So, in a period of time where the attention span is apparently shrinking, and we are completely overwhelmed by high-quality content that somehow keeps pace with the news cycle…
… I would like to link several documentaries (/non-fiction works) (currently) available on Youtube for free. These are works I share openly with others in the sustainability community, with a healthy respect for their time being sacrificed in watching them. They are all excellent, and help to explain how we arrived in our current state.
[This post will be updated and expanded periodically, so please do check again]
Four Horsemen (2012)
By ‘Renegade Inc‘ and made just after the cards landed following the GEC, it explores how the growth based economy is incapable of taking humanity in a positive direction. Interviews with big name economists and ex-finance workers make this a hard-hitting and yet credible expose of all our systemic flaws.
Hypernormalisation (2016)
A fantastic film by Adam Curtis, showing how the reality we anchor ourselves to now is completely false, and what’s worse… we know it too. It covers Trump, war, the internet and a host of other relevant themes, and has aged like fine wine.
It seems long, but I promise you on my Grandmother’s eyesight, you will not regret the time given.
(Subtitles available in many languages)
The Atomic Cafe (1982)
An incredible Indy film exploring the post-war and pre-cold-war era of atomic testing, and the retrospectively terrifying interactions between government and citizens. Assembled entirely with US propaganda from the 40’s and 50’s, this is some of the most chilling footage you will ever see. If you ever need some (relatively) contemporary evidence that governments are more than comfortable winging it in areas of extreme danger and potential suffering, this is an incredible piece of work.
Planet of the humans (2020)
This documentary took some serious heat from the green movement after its release, and so some may be surprised to see it on this list. I am no fan of Michael Moore, and find him wide of the mark often on details, but I find his work often successful at raising awareness of issues.
That being said, this documentary is a great attack on the religion of growth. On the modern green movements belief that we can shift to ‘green growth’, ‘sustainable intensification’ or ‘decouple emissions’. These are utopian fantasies, and sustainability has come to mean ‘what small changes can we make so that nothing changes at all’. If your solution to climate change involves mass consumption (and therefore mass production), it is a poor solution. If it involves linear production processes with high material loss, it is a poor solution.
The word ‘Greenwashing’ has been around a long time. We are starting to see more and more egregious examples of this as funding opens up to slick pitches. The green movement needs to be ready to push back.
So, this is no endorsement of every fact in this documentary, or every public figure heckled. It is, however, an endorsement of their plea to run screaming away from using growth in GDP as a metric of success, and their analysis that growth (capital and population) is the root cause of all our problems.
Cowspiracy (2014)
I know it is filled with vegan ideology, but 5 years ago it opened my eyes to the harm of agriculture and meat-filled diets. I literally watched this documentary the day after deciding I wanted to return to livestock farming as a career (because it is such fun work to do), and it set me on to a Google rabbit-hole that changed me life.
And, after 3 years of high level study on food security in a top agricultural university, I can state confidently that of the three options to ensure adequate global food over this century – dietary shift is the only one that ties in with reality.
This film deserves respect for the sheer number of people it managed to reach, regardless of the obvious bias towards plant-based diets.
The Spider’s Web: Britains Second Empire (2017)
A great expose on how Britain leverages the remnants of its empire to create ‘tax havens’, and in fact is all down to ‘the little City of London’. This is a separate entity within London, somewhat like the Vatican in Rome, with an alarming amount of special political priviledges.
Shows not only how corrupt Britain and the Bank of England are, and how misdirected the national incentives by definition have become, but also highlights one of the biggest problems affecting developing countries – kleptocratic governments misappropriating wealth and hiding it in this offshore funds.
Realistic Pragmatism 