It's the end of the world and we know it

Climate doomsday film ‘The Age of Stupid’ still hopeful, says director in video interview 9

Pete Postlethwaite looks back from the future at today\\'s news in film The Age of StupidWe can’t believe what’s going on today either, Pete.Courtesy of The Age of Stupid

“Why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?” asks the main character of Franny Armstrong’s new film, The Age of Stupid. Living in a world of climate catastrophe, this solitary character, played by Oscar-nominee Pete Postlethwaite,  serves as humanity’s moral hindsight from the year 2055.  He scans video archives of events unfolding between 2004 and 2008, shocked that the world at that time knew it was flushing its future down the drain. Humankind’s stubborn refusal to act on climate compels him to dub contemporary times “the age of stupid.”

Fortunately, we don’t (yet) live in this climate-ravaged scenario of the future, and we have opportunities like The Age of Stupid to knock our thick skulls into action.

Before The Age of Stupid‘s U.S. premiere in New York City on September 21, director Franny Armstrong took a few minutes to chat with me about the film’s part documentary, part back-to-the-future format; its scare-tactics approach; and what it’s supposed to inspire (or depress) you to do:

Look for big names at the film’s eco-premiere Monday,  such as former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, musicians Thom Yorke (Radiohead) and Moby, X Files actress Gillian Anderson, and our own Umbra Fisk, who will be appearing at—if not walking down—the green carpet that night. Check back here Tuesday for her video coverage. The live New York event and film screening will be simultaneously broadcast to 440 U.S. theaters Monday. However, if you don’t catch The Age of Stupid at a local movie theater that night, you’ll have to wait a while to see it on TV or DVD ... most likely after the Copenhagen international climate talks in December, and by then, Armstrong would argue, you’ll likely be too late to have the most climate impact. Which would be stupid.

Synchronize your watches because The Age of Stupid film premiere is part of both the high-profile Climate Week NYC and the TckTckTck Campaign’s Global Climate Wake-Up Call. Climate Week will see hundreds of world leaders in business and politics meeting in New York to address climate change in anticipation of the Copenhagen talks a mere seventy days away. The activist-organized Wake-Up Call is a day of rallies and actions to call on world leaders to commit to serious greenhouse gas reductions. Find (or organize) a Global Climate Wake-Up Call event near you on Monday, September 21.

The Age of Stupid looks to be an unforgiving examination of the actions (and inactions) of today, portending extreme consequences for mankind if it doesn’t get its act together on climate. Will this film wake up the masses to the climate crisis or will its chilling predictions eventually be realized?

Watch the trailer and decide for yourself:

 

The Age of Stupid USA Trailer from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

The science and multimedia-loving Ashley Braun writes, tweets, and Facebooks for Grist. And sometimes she does this for herself. You should follow her on Twitter, but not in real life. That’s called “stalking,” you creepster.

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  1. amazingdrx's avatar

    amazingdrx Posted 9:57 am
    19 Sep 2009

    Stop the Age of Stupid!

    Imagine an electron superhighway circling the planet, so everyone everywhere can tap into solar panels and wind power. The Sun never really stops shining, it's just earth rotation that makes it seem that way.

    And the wind never stops blowing everywhere at once. Biomass rich regions, with farming and forestry, have biogas to backup the other renewable sources.

    So what if it's financially impossible to construct a global power grid? It is feasible to construct continent sized HVDC power grids, and that would be enough to get the reliability needed.

    Compare the cost of continental power grids to the cost of rail and highway systems. Did those systems pay for themselves many times over in economic growth and increase in the standard of living? What if continental power grids are used to electrify rail and road travel?

    To head off the "stupid" trend, "smart" needs to come forward. A smart way to measure bottomline outcomes of generational national investment like this is over decades, not over the next business quarter or election cycle. This film highlights the longer picture.

    Maybe it would be informative to look at how other generation spanning investment decisons, like the one to build the interstate highway system, attained consensus.

    It just doesn't make any sense that the economic disaster brought on by fuel based energy and it's manipulation and wars over it, can ever be cured without switching to renewable energy.

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  2. andrewlbliss Posted 11:34 am
    19 Sep 2009

    Would it be hypocritical to drive 60 miles to see this movie?

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  3. climate_science_teacher Posted 5:39 pm
    19 Sep 2009

    Please consider comments by leading climate scientists who have seen the movie.

    We gathered top climate scientists and educators to screen this motion picture in May of 2009. See their comments and reviews. In addition, are summaries of the motion picture from a science perspective, provided by two climate science graduate students.

    The Age of Stupid is strong in many respects, but comes with a major
    difficulty -- the claim that climate change is likely to cause the
    extinction of the human species by 2055 -- and that this is the assessment
    of mainstream science.

    Recommendation by leading IPCC scientist, Dr. Stephen Schneider:
    http://www.climatechangeeducation.org/art/feat/age_of_stupid/reviews/schneider.html

    Summary/Synopsis of The Age of Stupid:
    http://www.climatechangeeducation.org/art/feat/age_of_stupid/reviews/synopsis.html

    Where is this film factual scientifically, and where is it off?

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  4. Bud Dingler's avatar

    Bud Dingler Posted 5:47 pm
    19 Sep 2009

    Show me any area of science where a new theory was proven beyond a shadow of any doubt in 20 years?

    I find these kinds of hyped up media creations about doomsday AGW laughable. There is so much we still do not know about the planet. While AGW is a credible theory and we need to collect more data certainly the idea we're all going to perish by 2055 is a comic book kind of fantasy.

    Some day we'll look back at a movie like Age of Stupid and realize how stupid it really was!

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  5. BB1978 Posted 7:05 am
    21 Sep 2009

    The title of the movie says it all. Bud, take a look at the field of Physics. If it wasn't for science, you would probably be dead. I don't think the doomsday scenarios are that off the mark. Many of these things are already happening in poorer nations in the world. We in America like to deny it because we haven't been heavily affected by it yet. That speaks to our ignorance, and selfishness, in addition to our stupidity.

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  6. roncastle Posted 1:41 pm
    21 Sep 2009

    The Age of Stupid is really stupid, we all know the correct date is 2056.

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  7. blueskykate Posted 4:37 pm
    21 Sep 2009

    Unfortunately, this film is being streamed in a format that most indie film theaters cannot access, severely limiting the number of places its being shown and essentially ignoring the largest audience out there- the indie audience.

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  8. davidtheprof Posted 3:10 pm
    22 Sep 2009

    the Age of Stupid http://www.ageofstupid.net is a very powerful film emotionally (not on general release for months in the US, I hear), but alarmist disaster movies and calling people stupid might not be the best strategy for mobilizing the apathetic, and will probably be polarizing- it might move some from concern to activism, but will also mobilize the Glenn Beck followers. The film doesn't hold out much room for optimism, despite the director's talk about 'hope' (Hope is American marketing hype, the Brits seem to like hopelessness)

    Read more about oil-running out and other disaster scenarios on my blog http://climateinc.org especially http://climateinc.org/2009/09/the-age-of-wisdom/ and http://climateinc.org/2009/08/a-tale-of-two-meltdowns/ which explains why we seem to be collectively stupid, and how difficult it is to take collective action to solve our climate problem.

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  9. wolfger Posted 5:44 am
    23 Sep 2009

    I was very disappointed in this movie; it didn't even keep me awake for some of it. It was a hyped rehash of much that's already known, imho. It didn't look at the real problem: too many of us for sustainability. And it didn't even enlighten us with the best way to start solving the CO2/development crisis which is family planning education, birth control aid, and the desirability of the two child max family.
    http://www.optimumpopulation.org/submissions/opt.sub.briefing.climate.population.May07.pdf

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