Review of Thrive: What on Earth Will it Take? (2011) by Norm B — 30 Nov 2011

What I like about the movie Thrive:

It tells a story of the consolidation of power into the hands of the few, making a case for why chemical and pharmaceutical companies and energy cartels go on wasting the planet. Foster Gamble seems to know his stuff, as he should. As he points out, the intent of his Princeton education was to groom him to take his place among the power elite. So, we must assume that he is giving us the inside scoop. We're in deep deep doo doo, all of us, and we must come to terms with our situation. In the face of extreme environmental degradation and catastrophic effects of climate change it's life or death for pretty much everyone. Knowing the forces we're up against is very important. Gamble lays it out fairly well.

What I don't like about the movie:

So much time and resources spent on an imaginary source of free, abundant energy. All I get to see, as viewer, is a purple doughnut cartoon superimposed on a coffee table while folks whose credentials and reputation we are supposed to hold in high regard hang out and talk about this as some god-like answer. FREE ENERGY! FOR EVERYBODY! Sorry, but this reminds me of a bar band in Houston called Free Beer. Every time I've encountered something that was too good to be true, it was. The internet, especially YouTube, is loaded with it. What does it say to people when you say "we can have it all free, for nothing" yet can't even be demonstrated? So please, show me. To tell the truth, I feel kinda ripped off when it's something I can only imagine, but isn't actually being done, or is being faked.

I love technology. I can also be fine without most of it. I'd say our biggest problems are spiritual, not political or technological or whatever. I do believe that for a long time we have had technologies, both social and mechanical, that would enable us to live on this planet sustainably. Buckminster Fuller, Royal Rife, Nikola Tesla and scores of others have given us things we haven't begun to explore. In the US at least, we've become accustomed to our drunken orgy of cheap energy. Like we're entitled to all we can take. At the same time, in the past 150 years, we've all but forgotten ancient knowledge that has allowed us to survive, even thrive, with the limitations of the world for millenia. The notion of unlimited, free resources is what has trashed so much. It may not be a popular idea, but the big lesson we need to learn concerns our limits.