This Changes Everything – Film Review by Michael Folk
"This Changes Everything" the film tries to make a case that climate change presents an opportunity to change the dominant economic system to something better for the average person on the Earth (like the book). The film starts very well and promisingly but I feel does make a bit of a blunder with its first stop where it follows a Native American woman from Canada being affected by the Alberta tar sands. That was an okay piece but nothing that inspires one to take up arms against the government or anything, it goes on a bit too long and becomes a bit too personal in my opinion as these native Americans are seen driving large trucks and talk of hunting and fishing the land (exploitation to another degree, but if all meat eaters did it, would still be ecologically disastrous). I like the rest of the stories better such as the struggle in Greece, India and China's rise only to be smitten with smog and their subsequent actions of leading the world on solar power. Eventually she presents the idea that this presents an opportunity for people to change the current socio-economic system. I personally love the idea and think she is right but the overall case she presents is a little bit weak, but still, it's not bad my any means and does inspire action.
The writing is good (of course) and the film is very easy on the eyes with nice graphics when it uses them. Along with other films (I really like "Terra" a Spanish language movie on Netflix about ultimately vegetarianism and wilderness, but showing geologically how and why (pretty quickly) things are and humans impact on the earth since the industrial revolution etc.) and choice books like her own (explains things like free trade deals better than the movie), Jared Diamond's "Collapse", Elizabeth Kolbert's "The Sixth Extinction" and others, and knowledge of climate change I feel it is a great time for humanity to be asking these questions but the mainstream media and mainstream America and other Western countries majority I just don't think enough people would be on board. Grassroot movements for plain good old democracy (democracy spring) don't seem to be doing all that much because the media largely ignores, so the effort seems futile while people have jobs and school they are largely too busy to go to or hear about these efforts and issues. It's a sad state of affairs really that I myself struggle with but I myself, just have to try and stay busy as well and not think about it too much and try to do what I can and spread knowledge 300+ million years of evolution and such a nice fairly friendly, beautiful world and we are kind of just ruining it so much in such a short amount of time (and for what? I view it as mostly bad luck that science was in such an infancy state before capitalism and the industrial revolution and how quickly things progressed but if we were a smarter species we would have acted more rapidly to mitigate damages but the point is one can think about alternate histories that could easily have been better).
With all that said the film does end up being pretty powerful and gets people to question and think for themselves (what really is the value of gold really? versus clean water, healthy soil (food) and air, gold means nothing).
"This Changes Everything" the film tries to make a case that climate change presents an opportunity to change the dominant economic system to something better for the average person on the Earth (like the book). The film starts very well and promisingly but I feel does make a bit of a blunder with its first stop where it follows a Native American woman from Canada being affected by the Alberta tar sands. That was an okay piece but nothing that inspires one to take up arms against the government or anything, it goes on a bit too long and becomes a bit too personal in my opinion as these native Americans are seen driving large trucks and talk of hunting and fishing the land (exploitation to another degree, but if all meat eaters did it, would still be ecologically disastrous). I like the rest of the stories better such as the struggle in Greece, India and China's rise only to be smitten with smog and their subsequent actions of leading the world on solar power. Eventually she presents the idea that this presents an opportunity for people to change the current socio-economic system. I personally love the idea and think she is right but the overall case she presents is a little bit weak, but still, it's not bad my any means and does inspire action.
The writing is good (of course) and the film is very easy on the eyes with nice graphics when it uses them. Along with other films (I really like "Terra" a Spanish language movie on Netflix about ultimately vegetarianism and wilderness, but showing geologically how and why (pretty quickly) things are and humans impact on the earth since the industrial revolution etc.) and choice books like her own (explains things like free trade deals better than the movie), Jared Diamond's "Collapse", Elizabeth Kolbert's "The Sixth Extinction" and others, and knowledge of climate change I feel it is a great time for humanity to be asking these questions but the mainstream media and mainstream America and other Western countries majority I just don't think enough people would be on board. Grassroot movements for plain good old democracy (democracy spring) don't seem to be doing all that much because the media largely ignores, so the effort seems futile while people have jobs and school they are largely too busy to go to or hear about these efforts and issues. It's a sad state of affairs really that I myself struggle with but I myself, just have to try and stay busy as well and not think about it too much and try to do what I can and spread knowledge 300+ million years of evolution and such a nice fairly friendly, beautiful world and we are kind of just ruining it so much in such a short amount of time (and for what? I view it as mostly bad luck that science was in such an infancy state before capitalism and the industrial revolution and how quickly things progressed but if we were a smarter species we would have acted more rapidly to mitigate damages but the point is one can think about alternate histories that could easily have been better).
With all that said the film does end up being pretty powerful and gets people to question and think for themselves (what really is the value of gold really? versus clean water, healthy soil (food) and air, gold means nothing).