1:37:19.753
Consume, consume, consume.

1:37:21.066,1:37:24.369
We've looked now at the train[br]that is hurtling us to destruction,

1:37:24.369,1:37:26.171
at the tracks that constrain us,

1:37:26.171,1:37:29.107
at the locomotive power[br]that drives us to oblivion.

1:37:29.107,1:37:32.838
And we see more clearly now[br]exactly where we are headed.

1:37:33.312,1:37:35.047
It all adds up to this.:

1:37:35.047,1:37:40.417
this culture is not only killing the planet,[br]It is destroying us as human beings.

1:37:43.155,1:37:46.454
The train plunges forward at blinding speed.

1:37:47.559,1:37:49.459
"Charlie stole the handle. "

1:37:50.729,1:37:52.629
So who are we going to be?

1:37:57.035,1:38:02.268
First Psychologist.:[br]In the film I see a man standing on the ledge.[br]Do you think he really wants to live?

1:38:02.941,1:38:04.966
Second Psychologist.:[br]The answer, of course, is yes.

1:38:08.280,1:38:12.239
I don't think humans are going to[br]go extinct. We can't kill ourselves off.

1:38:13.185,1:38:17.622
I just don't see any plausible[br]way it could happen. . .

1:38:19.057,1:38:20.993
well. . . I guess. . . yeah. . .

1:38:20.993,1:38:27.265
What we could - what might happen is[br]the earth could get into a serious[br]runaway greenhouse effect

1:38:27.265,1:38:30.369
that could turn the whole[br]planet like the planet Venus.

1:38:30.369,1:38:33.202
Where it's like a thousand[br]degrees and full of methane.

1:38:43.815,1:38:49.054
A powerful creative tension arises when[br]we hold two things at the same time.:

1:38:49.054,1:38:54.014
a clear assessment of where we are,[br]and a clear vision of where we want to go.

1:38:54.993,1:38:58.087
I don't see that the culture of Empire has either.

1:38:58.630,1:39:03.434
Trapped in a fantasy of domination and[br]control, any clear assessment of the world

1:39:03.434,1:39:07.871
gets trampled underfoot in the mad[br]march toward the scam of progress.

1:39:08.540,1:39:15.878
Traumatized by disconnection and[br]abuse, the people of Empire now hold[br]visions that are unhinged and insane.

1:39:17.215,1:39:24.245
Born and raised in captivity, we're[br]now so institutionalized that few[br]of us can even see the prison bars.

1:39:25.057,1:39:27.183
But we all know our cell numbers.

1:39:28.760,1:39:32.531
Waking on the train, we find that[br]we don't know where we are.

1:39:32.531,1:39:34.829
And we don't know where we're going.

1:39:35.433,1:39:39.894
We hear the whistle blowing.[br]And we can see the world speeding by.

1:39:40.739,1:39:43.138
Some of us want to stop the train.

1:39:43.941,1:39:47.308
We want to get off before it[br]reaches the end of the line.

1:39:48.180,1:39:52.138
But we have no clear idea[br]how to get from here to there.

1:39:57.556,1:40:07.955
The secret plan is that we're going to go on this[br]way, no matter what, for as long as we can.

1:40:08.532,1:40:16.871
I likened it to the secret plan in Nazi[br]Germany. It was an open secret.

1:40:17.909,1:40:27.307
Everyone knew that those Jews weren't going[br]off to resorts or to have picnics in the woods.

1:40:27.886,1:40:31.456
But no one talked about it.[br]And no one talks about this either.

1:40:31.456,1:40:33.358
This is scary! We're in a democracy!

1:40:33.358,1:40:36.995
We're in the biggest democracy on the[br]planet and we're not getting informed.

1:40:36.995,1:40:40.799
And we're not looking, either. We're not asking.

1:40:40.799,1:40:49.832
As civilization has provided more and more for[br]us, it's made us more and more infantile.

1:40:50.108,1:40:58.450
So that we are less and less able to[br]think for ourselves, less and less[br]able to provide for ourselves.

1:40:58.450,1:41:04.656
And this makes us more of a herd. . .[br]where you develop more of a herd mentality. . .

1:41:04.656,1:41:10.686
where we take our cues from the people[br]around us, from the authority figures around us.

1:41:27.312,1:41:29.246
The situation is desperate.

1:41:29.246,1:41:38.022
It's the World-Wide Eco-Slam, where climate[br]Crash goes head-to-head with The Peak oil kid[br]and Overshoot tears into Mass Extinction.

1:41:38.022,1:41:42.983
It's the Smackdown at the End of the[br]Universe and tickets go on sale this Friday.

1:41:44.262,1:41:47.299
The American lifestyle is unsustainable.

1:41:47.299,1:41:50.701
That means that it can't be sustained.

1:41:50.701,1:41:52.532
It's coming to an end.

1:41:53.438,1:42:00.606
Remember how thirty years ago we looked to[br]the future and said "thirty years from now, if we[br]don't act, we're going to be in trouble"?

1:42:01.478,1:42:05.279
Well it's now and we are because we didn't.

1:42:06.183,1:42:09.087
The fundamental laws of life have been broken.

1:42:09.087,1:42:12.147
The consequences of that are now apparent.

1:42:13.625,1:42:19.757
Remember the Secret Plan.:[br]the dominant culture is not going to[br]stop until it destroys everything.

1:42:20.432,1:42:21.421
It can't.

1:42:21.866,1:42:27.498
It's built on a foundation of faulty assumptions.[br]I see no way that it can be reformed.

1:42:28.106,1:42:32.975
It can only be discarded, so that[br]something new can grow in its place.

1:42:34.512,1:42:36.639
We have to look at this.

1:43:05.710,1:43:10.482
We've got to understand that we[br]are part of a living community.

1:43:10.482,1:43:14.786
We're not the masters of the living community.[br]We're not the guardians of the living community.

1:43:14.786,1:43:24.262
We are just another species. And we[br]have the power to destroy that community.

1:43:24.262,1:43:27.425
And when we do that we destroy ourselves.

1:43:27.899,1:43:33.905
if we don't figure out what[br]our place in the universe is

1:43:33.905,1:43:36.931
we're not going to have a place in the universe.

1:43:46.751,1:43:51.656
I have read many books about the world[br]situation. And I have noticed a curious thing.:

1:43:51.656,1:43:53.556
the Happy Chapter".

1:43:54.959,1:44:00.765
After an entire book of dire prognostications and[br]appalling facts comes the chapter at the end

1:44:00.765,1:44:05.837
that says that if we only do this and[br]this and that we'll find the solution,

1:44:05.837,1:44:11.469
that while there is much to give us[br]concern, there is also much about[br]which we can be hopeful.

1:44:13.011,1:44:15.280
I don't like happy chapters.

1:44:15.280,1:44:17.248
They've lulled me back to sleep.

1:44:17.248,1:44:21.116
They suggest that somebody[br]somewhere somehow is handling it.

1:44:21.786,1:44:23.617
I can just go on with my life.

1:44:24.122,1:44:28.821
And hey, we've got thirty years[br]or so, right? That's lots of time.

1:44:30.228,1:44:33.026
I'm sorry, folks, but I think time's up.

1:44:34.032,1:44:36.660
I have no happy chapter to offer you.

1:44:37.268,1:44:39.668
No list of quick and painless fixes.

1:44:40.872,1:44:44.672
No plan that will keep the train[br]rolling forever on this track.

1:44:45.310,1:44:47.801
I see no way for that to happen.

1:44:48.847,1:44:54.342
If there is going to be a happy chapter,[br]we shall have to write it together,

1:44:55.487,1:45:01.949
with the rest of the community of life,[br]on the pages of the living world.

1:45:02.894,1:45:06.131
I sometimes have dreams about[br]my grandchildren coming also.

1:45:06.131,1:45:08.466
And these dreams sometimes turn unpleasant.

1:45:08.466,1:45:12.771
Because the grandchildren come and they come[br]from a North Carolina and from a California

1:45:12.771,1:45:15.573
that is polluted, the air they can't breathe.

1:45:15.573,1:45:18.843
And they say, "Granddad,[br]did you let that happen?"

1:45:18.843,1:45:20.712
And they're angry when they get there.

1:45:20.712,1:45:24.204
I think they're going to look back[br]and shake their heads and say,

1:45:26.151,1:45:28.381
'what happened to those people?

1:45:28.887,1:45:33.290
How did they lose sight of such basic things?"

1:45:44.769,1:45:50.608
There is a new story arising in the world.:[br]the story of the Great Turning,

1:45:50.608,1:45:58.982
the turning away from a culture of domination[br]and death, and the turning toward a culture[br]that is life-sustaining and life-renewing.

1:45:59.651,1:46:03.382
All over the planet, people[br]are now telling this story.

1:46:03.988,1:46:08.948
The Buddhist scholar and deep ecologist[br]Joanna Macy tells this story in her workshops.

1:46:09.727,1:46:14.130
The writer and activist David Korten[br]tells it in his book by the same name.

1:46:14.599,1:46:19.559
It's a story to be told by our descendents,[br]looking back on this present time.

1:46:20.805,1:46:24.609
Will we be the monsters of our great-[br]grandchildren's nightmares?

1:46:24.609,1:46:33.677
Or will we walk, as the story of the Great[br]Turning says, as heroes and healers[br]in the epic poetry of those still-unborn voices?

1:46:34.385,1:46:38.323
Will we be reviled for our[br]entitled, destructive ways?

1:46:38.323,1:46:42.160
Or will we be lovingly remembered[br]in the songs of our descendents

1:46:42.160,1:46:48.066
as they recount the story of this lost and very[br]wounded tribe that stepped back from the abyss

1:46:48.066,1:46:51.365
and found its way home to the[br]community of living souls?

1:46:53.204,1:46:54.466
We get to choose.

1:46:56.174,1:46:58.165
Who are we going to be?

1:47:00.011,1:47:03.982
Part of me still wishes that someone[br]would just take care of it, you know.

1:47:03.982,1:47:08.753
That it's their job. That's what we pay them for.

1:47:08.753,1:47:11.313
They're supposed to be the wise parents of us.

1:47:12.090,1:47:18.654
it's going to come as a really rude[br]awakening when people realize that[br]a) they can't and b) they won't.

1:47:19.364,1:47:29.103
I don't think life for most Americans, despite our[br]affluence, is all that it's been cracked up to be.

1:47:29.507,1:47:32.374
And people are afraid to talk about that.

1:47:33.845,1:47:39.083
they're afraid they're the only ones that[br]are experiencing deep dissatisfaction.

1:47:39.083,1:47:41.419
it's really so sad, you know.

1:47:41.419,1:47:46.291
You look at - and particularly American[br]culture is emblematic of this -

1:47:46.291,1:47:51.829
go to a typical shopping mall and[br]look at the people around you[br]and the environment around you.

1:47:51.829,1:48:01.170
And the utter shallowness and[br]hopelessness of it all is profoundly depressing.

1:48:07.779,1:48:08.643
Look.

1:48:09.414,1:48:10.779
Is this who are we?

1:48:11.316,1:48:15.685
Consumers? Shoppers? Workers? Voters?

1:48:16.321,1:48:21.782
Does our identity lie in Nielsen numbers and box[br]office receipts and the Gross Domestic Product?

1:48:22.193,1:48:26.664
Are we on this Earth to sell cheeseburgers[br]to each other and yell at our children

1:48:26.664,1:48:30.600
and drive around in clown cars[br]and fall asleep in front of the tube?

1:48:31.035,1:48:37.838
Are we destroying the planet, as[br]Dmitry Orlov asks, just "to be somewhat[br]more comfortable for a little while"?

1:48:38.943,1:48:43.903
I keep having to remind myself.:[br]this culture is not humanity.

1:48:44.616,1:48:49.520
It is only one culture out of the tens of[br]thousands that used to exist on this planet.

1:48:49.520,1:48:53.012
Only one culture out of the[br]many that are still hanging on.

1:48:53.558,1:48:59.530
That it has overrun the world means nothing[br]about its rightness, its greatness, or its destiny.

1:48:59.530,1:49:04.535
It means only that we live in a system of social[br]evolution that selects for short-term power

1:49:04.535,1:49:10.303
rather than for compassion, or for[br]sanity, or for long-term survival.

1:49:12.143,1:49:15.510
I think we are much more than[br]we've ever been allowed to believe.

1:49:16.948,1:49:24.150
Denied the connection and meaning that[br]nourishes us, we've grown small and[br]stunted in the shallow soil of this culture.

1:49:24.989,1:49:28.447
It's time to revitalize that ground of our being.

1:49:30.695,1:49:38.002
What really is important, and what[br]adds value and what adds... you know. . .

1:49:38.002,1:49:40.869
what does a life well-lived look like?

1:49:41.572,1:49:49.638
Humans have a history of living much more in[br]touch with the natural world, with the planet.

1:49:50.148,1:49:54.608
Much more sustainable.

1:49:55.353,1:49:56.843
Much more spiritual.

1:49:57.555,1:49:58.954
Much more communal.

1:49:59.624,1:50:00.892
That's who we are.

1:50:00.892,1:50:05.386
As all of this starts to shift and[br]change and disintegrate and collapse,

1:50:06.164,1:50:10.435
there's the opportunity, in fact,[br]to come back to ourselves.

1:50:10.435,1:50:16.032
To grow up, fundamentally,[br]as people and as a culture.

1:50:18.509,1:50:20.909
We're in a time of initiation, folks.

1:50:21.512,1:50:27.747
A mass initiation at the level of culture itself.[br]A vision quest for the collective mind.

1:50:28.653,1:50:33.658
this culture's arrogance, its adolescent[br]sense of invincibility and entitlement,

1:50:33.658,1:50:42.691
must be sloughed off to make room for a[br]more mature sense of interdependence with,[br]and responsibility to, the community of life.

1:50:43.201,1:50:45.226
this is the work of initiation.

1:50:46.604,1:50:51.871
Stepping into this cultural maturity, we will[br]take our rightful place in the community of life.

1:50:52.276,1:50:55.040
And we will fall back in love with the world.

1:50:55.913,1:50:59.007
We can do this. But only if we choose to.

1:51:00.084,1:51:04.145
Only if we lay down our weapons[br]in this insane war against the world.

1:51:04.789,1:51:09.055
Only if we surrender control and[br]move back into relationship.

1:51:21.672,1:51:24.675
You want unlimited growth? You can have it.

1:51:24.675,1:51:26.643
All you've ever wished for and more.

1:51:27.178,1:51:33.378
Growth in relationship and experience.[br]In self-awareness and spirit and love[br]and community and connection.

1:51:33.851,1:51:37.343
Growth in purpose and meaning.[br]Growth in vision.

1:51:38.389,1:51:44.562
When we step back into the[br]community of life, we will find out[br]immediately what has always been true.:

1:51:44.562,1:51:46.792
all of life's on our side.

1:51:47.532,1:51:50.935
We'll have polar bears on[br]our team. And elm trees.

1:51:50.935,1:51:54.427
And condors and salmon and[br]dragonflies and plankton.

1:51:55.006,1:52:00.239
We'll walk with the wind and the water, with[br]mountains underfoot and stars overhead.

1:52:00.778,1:52:06.341
The tiger's blood will course through our veins.[br]The horse's breath will fill our lungs.

1:52:06.884,1:52:13.187
We'll be more connected to real power[br]than we've ever dreamt possible[br]in our sick fantasy of domination.

1:52:13.958,1:52:16.859
"Power with." Not "power over."

1:52:17.428,1:52:22.832
The power of a species that has passed[br]through initiation and into maturity.

1:52:26.671,1:52:30.038
I think we need to look at what is it we want

1:52:30.908,1:52:35.446
and see if civilization as we've[br]created it is giving us that.

1:52:35.446,1:52:38.549
And if it's not, what might give us that?

1:52:38.549,1:52:40.484
What does it mean to dismantle civilization?

1:52:40.484,1:52:45.615
What it means is depriving the rich of the ability[br]to steal from the poor and to destroy the world.

1:52:46.224,1:52:48.226
I can't give a better definition than that.

1:52:48.226,1:52:57.101
There's no real reason why the entire country[br]of the United States couldn't face reality.

1:52:57.101,1:53:00.571
You just have to drop the idea of capitalism.

1:53:00.571,1:53:06.110
You have to drop the idea of[br]corporations running things.

1:53:06.110,1:53:09.238
You have to drop the idea of economic growth.

1:53:10.348,1:53:12.373
It could be done. it could be done.

1:53:15.553,1:53:21.626
There was a great tradition[br]among the Cheyenne dog soldiers[br]called the picket pin and stake.

1:53:21.626,1:53:26.864
they would get a tanned rope,[br]called a dog rope, and a picket pin,

1:53:26.864,1:53:34.972
that's used to stake horses to the ground, and[br]they would attach the picket pin to the sash,

1:53:34.972,1:53:37.975
the dog rope that was attached to them.

1:53:37.975,1:53:41.913
And then in battle they would drive[br]the picket stake into the ground.

1:53:41.913,1:53:46.417
And that was done as a mark of resolve.[br]Because once it's driven, you can't leave

1:53:46.417,1:53:53.557
until either you're dead, or you're[br]relieved by another dog soldier, or[br]the battle's over and everyone is safe.

1:53:53.557,1:53:57.194
so the question i ask people is,[br]you know, at what point,

1:53:57.194,1:53:59.219
you know, where will you drive your picket pin?

1:53:59.931,1:54:03.264
Where will you stake yourself out and say[br]"i'm not going to retreat any more"?

1:54:15.813,1:54:18.077
Our descendents are watching us.

1:54:18.916,1:54:20.440
How will we be?

1:54:22.019,1:54:26.979
It's time to be thoughtful, coming together[br]to learn about the world as it really is.

1:54:27.658,1:54:31.062
Reading between the lies. Doing the math.

1:54:31.062,1:54:33.053
Studying the world situation.

1:54:33.864,1:54:35.593
There will be a quiz.

1:54:36.634,1:54:41.901
A paradigm shift will require that we question our[br]deepest and most fundamental assumptions.

1:54:42.573,1:54:49.877
And that will require that we take our[br]current worldview gently in our arms[br]and hold it while it breathes its last.

1:54:51.882,1:54:55.453
Step into a new story.[br]Walk away from the pyramids.

1:54:55.453,1:54:59.287
Get out of the crumbling building.[br]Break out of prison.

1:55:00.024,1:55:04.984
Choose your favorite metaphor. Choose[br]your own adventure. But choose.

1:55:06.297,1:55:08.632
It's time to be truthful.

1:55:08.632,1:55:16.741
Millions of sensual pulsing animal[br]bodies are now living trapped and used[br]and starved in cities and cubicles

1:55:16.741,1:55:22.805
and sweatshops and food courts and traffic jams[br]and suburbs and public school classrooms.

1:55:23.614,1:55:27.380
People who are not rich and[br]white already know this.

1:55:28.119,1:55:32.613
What would happen if we let ourselves[br]feel our feelings about all of this?

1:55:33.457,1:55:37.359
The entire community of life on[br]this planet is now being threatened.

1:55:38.562,1:55:43.329
Where do we stick our picket pins?[br]Where do we take a stand?

1:55:44.035,1:55:48.199
When do we find the courage to[br]let ourselves feel what's going on?

1:55:49.373,1:55:54.333
Our feelings are the swiftest[br]path back to our forgotten selves.

1:55:55.880,1:55:57.939
It's time to be open and humble.

1:55:58.682,1:56:05.087
There are huge forces at work in the world, both[br]seen and unseen. It's time to ask for help.

1:56:06.023,1:56:11.689
Ask the ancestors.[br]Ask the gods.[br]Ask your God.

1:56:12.363,1:56:18.165
Go outside and lie down on the Earth and ask[br]the land, and the sky, and the life of this place.

1:56:19.537,1:56:21.732
And then listen for a response.

1:56:22.773,1:56:28.746
Listen to the voices of soil and stone, wind[br]and water, the voices of cirrus clouds

1:56:28.746,1:56:33.884
and chickadees, of red squirrels and wood[br]beetles and Russian olives and hickories.

1:56:33.884,1:56:40.483
The world will tell us what it knows,[br]if only we will be still. And listen.

1:56:41.525,1:56:42.685
And then speak.

1:56:43.494,1:56:46.827
It's time to show up in our[br]own lives and tell the truth.

1:56:47.431,1:56:51.367
It's time to talk about the world[br]situation with everyone we see.

1:56:52.002,1:56:58.237
We're all in this together. What a relief[br]it'll be, to discover that we are not alone.

1:56:59.977,1:57:02.913
It's time to act with great intention.

1:57:02.913,1:57:08.486
There is work aplenty to do in this weary[br]world, and people engaged in that work.

1:57:08.486,1:57:11.080
Find those people. Join in.

1:57:11.689,1:57:16.786
Save rivers and stop bulldozers and stand[br]up at city council meetings to tell your truth.

1:57:17.328,1:57:20.431
Share skills. Evolve local communities.

1:57:20.431,1:57:26.836
Move from agriculture to permaculture and grow[br]your own food. Learn about medicinal herbs.

1:57:27.505,1:57:34.673
As Derrick Jensen says, "we need it all."[br]Find your work, and do it. It's time.

1:57:35.813,1:57:37.940
But what about that speeding train?

1:57:38.949,1:57:41.918
How will the Great Turning turn?

1:57:43.053,1:57:49.226
We can wait for the train to crash on its own and[br]hope that it doesn't kill us, and everything else.

1:57:49.226,1:57:54.598
But with the children grown, perhaps we can[br]come together and decide to dismantle,

1:57:54.598,1:57:57.101
joyfully and with conscious intent,

1:57:57.101,1:58:02.368
the rusty and dangerous old swing-set[br]of a culture that no longer serves us.

1:58:03.207,1:58:05.609
this may seem an impossible task.

1:58:05.609,1:58:10.103
But if the alternative is extinction,[br]then we have nothing to lose.

1:58:11.282,1:58:16.153
We humans once knew how to[br]live on this planet. A few still do.

1:58:16.153,1:58:20.487
And that's the good news. It can be done.

1:58:21.258,1:58:24.455
We can do way, way better than Empire.

1:58:35.706,1:58:38.402
Let's jump off the train and build a boat.

1:58:38.876,1:58:44.439
The train is constrained to rigid tracks and its[br]momentum makes it almost impossible to steer.

1:58:44.915,1:58:48.851
But the boat? Ah, the boat[br]is a very different thing.

1:58:49.320,1:58:54.121
Boats set sail into the unknown, subject[br]only to wind and wave and weather.

1:58:54.892,1:59:00.558
Boats can be lifeboats, preserving wisdom and[br]understanding while the storm rages overhead.

1:59:01.098,1:59:06.058
Boats can be arks, safeguarding the[br]life of the world as the floodwaters rise.

1:59:06.837,1:59:16.576
And boats can carry us into adventure, away[br]from the shores of the current paradigm and to[br]those unseen shores of a future not yet written.

1:59:17.181,1:59:19.917
find your people and build a boat.

1:59:19.917,1:59:24.980
Build a local community to serve the[br]world and preserve the life of a piece of land.

1:59:25.522,1:59:33.520
Or set sail in the wider world, interrupting[br]the destruction, healing the wounds,[br]crafting connections and changing minds.

1:59:34.064,1:59:37.835
Build a boat. A lifeboat. An ark.

1:59:37.835,1:59:42.670
A galleon of adventure and imagination[br]destined for unknown lands.

1:59:43.607,1:59:44.904
Build it now.

1:59:45.709,1:59:47.176
The ice is melting.

1:59:48.145,1:59:50.079
The waters are rising.

1:59:51.582,1:59:54.449
We're going to have to let go of the shore.

1:59:55.653,2:00:00.057
I do not know if I will survive the[br]crash of industrial civilization

2:00:00.057,2:00:04.255
or the impacts of the climate change[br]that that civilization has unleashed.

2:00:05.062,2:00:09.658
I do know this.: I have a choice[br]about how I meet it.

2:00:10.167,2:00:12.032
I have a choice.

2:00:12.636,2:00:14.194
We have a choice.

2:00:15.205,2:00:22.446
I can meet it with a burger in my hand,[br]a French fry in my mouth,[br]and a cold drink spilling onto my jeans.

2:00:22.446,2:00:28.316
Or I can meet it with consciousness, integrity,[br]and the sense of purpose that is my birthright.

2:00:29.320,2:00:36.026
I can meet it on the far side of[br]initiation, a mature and related[br]member of the community of life,

2:00:36.026,2:00:41.589
standing tall, doing my best to[br]protect and serve this Earth that I love.

2:00:42.966,2:00:44.866
this is the course I've chosen.

2:00:45.235,2:00:47.032
this is my picket pin.:

2:00:47.638,2:00:51.074
I will show up and I will tell my truth.

2:00:52.242,2:00:56.576
But it's hard to sail alone,[br]when the seas rage so fiercely.

2:00:57.448,2:01:01.509
If you sail with me, we shall[br]both be made stronger.

2:01:01.885,2:01:06.288
And when others join us, then our[br]crew will be made strong indeed.

2:01:07.958,2:01:11.860
Together, we will set forth, to find that new land.

2:01:13.997,2:01:16.363
What a way to go. . .

2:01:17.000,2:01:18.627
// Let's build a boat //

2:01:20.404,2:01:22.565
// In case the waters rise //

2:01:23.474,2:01:24.941
// Let's build a boat //

2:01:27.344,2:01:29.980
// Clouds they gather in the skies //

2:01:29.980,2:01:31.447
// Let's build a boat //

2:01:33.350,2:01:35.944
// For when the storm comes //

2:01:36.320,2:01:37.787
// Let's build a boat //

2:01:39.390,2:01:42.257
// For when the rain it beat like drums //

2:01:42.593,2:01:45.729
// Oh the levee will get pounded //

2:01:45.729,2:01:49.533
// Now the people are out having fun //

2:01:49.533,2:01:52.469
// Someday our work will pay off //

2:01:52.469,2:01:55.706
// We will float others will be overcome //

2:01:55.706,2:01:57.901
// But you can't outrun the water //

2:01:58.709,2:02:02.008
// Oh you can't outrun the water //

2:02:02.379,2:02:07.510
// You can't outrun the water //

2:02:08.185,2:02:09.652
// Let's build a boat //

2:02:46.523,2:02:47.990
// Let's build a boat //

2:02:49.827,2:02:52.762
// Take me to the other slde //

2:02:53.130,2:02:54.597
// Let's build a boat //

2:02:55.466,2:02:59.203
// Be forewarned this is no easy ride //

2:02:59.203,2:03:01.000
// Let's build a boat //

2:03:02.706,2:03:05.809
// Big enough for all of us //

2:03:05.809,2:03:07.276
// Let's build a boat //

2:03:09.012,2:03:10.614
// One that's good enough //

2:03:10.614,2:03:12.349
// One that we can trust //

2:03:12.349,2:03:15.419
// Oh the levee will get pounded //

2:03:15.419,2:03:18.445
// Oh the people are out having fun //

2:03:19.089,2:03:21.992
// Someday our work will pay off //

2:03:21.992,2:03:25.128
// We will float others will be overcome //

2:03:25.128,2:03:27.323
// But you can't outrun the water //

2:03:28.265,2:03:31.564
// Oh you can't outrun the water //

2:03:31.902,2:03:37.033
// You can't outrun the water //

2:03:37.908,2:03:39.375
// Let's build a boat //