Of the many possible futures that awaits humankind, one surely includes a scenario whereby an alien archaeologist lands on the cold, lifeless remains of the Earth and struggles to unravel the mystery of how a species intelligent enough to split atoms, put one of its own kind on a floating rock in the sky, and unlock the secrets of its own genetic code was ultimately too brutish and short-sighted to avoid destroying its only home. With any luck, those alien scientists of the future will find a high-quality copy of Surviving Progress lying around somewhere and save themselves a lot of time running back and forth all over what’s left of the planet trying to figure out what the hell happened.
Produced by Martin Scorsese and boasting an array of prominent thinkers including David Suzuki, Jane Goodall and Stephen Hawking, this brain-meltingly urgent new documentary directed by Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks makes a strong case that - barring some sort of global cognitive leap that allows us to transcend our selfish and aggressive primate heritage - human civilization may ultimately prove to be nothing more than a few fleeting, discordant notes in the ancient and ongoing symphony of life on this planet.
Artfully, mesmerizingly rendered and scored, the film opens on a distinctly Kubrickian note and slowly unfolds like the shared fever dream of William Gibson and Philip K. Dick. The film’s central premise - there are too many people on the planet with a lot more on the way, and not enough resources available to support them all, especially when more and more of them are adopting a more consumption-driven way of life. In addition to the challenges posed by too many people and not enough resources, are the crippling effects of hideously disproportionate income inequality, and a global economy fueled by greed, consumerism, and a vampiric system of perpetual debt that drains the life out of nation, land and people alike.
The film makes no attempt to put a positive spin on things or prescribe simplistic, annoyingly fluffy, non-reality-based kumbaya solutions that insult the intelligence. We’ve got some epic problems to solve and little time to waste debating how to solve them if we want to avoid winning a collective Darwin Award as a species. The good news is that we’re arguably the smartest biped that’s ever stomped the terra, the bad news isthat our brains are still hard-wired for the Stone Age and dominated by short-term, fight-or-flight thinking that’s completely at odds with the sort of long-range, visionary thinking we need to apply if we’re going to have a hope in hell of surviving in the long term. Until that kind of vision comes along, people in the real world will continue to do what they need to survive, and the problems we face will continue to grow both in scope and complexity.
Another of the film’s strengths is the way it puts a human face on broad regional concepts that can often be a bit too abstract and/or complex for some to grasp. Anyone who wonders about the potential environmental cost of having a billion Chinese reach a level of consumption on par with that of Europe or the United States need only witness the example shown by the young entrepreneur tour guide shown in the film. Those who advocate the cessation of logging in the Amazon may find themselves moved by the plight of the poor Brazilian loggers we see at the bottom of the food chain who depend on deforestation for their very survival. If nothing else, perhaps the words of the young Brazilian schoolchildren who stand to inherit a barren and overpopulated world will reach the ears of someone in a position to turn things around.
One can only hope.
After outlining the rather bleak array of staggeringly complex problems our species faces, the film posits the potential hope offered by technology by eventually making the permanent leap into space, or, as Craig Venter suggests, engineering ourselves, other species and/or our environments to help ensure our survival. However, as mentioned in the film it’s impossible to predict the future and avoid falling into a “progress trap.” The success of technological solutions to the problems we’ve created depends on our ability to envision the long-range implications of our actions as we embark on this brave new campaign of engineering species to serve human needs. George Carlin once joked that it was foolish and arrogant to worry about any effect we might be having on the planet and that the Earth would just “shake us off like a bad case of fleas” once we became too much of a nuisance. Only time will tell if Carlin was right. Posing more questions than it provides answers, Surviving Progress is essential viewing for those concerned about the fate of civilization and bold enough to navigate the deeper reaches of the philosophical sea.
