[Ro]

Thanks for posting that. A good way to kill the first intermission of the Canada game.

Watching it reminded me of Michael Moore's films- while it's important to question some of the facts and opinions presented, many people are simply going to be too lazy/indifferent to do just that. But what does remain with them is the overall message and tone of the piece, which in this case seems to be "try and consume less."

Is that such a terrible message? Is it so blatantly false and wrong that anti-alarmists everywhere should critique it with voracity and pick apart every inconsistency? I don't think so. If the overall message is one that suggests we start making our economies more sustainable, I am willing to forgive the occasional shortcoming the film may have had.

I also liked the section on "Planned Obsolescence" and "Perceived Obsolescence." Very, very interesting. Reminded me of an article I read once about Gillette, and the fact that they had designed about 10 different versions of the "Sensor/Mach 3" line of razors before the first one ever came out. Then, one by one, an expertly timed and well crafted marketing campaign would hit the masses, proclaiming a slightly improved version of the razor to be a "must-have." Then, wait 12-18 months or so, and bam, new razor. And again, and again. Making the consumer think they are tinkering with and improving the product in between versions, when in fact all the R & D has already been completed and they are just waiting for the days to tick off the calendar before they can release the Mach 3000 Turbo or whatever.

One critique I do have is that all too often presentations/articles/movies like this one spend 80% of the their time explaining what the problems are and why they're so scary, and only 20% of the time offering solutions, alternatives, ideas for a brighter future. I suppose it's important to try and convert those who for whatever reason don't agree, but for the rest of us, and especially that lazy/mostly indifferent/"set in their ways" group I referred to earlier (which is the category I fall into some of the time), spur us into action with some useful ideas.

Edit- I missed the "Another Way" link after I finished the video, but found it after searching around the site again. Plenty of "what you can do" stuff there.