I finally watched The Age of Stupid all the way through. I first saw the making of it shortly before the premiere but it seemed to be taking it's time to come to Germany. A friend mentioned it to me the other night as she had just seen it (and she somehow wasn't surprised I knew about it, isn't that nice?) so I thought I'd better actually watch the full thing. I have to admit, I did just watch it on via megavideo but I felt a bit bad about that so I went and checked out the website and have now paid for a download of it. At six pounds, it's really not a lot (and there is a facility for contributing more if you have the money for it as well). So please, if you do decide to watch the film, consider downloading or streaming (that costs four pounds) it from the Spanner Films website. I'm going to get McLibel soon too as that's another one I've wanted to see for a long time.
On the Stupid site, there is a link to the 10:10 campaign, which was started last year to encourage people and organisations to sign up and commit to reducing their emissions by 10%. They've extended the campaign to run in 2011 as well and although German isn't listed on the front page as one of the countries where it's being run, looking further through the FAQs etc., I found a link to the German site. Coming so close on the heels of my having gotten my annual electricity and gas readings, it seems like the kind of time when it might make most sense to start and for now, I think my commitment will be to reduce those readings by 10%.
On a side note, I had to laugh at one of the first sentences on the German website. As a lot (maybe even all?) German verbs end in 'en', Germans have a tendency to make up new verbs by adding 'en' to a word, particularly using lots of English words to make new verbs. As a native English speaker I find this kind of annoying because having spent time learning the German words for things, I find lots of Germans now use English words (it's called Denglish) but at the same time, if I use those words, the Germans are often very quick to explain to me what the proper German word is. Can't win. But sometimes it is amusing, such as on the 10:10 website, where you are encouraged to join in and "ten-tennen" your energy use.
If anyone else is interested in watching the film, it's very interesting. Even though the film is barely two years old, I find that the unpredictability of the weather these days is even more apparent given what was being talked about in the film (there are some news clips about the drought in Australia, for example) and what we have just so recently heard about (massive flooding and a huge cyclone in Australia). I'd love to hear if anyone else decides to join in the 10:10 campaign too.
2 comments:
I hadn't heard about the film but now I'm going to try and check it out. Living with a scientist who is very sceptical about climate change it is hard to know where to stand (because he is good a debunking a lot of stuff I hear) - on the other hand, we both agree that people/things need to change even if we don't agree on whether it is changing the earth's temperature.
I have to contend with a brother who is something of a conspiracy buff (I was reprimanded recently for calling them conspiracy theories when they are obviously not just theories) and, not being of a scientific bent, have taken the path of least resistance and decided that it doesn't really matter if what we do is causing climate change or not (thus removing the need to argue about it). All of the things the are purported to contribute to climate change most definitely contribute to the massive pollution we have in the world and that seems to me to be reason enough to do things like cut down emissions. And of course, there's a whole big dose of peak oil in my thinking combined with a dislike of how global corporations have taken over so much and a desire to, well, regain a little independence really.
Is he sceptical about whether climate change is actually happening or just about it being caused by people? Just curious.
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