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Earth 2100 - Like Drag Me to Hell, but real

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I rarely watch shows like this for a couple of reasons:
1. They scare the ever-living shit out of me and I think we are all going to die
2. They make me feel like a terrible person.
Earth 2100 did both in just the first 10 minutes. The rest was just an ever-increasing feeling of nausea that I wouldn't be able to drive my Hummer anymore.

I've read The World Without Us by Alan Weisman (who they briefly interviewed) and seen Wall-E. so I didn't feel like I was going to get too much new info from this program, but hey it was on and I needed something to write about.

The show is narrated by Lucy, a fictional character living in 2100 who's "seen" all the bad shit that has befallen Earth. She walks us through her life to identify where it all went wrong with the planet. She begins with Earth as it is now and then starts laying on the disaster. Her "experiences" are validated through interviews with today's leading experts on global change. These are just some of the uplifting highlights:

Rising gas and food prices
Storms of the Century
Excessive Global Warming
Godzilla vs. Mothra
Population overgrowth
Massive human migration
Animal extinction
Global pandemic
Catholicism
Road Rage

The shock value in this program was off the charts. I understand the "scared straight" mentality of invoking change, but Earth 2100 spends most of its time with laying out the worst case scenario without giving too many solutions. That's what the average person needs, solutions. Specific, real world solutions. It's obvious we are too dumb, as a collective species, to figure out how to handle these problems on our own. We need someone holding our hand through the process and basically treating us like children or poorly behaving pets. Spank us, scold us, and make us do the right thing for the planet.

(Sidenote: there was a 20 minute section that was pretty much Stephen King's The Stand.)

Overall, Earth 2100 was a mostly animated version of something you can read in any one of a number of books out right now. The Earth is going to Hell in a non-recycled handbasket and on different levels, we can all admit this. I just wanted someone to tell the masses how to stop it. Saving all the solutions for a rapid fire, against the clock list in the last 10 minutes probably isn't enough.

Basically the inanely vague and broad solutions were:

Invent new things
Use other energy
Be committed
Set an example
Make sure all my Chinese and Indian friends are on board with this
Use results as my actual solutions
Have faith

Thanks ABC. I will start all of that stuff tomorrow. Earth cured.
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Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 3, 2009 at 12:39 AM

    Just turned this on and this is a very balanced and fair account...bwaaaahhhhh...good lord...are people this stupid to buy this stuff?

    ReplyDelete

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