Beshara

Beshara

Beshara Magazine

The 11th Hour

A 2007 documentary created, produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio. Directed by Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners

A Review by Narda Dalgleish

Recently, as I was going to tell some friends about this film, much to my surprise they said: "It's terrible, no one can sit and watch it with such concentration. There are just too many experts talking to you very fast and non-stop".

But it is precisely this massive, diverse and intelligent participation, which makes this film by far the best, most comprehensive study I've seen on this subject: "A look at the state of the global environment including visionary and practical solutions for restoring the planet's ecosystems".

The editing creates a brilliant, fluent thread between the speakers so that every now and then you almost forget and hear them speaking as if with one voice... now, the voice of the earth... now, the voice of heaven... So many amazing people!

I was thrilled to hear William McDonough, a revolutionary architect, talk about reinventing 'Design' in several YouTube clips. Another fascinating discovery for me was biomimicry – presented by Janine Benyus – an American natural sciences writer, innovation consultant and author, who has become a profound inspiration for architects, designers, engineers and industrialists.

Here are some highlights:

"There is a fundamental illusion in the world that somehow people are separated from nature, when the reality is that we are part of Nature – in fact, we are Nature."
Kenny Ausubel, Founder, Bioneers

"What we don't see or think about when we look at a tree is: What's the volume? How much water is contained there? Turns out to be 57,000 gallons of water in a 10 - 12 inch flash flood. It can grab that much water, and prevent it from running off. Captures it in that sponge, cleans it, puts it back in the aquifer. Take that one tree away and you got a flood, you got soil erosion. You've lost those 57,000 gallons from the local water supply. And then that water is rushing down stream hurting people, hurting communities, ultimately polluting the ocean."
Andy Lipkis, President and Founder, Tree People

"We're at a point in History, with 6.4 billion of us that we have to imagine what it'd be like to redesign design itself and see design as the first signal of human intention, and see we need new intentions where materials are seen as highly valuable and need to go in close cycles, "cradle to cradle" instead of "cradle to grave"... So the design itself changes from mass production of things that are essentially destructive, to mass utilization of things that are inherently assets instead of Liabilities."
William McDonough, Architect, William McDonough and Partners

" So, economists don't include all of the things that nature does for us for nothing. Some technologies would never be able to do what nature does. For example, pollinating all of the flowering plants. What would it cost us to take carbon dioxide out of the air and put oxygen back in it – which all the green things do for us for nothing? It's possible to do a crude estimate of what it would cost us to replace nature. Well, it turns out, Constanza – this is several years ago estimated it would cost us $35 trillion a year to do what nature is doing for us for nothing. Now, to put that in perspective, if you add up all of the annual economies in the world at that time it came to $18 trillion. So nature was doing twice as much service for us as the economies of the world. And in the madness of conventional economics, this isn't in the equation."

"... I see a world in the future in which we understand that all life is related to us, and we treat that life with great humility and respect. I see us, as well, as social creatures. And when I began to look back and say: "What is the fundamental bottom line for us as social creatures?" I couldn't believe it because it seemed so hippie-dippie, but it was love. Love is the force that makes us fully human".
David Suzuki, Scientist, Environmentalist, Broadcaster

"Now, to me the value is the healing power that comes from getting that it's not just global warming. It's not just fossil-fuel dependency. It's not just soil erosion. It's not just chemical contamination of our land and water. It's not just the population problem. And it's not just all of those. The deterioration of the environment of our planet is an outward mirror of an inner condition. Like inside, like outside. And that's a part of the great work". Wes Jackson, President, The Land Institute

I can't say what it was that moved me to watch this film so many times, as my personal sense of connectedness with the earth is wanting. But whatever it is, I recognize, like many people today, an increasing pull to be in touch with a genuine response in myself and hope to be moved further, beyond mere intention. If you're prepared to watch it more than once, it becomes a truly inspiring mirror upon which you inevitably see yourself, humanity and our transitional era reflected in a new light. Here are remarkable people marking a revolutionary turning point in human history. What a great privilege to be of our time...

I fantasized wishfully as I was watching how wonderful it would be were this film to become a priority subject in every school's curriculum... globally... as soon as possible...

Links