Customer Reviews

Age of Stupid

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Featuring music from Radiohead and Depeche Mode, The Age of Stupid: Why Didn't We Save Ourselves When We Had the Chance? is a wry yet all-too-close to reality movie set in 2055, where climate change has brought about the end of the world as we know it. Pete Postlethwaite is a sole survivor looking back at old footage of seven people from contemporary times, and asking the question: why didn't they (and the rest of humanity) work to stop climate change and ecological devastation, back when they still could? An award-winning cautionary tale with an overwhelmingly critical message, The Age of Stupid deserves the highest recommendation. This two-disc DVD set offers both an uncensored and a "bleeped" version of the movie; extra features include extended interviews, deleted scenes, a 50-minute "making of" documentary, 8 short climate films, a crew commentary, and more. 89 minutes, 2 DVDs, subtitles in SDH English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Chinese Mandarin, Dutch, Thai, and Vietnamese.

Sometimes powerful documentary on global warming, it has two key problems.

First, it often comes close to feeling like it is overstating its case, presenting things in a very skewered, Michael Moore like way, but without the irony or humor. I'm a great believer in the science of global warming and the urgent need to do something, but- at least from what I've read - this film took some worst case scenarios and presented them as mainstream established fact. That can be unproductive, as it gives the nay-sayers the ability to accuse those of us who see this as a huge problem of exaggerating.

Also, for me, the linking device of Pete Postlewaite (an actor I loved) as a man in the future looking back at film clips to see where we all went wrong is dorky at first, then dorky, preachy and dull, Any film that ends with "The end?" is a little cute for me.

But the subject is important enough, that if this makes it accessible, say, for kids, that is a great, worthwhile thing.

While the information found in this movie is actually pretty interesting and definitely in support of stopping global warming, the way in which it is presented is not at all interesting and is in my opinion quite childish and boring. I wouldn't recommend it to anybody except to maybe a second grade class.

I found this film slow-moving and its slowness caused the target to get lost. While the concept of looking back was a good one, I feel that its execution in this film left something to be desired. After a half hour I started skipping hoping for something better but did not find it. MUCH BETTER FILMS ON THE SUBJECT ARE AVAILABLE.

Although the perspective is set from the future, the story is really about *us*, about the choices we are making *now*, that won't affect "future generations, 10.000 years from now" - but... our children. It shows a guy in 2055 looking at what we did today, and what happened the last 10 or 20 years or so. There were plenty dramatic events going on, and apparently, nobody was taking notice...

Katrina was a huge warning of what's happening when climate goes berserk. Ocean temperatures rising produce more and more intense hurricanes.

Or take the war in Iraq. This is not about "weapons of mass destruction". This is not about "democracy". This is a "resource war". Even Alan Greenspan literally said it and is quoted in this movie : it is all about OIL. The US and in broader terms the whole western civilization is built on (cheap) oil. Oil provides cars and planes with fuel, it even produces "food" (be it full of pesticides and with few nutrients). The big problem is that oil corrupted the governments, and they do absolutely nothing to stop the way our "civilization" is built. We are in a position we cannot expect our "democratic" governments to take any action. If we want to take action, we'll have to do it ourselves. And it won't be easy.

This movie is built along several story lines. The strongest ones are built around an Indian businessman and an English wind farm developer.

The Indian businessman wants to offer cheap flying from one rupee onwards to all Indian people, and... succeeds...

The wind farm developer wants Britain to build more and more wind farms. Although he personally has his own wind turbine to supply his family, he wants to build a wind farm for 11.000 families, but this project is successfully stopped by some neighbors, who don't want a wind farm "in their backyard", because it would "spoil the view". That is an argument I really cannot relate to. Every time I see a wind turbine, I am a happy guy. I see clean energy - zero carbon emissions.

Humankind is committing suicide. We are definitively not homo "sapiens". The title of this movie is right. We live the age of stupid. Although 99% of the scientists say climate change is real, 60 % of the people think that if they ignore climate change enough, it won't happen...

Homo sapiens has only lived for about 200.000 years on this planet. We used to love our kids. We used to leave the planet - our families and our communities - in a better state we found them in. That was called progress. Now most people believe in consumerism, but an ever-expanding growth on just one not-expanding planet is impossible. We really face suicide.

Watch this movie, share it, and act now.

The title and the creative medium might lead some to discount the seriousness, the stark urgency of this message about what needed to be done to avert runaway climate change. Today on the news I heard an upward revision of the forecast of ocean rise from 3 feet to 5 feet something. Why indeed are we not right now doing ALL in our power to stop burning carbon? I guess stupidity is the kind, less judgmental word for it. Very saddening to face the implications of being a member of such a stupid species.

The format of this film is a series of extremely thought provoking vignettes. I found premise itself quite sad, as the plot concerns a 2055 archivist in a world where the arctic ice sheet has melted, the global population has drastically shrunk, and it's clear humanity is on the verge of extinction. The archivist's children are still alive (barely), but his grandchildren have all died.

The most helpful vignettes for me were those featuring climate scientists clarifying the notion of the tipping point - the average temperature rise that will set off an unstoppable chain reaction putting further global warming beyond the control of mankind.

Average global temperature has already increased one degree since the start of the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century. Climate scientists (and most government leaders) agree there will be a tipping point if we allow temperature to rise one more degree. At an average temperature two degrees above pre-industrial levels, there will be a massive kill-off of trees (which absorb CO2) and a massive release of methane (the most damaging greenhouse gas) from the Siberian permafrost. This, in turn, will automatically send global temperatures shooting up another four degrees - making the earth to hot to sustain advanced life forms (mainly because their food sources will die out).

These scientific vignettes also helped me get my head around the time line associated with these events. It will take a minimum of thirty years for emissions from the fossil fuels we burn in 2010 to result in higher global temperatures. According to the mathematical model constructed by climate scientists, we have until 2013 to start steeply reducing CO2 emissions - by a rate that would cut the industrial world's emissions 80% by 2050.

If we continue to increase emissions past 2013 (instead of reducing them), it will probably be too late. We can expect global temperatures to achieve their two degree increase by 2043 and then rapidly shoot up (due to tree destruction and methane release) rapidly by another four degrees.

The other vignettes that really hit home for me were those showing how many of us (myself included) are very passionate about reducing carbon emissions. And yet continue to make personal choices incompatible with this goal.

Air travel for example. It makes no sense to change light bulbs and forgo car trips and to continue to use air travel for transportation. I was astonished to learn that a family of four can scrupulously reduce their carbon footprint by the requisite 80% and totally undo three years of good work with a single 2-3 hour plane trip.

The film makes no mention of purchasing carbon offsets to compensate for air trips (there are numerous schemes to allow air travelers to pay to plant trees to compensate for their CO2 emissions). However this approach does nothing to reduce demand for air travel - which is the only way to reduce total flights and the massive amount of CO2 they produce.

In fact, given we only have three years to begin drastic CO2 reduction, the time has come to challenge people who still fly frequently for business reasons. Especially with the ready availability of video conferencing facilities, they need to ask themselves the hard question every time they feel tempted to make an airline reservation:

Is getting on this plane - or even making money - more important than ensuring the survival of my children and grandchildren?

The year is 2055. All of Earth's history, as recorded by humans, has been preserved in the "Archive." The Archive's Librarian (Pete Postlethwaite) is making a video recording of his thoughts regarding the global environmental catastrophes over the past 50 years. Looks like the climate change deniers were wrong, wrong, wrong, and the Librarian reviews actions, particularly during the period 1980-2005, in the UK, Nigeria, the Middle East, and India.

Toward the end of his review, the Librarian laments, "Why didn't we save ourselves when we had the chance?"

Some of the more powerful moments are when an English town votes to deny the permit needed for constructing a wind energy farm ("Of course there is a need for alternative energy... we'll just find it elsewhere," one opponent says after celebrating the defeat [my paraphrase]). And the need to improve the "standard of living" for people in India, Nigeria, and elsewhere, while whittling away at the global greenhouse gas emissions.

No, this was not a documentary. No, this was not supposed to be a fair and balanced view of the debate.

However, it will stimulate discussion. Guaranteed. Age of Enlightenment? Age of Reason? And now, an Age of Stupid. What will our children's children say about us?

There is a PG version (bleeped language) and an original version. However, I wish there was a 55 minute version that could be shown in a classroom timeframe.

A very good movie,If you like this movie you would also enjoy "Food Inc." These 2 movies has changed the way I think and live.Technology is not only destroying the earth but it is destroying jobs.We are using more oil than we have,and will at this pace run out in the neer future.I now hunt for my meat now, after finding out all the meat in stores is sprayed with amonia and other chemicals to kill the bacteria,and the inhumane conditions for both the animals and the people.True quality meat only exist in the woods.good movie,must see.

This is a British made documentary and is more about consumerism than global warming. The film is set in 2055, 50 years ahead of 2005 where most of data comes from. The big problem with global warming is that there is about a 40 year time lag before we see the effects of what we have done today which will affect our grand kids. The message of the film is that we have to act now to avoid a runaway increase in temperature of 6 deg. Some of the effects of global warming shown included; that the Sahara desert is increasing by three miles per year; a glacier near Mt Blanc that dropped by 145m since 1945 and in Alaska the average winter temperature has increased by 4 degrees since the 1960's. Global warming will increase the number of larger hurricanes like Katrina in 2005, because of higher ocean temperatures.

The future looks bleak because of consumerism; India and China are becoming consumer countries, they are hardly likely to reduce carbon emissions, China is building a new power station every three days. The example given in India is a man setting up a low cost airline, he is buying 26 planes to add to India's 200 planes, China has 800 planes, and the smallish SW airline in America has 417. Flying in a plane has a very large carbon footprint, in a transatlanic flight, you consume about your own body weight in fuel. America the biggest polluter is hardly going to reduce its emissions.

Examples of stupidity in the film were the British who did not like wind farms in their back yard. 80% of planning applications for wind farms are turned down, if they were accepted then we would have 10% of our power from wind. If we do not like wind farms how can we ask the developing world to cut down. The squandering of our oil resources, which are limited, but our consumer society relies on oil, we are nearing peak production. Near Mt Blanc there is the tunnel to Italy, the French send potatoes to Italy by truck to be made into mash, and then brought back. The French also send milk to Italy by truck and back to France as Yoghurt, this is madness. Then there are the gas flares in Nigeria which emit 70 million tons a year of CO2.

It shows how oil is worth fighting for, as in Iraq, and it covers two Iraqi children who fled to Jordan.

The film proposes carbon rationing as a solution, but this will be too late. As climate change starts to hit us and resources get low, it is obvious that wars will take place. The future looks bleak for our grand children, will we act now? I doubt it.

The DVD is worth buying; it is a bit slow, so only 4 stars. It is very thought provoking and worth getting. The packaging is in paper (rather than plastic which comes from oil) and there is a bonus DVD. It comes with hilarious stickers, saying "Stupid", that you should not put on cheap airline ads or on 4x4's - would be very very naughty. Don't even think about it.

For an antidote to global warming fever see The Great Global Warming Swindle (DVD)