Paved with good intentions (2024)

Paved with good intentions

Every single word in this boring documentary, I agree. From the title you can deduce that “The 11th Hour” is a warning to us all that we have basically used up practically all our resources on planet Earth and as a result, we’re now stripping our furniture for firewood. It’s a terrible message.

Once upon a time Earth was running on existing energy source. This year’s sunlight fell on this year’s crops, feeding and warming this year’s people. However, with the use of coal and oil we are consuming millions of years’ worth of accumulated energy at an alarming rate thereby resulting into toxic pollution, global warming and earth imbalance. What is the outcome of such suicidal spending? Stephen Hawking envisions one where Earth will resemble Venus with temperatures reading 482 degrees Fahrenheit. Still there would be some rainfall though unfortunately consisting sulphuric acid.

Earth has fallen off its tilt. Do you know from the recent Discover magazine issue that somebody wrote how fish stocks are disappearing from our oceans to be replaced by an enormous invasion of jellyfish – stupid organisms without brains whose only way of life is eating? Sounds like us too.

It is “The Eleventh Hour,” narrated and co-produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, which brings together various experts who reflect on their specialist areas and explain how mankind has ruined it but maybe can still change course before it is too late. Our time is running out fast! According to John Todd architects Bruce Mau we could build solar-powered structures that excrete waste matter just like trees do.

Why wouldn’t every house (at least new ones) have solar panels on their roofs to generate heat, light or air conditioning? There is another reason actually; Big energy corporations would never allow any attempt to divert part of their multi-billion dollar subsidies towards green homeowners.

One hears about deforestation, dying seas, melting poles and greenhouse gases entrapment. And another upcoming documentary film “In the Shadow of the Moon”, which is about the surviving moonwalkers, demonstrates what is seen as one space station away from Earth at a distance of 250,000 miles; it seems quite ridiculous that such a small planet can be enfolded within such a fragile and thin atmosphere.

This is all important to know. Are we too self-centered to do something about it? Why is everyone not buying a hybrid car? It can be run for the whole year with fewer emissions than a gallon of paint. They have a mileage that exceeds by 30% to 50%. The secret however lies in the fact that hybrids are faster because they have two motors.

Thus you meet people and ask, ‘Are you getting a hybrid?’ They get uncomfortable and answer, ‘I do not know.’ Instead they would rather save their old habits of going slower, spending more on gas and polluting the air. If liquor companies advertise for responsible drinking and tobacco companies warn against health risks, why don’t gasoline companies encourage me to buy a hybrid?

Some of these points are from “The 11th Hour,” others are mine, and the point is: we pretty much know all this stuff anyway. Does the movie inspire us to do anything about it? No. My next car was a hybrid after I watched Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth.” After watching “The Eleventh Hour,” I would think more carefully about my next cinema.

It goes against one of television news’ oldest rules; write for the pictures! When Gore’s movie makes an assertion it also provides visual evidence. This creates too many scenes in “The 11th Hour” that could just as easily be found in any other nature documentary where choppers swoop over hills and valleys while birds seem sad and ice melts away.

These things have been intermittently followed by around fifty experts speaking incessantly through intercuts. Even DiCaprio sounds like he’s giving a presentation for his class project. Consequently we see all of them as talking heads who talk then watch some nature videos then talk again until finally one has had enough let me get it straight.

Meyer the hairy economist once told Travis McGee , “Anyone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with companionship is a bore.” In spite of its noble intentions, this movie is simply boring. Just rent “An Inconvenient Truth.” Even if you’ve already seen it.

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