A voyage of discovery to see where America’s food comes from. This seems like a good topic, since where America’s food comes from has changed more in the last 20 years than the previous 100, replacing the bucolic ideal of the American cowboy rancher with giant agribusinesses and Yale graduate presidents in Stetsons.
(I like the idea of these extended clips for PBS documentaries)
This documentary celebrates the possibility that we are entering a period where science will change from discovery about the word to mastery over it. In a world of post millennial global warming, peak oil and impending Malthusian crises its a touching piece of optimism.
This world view is logically in direct opposition to something like the Green movement, because what it is suggesting, is that the environment is something we can control rather than defer to. It could be argued that our only way out of global environmental catastrophe is to hit the gas.
Of course none of these political issues come into play here, but it would be an interesting way to stir up complacency on both sides of the spectrum, by pitting the opposition to the Green movement as being something whose tone is liberal, mystical and positive, rather like this film.
I am in favor of environmentalism, but think that with it we have to accept that we will return to a dystopian, feudal past as a payoff to save the planet for other species.
The film is presented by Michio Kaku who made a name for himself as a popularizer of science, in the media. Which is odd, because he’s not a great presenter but is a truly great physicist, being, amongst other things, one of the co-inventors, as it were, of String Theory.
If you can get through the excruciating platitudes of the opening of this documentary the substance is really good.
(This is the first in a 3 part series).
51 min 54 sec Dec 11, 2007
However, in honor of Al Gore’s deserving win, which sends an amusing ‘fuck you’ to the knuckle scraping goons lolling around the White House, here is an excellent Channel 4 profile and interview of Gore. It is presented by the UK’s most savvy US correspondent, Johnathan Freedland.
Channel 4 46 min 41 sec Jun 5, 2006 www.climatecrisis.net
A two part British documentary which examines how the food we eat is not always what we think it is, due to factory farming and the effects of globalization.
Running time, part 1: 49 mins.
Link
Running time, part 2: 49 mins.