The Need For Regulation
Why Make The 11th Hour? | Choosing The Experts | What Can
We All Do Now? | The Need For Regulation | Optimistic? |
Biogs | Discuss
There is a point in the film about ownership of resources such as rainforests and oil-rich regions. Is it possible for these privately owned yet critical regions to be regulated?
NADIA: We tried to go for a basic idea in this film and that is the earth is only so big – there are limited resources here and our population keeps growing and putting demands on the planet that can not be fulfilled. It's as if we are on this collision course so we looked at what is driving this use of resources. No one is saying human beings shouldn't use the resources available to us but what we are saying is that wasteful consumption needs to be replaced by smart production. It is in the best interests of all people and cultures to be more careful with the resources we have. Progress could be redefined as what is good for the market and the planet and human society – without including the well being of all three of those you aren’t getting real progress.Somehow we have to strike a balance between private ownership and public good – it would be great if that could happen through a consciousness shift within the free market rather than through regulation as regulation seems to have loopholes and that is about forcing people to do something against their will.
LEILA: There should be the notion of the commons even with land that is owned privately. For example, if a corporation owns millions of acres of rainforest, they need to take into account the services that the land is providing for the planet as a whole, in this instance, oxygen and biodiversity that leads to the health of life overall as well as medicines. The commons should be recognized at an international level through UN agencies or international agreements. The value of these lands could be traded in credits for oxygen for example.
Before such advanced systems are put into place, there should be regulation of whole industries while also putting into place money for research and development into new technologies so that corporations won't feel the need to go into rainforests for dollars. For example, talking rainforests again, with good forest management, not a single tree would need to be cut down from virgin forest, we could do it all with tree farms.
People may compare this film to An Inconvenient Truth. How is it different?
LEILA: An Inconvenient Truth is a brilliant movie that helped to raise awareness and activism on a global scale, but it was specifically about global warming. In our film, we spend about 7 minutes on global warming. The 11th Hour is a story about how humans face an extinction crisis if we continue on the path of business as usual.NADIA: An Inconvenient Truth was a fantastic and powerful treatise proving to the world that not only is this happening right now under our watch, but that humans are causing the problem. The film opened audiences up to ask important questions and helped to make projects like ours even possible. It was a very fact-based film while The 11th Hour is more of an emotional experience about our place in the world about our hand in the collapse of the planet’s ecosystems, and our potential role in reversing this damage. Our film contextualizes global warming as being part of a larger problem.
We are grateful to be able to build off of the foundation of An Inconvenient Truth and the fact that the film really got the environmental issue out to a much larger audience. We hope to take this effort further, to more people and with a deeper message that encourages a shift in the way we relate to the planet and each other.
