The Age of Stupid - new documentary
Discussion
Eric Mc said:
Is Pete Postlethwaite in this? he was rabitting on about it on Simon Mayo's programme this morning.
"The Age of Stupid is the new four-year epic from McLibel director Franny Armstrong. Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?"Oh dear.
Sciroccology said:
Eric Mc said:
Is Pete Postlethwaite in this? he was rabitting on about it on Simon Mayo's programme this morning.
"The Age of Stupid is the new four-year epic from McLibel director Franny Armstrong. Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?"Oh dear.
This was on the Politics Show, last Sunday. I am not sure if I heard correctly, but I think the UK Green Party are very heavily involved in this. If true, it isn't really a documentary in any sense of the word, but just an extended extra dull, complete with scare tactic garnish green party political broadcast.
It certainly looks alarmist to me but I'm told it's not. The fact that it shows a flooded London within a 50 year timescale would seem to suggest otherwise.
However I'm also told it draws the conclusion that there's f**k all we can do about climate change so we are better of spending time, money and effort on fixing the problems we can do something about. Didn't someone work out that the money spent on Kyoto could provide clean drinking water to every person on the planet?
However I'm also told it draws the conclusion that there's f**k all we can do about climate change so we are better of spending time, money and effort on fixing the problems we can do something about. Didn't someone work out that the money spent on Kyoto could provide clean drinking water to every person on the planet?
I am not commenting on the accuracy or not of this film, but it does sometimes surprise me just how quick some PH'ers are to condemn anything remotely connected with environmental awareness or concern. Often before they have even seen it.
Surely there are two sides to every argument, and sometimes it is the argument itself that is important - the fact that it is under debate. To simply dismiss one side of a debate automatically and out of hand renders the individual just as guilty of bias and narrow mindedness as they accuse those of being they disagree with.
Without doubt there has been a huge amount of erroneous information from the pro-environmental lobby - this is to be expected - they have an agenda and like many "new" subjects there is a lot of conflicting information and research. The media have not reported many of the issues well or in a particularly balanced way either.
But there has also been irresponsible arbitary dismissals and refusals to explore the issues from the anti-environmental lobby. This makes them just as guilty of selectivity and bias as those they accuse.
As always, the truth is likely to be somewhere between the two extremes. But given the possible scale of the catastrophe if some of the worst climate predictions were to come true, I would rather we had the debate in a mature manner, and made contingency plans.
The predictions may turn out to be wrong, I hope they are, and I believe most of them will come to nothing. But if I am wrong, then the scale of the disaster will be unprecendented. If we have learned anything from the banking crash it should be that doing nothing and just hoping it will all be ok is not sufficient.
Surely there are two sides to every argument, and sometimes it is the argument itself that is important - the fact that it is under debate. To simply dismiss one side of a debate automatically and out of hand renders the individual just as guilty of bias and narrow mindedness as they accuse those of being they disagree with.
Without doubt there has been a huge amount of erroneous information from the pro-environmental lobby - this is to be expected - they have an agenda and like many "new" subjects there is a lot of conflicting information and research. The media have not reported many of the issues well or in a particularly balanced way either.
But there has also been irresponsible arbitary dismissals and refusals to explore the issues from the anti-environmental lobby. This makes them just as guilty of selectivity and bias as those they accuse.
As always, the truth is likely to be somewhere between the two extremes. But given the possible scale of the catastrophe if some of the worst climate predictions were to come true, I would rather we had the debate in a mature manner, and made contingency plans.
The predictions may turn out to be wrong, I hope they are, and I believe most of them will come to nothing. But if I am wrong, then the scale of the disaster will be unprecendented. If we have learned anything from the banking crash it should be that doing nothing and just hoping it will all be ok is not sufficient.
Edited by AlexKP on Thursday 26th February 09:16
Grammar Police: The Age of Stupidity!
Therefore anything to do with this from hereon in is irrelevant and worthless fruit of the poisoned tree.
Alex you do have a point. But if you look at anythingany of this lot ever propose it's generally to do with politics - not common sense.
Be green. Save money. Don't burn fuel on s
t you don't want and st you don't need. Save it for the stuff you DO want and DO need...like your TVR, for example.
Therefore anything to do with this from hereon in is irrelevant and worthless fruit of the poisoned tree.
Alex you do have a point. But if you look at anythingany of this lot ever propose it's generally to do with politics - not common sense.
Be green. Save money. Don't burn fuel on s
t you don't want and st you don't need. Save it for the stuff you DO want and DO need...like your TVR, for example.Don said:
Grammar Police: The Age of Stupidity!
Therefore anything to do with this from hereon in is irrelevant and worthless fruit of the poisoned tree.
Alex you do have a point. But if you look at anythingany of this lot ever propose it's generally to do with politics - not common sense.
Be green. Save money. Don't burn fuel on st you don't want and st you don't need. Save it for the stuff you DO want and DO need...like your TVR, for example.
Therefore anything to do with this from hereon in is irrelevant and worthless fruit of the poisoned tree.
Alex you do have a point. But if you look at anythingany of this lot ever propose it's generally to do with politics - not common sense.
Be green. Save money. Don't burn fuel on s
t you don't want and st you don't need. Save it for the stuff you DO want and DO need...like your TVR, for example. the irony made me chuckle the first time I heard the title.anonymous said:
[redacted]
I think we are tired of the 'problem' being followed by proposed increas in taxes and restrictions on personal libery.The climate probably is changing, it probably is a natural cycle but we are spending billions trying to stop this while we could be spending the money on adapting. Adapt or die as they say!
Eric Mc said:
Probably - but mainly because we don't see these changes as "problems" - more "natural occurences" which we must learn to live with.
Smack on target with that one, Eric.Our Climate IS Changing. Exactly how we're not sure - not thirty years ago the whole scientific community was worred about a new Ice Age. Exactly why we're not completely sure - but have some ideas. We know climate is affected by the natural cycles of the planet's orbit and inclination (sp?) to the sun. We know climate is affected by the position of the landmasses on the surface of the planet and we know these move through a phenomenon dubbed plate tectonics. It's possible, I grant you, that human activity affects climate - and if it does, it could so only locally or, less likely, globally?
In any event the likelihood of us being able to actually affect our climate deliberately to "correct" some "error" seems to me to be very low. Cool it or warm it up? Don't think so.
What we should be doing is
1) Not deliberately hamstringing our economies which will be required to
2) generate enough cash for infrastructure projects to
3) deal with the inevitable
Seems obvious to me.
Wetter climate = better flood defences and don't build on flood plains.
Flooding of the Thames = Start moving things away NOW
Crumbling coastline? Barriers to help - ban on building anything close.
If our best climate scientists can actually foretell anything useful surely we should be planning on building stuff to cope with it - instead of wringing our blinking hands and actually doing NOTHING other than bang on about politics that is shag all to do with climate and everything to do with wealth redistribution!
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