The 11th Hour

"The environment is going to survive. We are the ones who will not survive or live in a world that we don't want to live in."

With the need for environmental change always on the news and being argued over by government parties, the general public can tend to tune out thinking that it is out of their control, or that the problem is not as bad as it seems and easily ressolveable. The 11th hour reaches the average person on a far better level, explaining the impacts of the human race on the world we live in, backed with the opinions of a number of studies and experts in their fields. The inclusion of Leonardo Decaprio also allows for a stronger connection with the public as it is someone they know and trust to a certain extent.

The first half of the film is acctually very confronting and shocking when it becomes apparent how unsustainable our lifestyles are. "The amazing thing about the human body is that it has 100 trillion cells and 90% of them are not human cells." we are an integration of nature and evolution, derived from single cells millions of years ago on a planet that meets the perfect conditions for life. this shows how precious our planet is to us and how we are not incontrol of it nor are we better then it, we are a part of it and the systems that work with it. The interesting part is that it is the same evolutionary advantages which made us the most successful species on Earth, which are leading to a downfall and untapping us from nature.

Every system running naturally in the world is becoming undone and interupted by what we are doing to it. Everybody seems to know about the carbon polution in the air and the implications of deforestation, however people seem to be unaware of the accelerated decline of other systems such as the ocean, coral reefs, climatic control, froest cover, conditions of soil, biodiversity etc. "The fact is there isn't one living system that is stable or is improving." All of these systems are similtaniously collapsing from our impact, "we face a convergence of crises". This is quite a confronting concept when we come to the relization that all these systems have grown over millions of years and ahve adapted millions of species, however it is only one species on Earth that is destroying all of them - us. What we seem to have lost a connection to is that all these systems support all life in the world which include us, so affectively "we're committing suicide".

"If human beings are the source of the problem then we can be the foundation of the solution"

Not all is lost. Although the documentary conveys a grim outlook, it merely aims to show the desperate state for change that we face and that we need to come to this realisation quickly so that we can begin fixing it. The exciting (and challenging) part of people with the role of designing is "we get to reimagine every single thing we do...this generation gets to completely change this world".

The biggest point that the documentary portrays is that for us to succeed, in this epic task to restablish the world we live in to make it sustainable, we must all work together and every little thing helps. "Everbody making a change adds up to something meaningful" people only have to do small things to contribute whether it be switching off lights or having the right tire pressure.

I think the most interesting points we actually showing how affectively nature does things sustainably better than we can. For instance that way in which we produce materials is by heating them with fossil fuels and forming them under immence pressure and yet a spiders strand of web, stronger than steel, is made from just water and chemistry within the abdomen of the spider - no heat, no fossil fuels - an incredibly strong material that is completely sustainable. we regain our attachment to nature and survive with it instead of above it, to produce a sustainable way of life that we can live in for centuries to come.