The Age of Stupid, Avatar, is anyone awake?

Last night I went to see Avatar in 3D, and the night before Transition Town Kinsale put on The Age of Stupid.

The thing that got me most about Avatar, apart from the 2D American marine characters, was that... it isn't fiction. Large, monstrous companies are extracting unobtanium by destroying trees that give life and shelter. Right now. And I guess the message is pretty blatant in Avatar - "they" don't care about anything except profit (which, of course, is what company directors are legally obliged to care about).

I wonder how many people will walk out of the cinema and go, oh, ok, I'm consuming too much - I'll grow my own food, and stop flying! The blue people must be allowed to live their lives! Yeah! (Well, the blue people do fly, but on the back of large blue-green dinosaurs.. but that's beside the point!)

So.. it's a good film, albeit with a heavy dose of Hollywood cheese in several places. I hope "normal people" the world over will take the underlying message, or at least what I saw as the underlying message, and move rapidly to low consumption lifestyles...

And what about The Age of Stupid? Set 45 years from now, it tells the stories of a number of people and families from the last few years - focussing, to my mind, on people choosing not to be aware of the emergency that is upon us. From an Indian businessman starting a low-cost airline because the Indian trains were, to his mind, no good (which, as I was in India last year, I find amazing - the cost, distances travelled, and sheer volume of people transported by the Indian rail system is staggeringly impressive) - despite being "aware" of climate change; to two Iraqi refugee children, having lost their father in Iraq, play-shooting and killing each other. From an English woman fighting against wind farm developments, stressing that she is aware of climate change and is doing her bit (probably by putting in energy saving lightbulbs..), to a Nigerian woman whose village has been robbed by corruption of any of the revenue from oil sales declaring that she wants to be famous, and wearing an "I love my credit card" t-shirt.

I know, it is only possible to be impartial if you don't have too many pressing concerns of your own. I am unlikely to be thrown out on the street; I have the luxury of being able to ponder these matters. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

What is the point of this blog post? I wonder. Same old message I guess - try to fly less, grow more food, convert to a wood burning stove and learn to knit...!

I am going to watch Garbage Warrior soon, about an American man making places to live out of old car tyres - good positive action.

Well, no car tyre houses here... but I have put a couple of pots onto our kitchen windowsill, parsley and mint!