The film described forces that were blocking change. What is the main force blocking change? How is it blocking change? Elaborate.
The main force blocking change right now is the media. As consumers, we have the power to decide what to buy, and if we should buy from companies doing what’s right, or buy into companies that are doing what’s convenient. To make such a choice, though, we must be able to identify what the right choice is. The media does an awfully good job at convincing people that they need certain products, but when it comes to telling people to wake up and do what’s important, you won’t find anything. 



Certain people higher up in the corporate chain funding television decide what gets media coverage. It should then go without surprise that things that put them at a disconvenience do not get shown; things such as advising people to avoid needless spending in lieu of frugality. In Ancient Roman times, to keep the lower class pacified they would use breads and circuses; well fed, well entertained people were less likely to complain. This idea has modified over the years, and in today’s modern society the two have been advanced to perfection; entertainment has never been more mind-numbing, and companies produce incredibly low-cost, low-health food by the truckload. The media reassures us that everything is alright; and as reactionary beings, we then decide there’s no need to panic and change everything to be sustainable.



The film stated the population is increasing because of this new “hidden energy." Explain.

In the past, what they grew was dependant on sunlight. Their crops grew because of the sun, they rose with the light of the sun, and they stayed warm with the sun. What the sun provided was what they had to live by. And even as inventions such as fire, lighting, and electricity were created, it was still more convenient to live within the boundaries of sunlight. As sunlight is something that humans cannot change with any degree of practicality, they were limited by how much sunlight they could get. The population could not grow too far because there would not be enough crops to sustain it; the power required to run farms to a size able to support that is far too high. As such, the population stayed at a max of about one billion people.

There are currently about 7 billion people living on Earth. It is commonly regarded that the cause for this dramatic increase over about 100 years was petroleum. Farming especially benefitted from the usage of petroleum: food can be transported quickly using fossil fuels; farm vehicles can be operated, making labour much simpler; pesticides and chemicals can be created with ease. This impact to farming’s speed made creating food for a much large population incredibly simple, and as a result, populations have rose sharply in many places around the world.



After the Industrial Revolution, we view resources in a different way, how did our view on resources change? Explain.

Resources are seen by what end result they can give, and what value they are attributed. In the past, a dresser would be made by a carpenter labouring over each individual part. Currently, we have machines set to manufacture dressers in large amounts. While it is convenient, it is also considerably more wasteful. A carpenter would be very careful not to go over the amount of wood that’s required to make the dresser, using every bit of it carefully. A machine will throw the rest of the wood into a bin to be taken to a different factory. Often, people will go to a store, buy a dresser, and think nothing of it. A dresser is a dresser, and to them, they will have a dresser and put clothes in it. Many people have dressers, the only thing making their dresser special is the fact that it belongs to them.

This apathy is problematic. That person would not have considered the trees chopped down to create that dresser, nor would they consider all of the parts of the wood thrown into a bin somewhere, nor would they consider the other unsold dressers put in a landfill somewhere. Why would they? A dresser is a dresser, after all. If they were to value the wood used in the dresser, it would only be as a value inherent in the dresser(“my dresser is mahogany!”). They would not consider the 57000 gallons of water that tree can hold, nor the hundreds of species of animals, plants, and fungi that reside in and around the tree.

We now as a global community focus on the economy, what are some of the “ancient truths” we have forgotten? Discuss.

Humans are part of nature. In the past, people would take care to give back to nature, to avoid overfishing, and to make sure that there would be enough tomorrow so they could live peacefully. Similarly, nature was held with a sense of terror, as something that, without mercy, would drive humanity out. Humans are animals, and as animals, we are just as much subject to nature as before. There is a growing disillusionment with the land that we live on; natural disasters are seen as things that can be dealt with. In the past, a natural disaster would be the most feared thing. Religions were started to worship nature in the hopes that the deities would protect them from its wrath.

The economy now is seen as protective, that humanity’s ingenuity will protect us from everything. We do not see disasters as we did before. A thunderstorm is survived, a flood is redirected, and all of the technology we use to try to mitigate the disasters are seen as the perfect solution. It is often forgotten that the sources of many of these disasters are caused by our inability to give back to nature. Climate change is not a two setting switch, and we have just began to start our rapid descent into disaster. Humans have forgotten that we are apart of nature, and have forgotten to give back. We believe our economy can protect us only because it has protected us from the beginning of nature’s wrath.