The 11th Hour

The 11th Hour
The Relationship between Culture and Sustainability
I was taken aback for a while after watching The 11th Hour not from feelings of despair (although those feelings are inevitable when faced with the reality of human environmental destruction) but from feelings of hope that positive changes can occur at the microlevel (individual change) that can ultimately lead to macrolevel change where there is a relationship between culture and sustainability that facilitates global stewardship.
Culture as defined by R. Linton in The Science of Man in the World Culture (1945) is "all those historically created designs for living, explicit and implicit, rational, irrational, and nonrational, which exist at any given time as potential guides for the behavior of men." I think this definition of culture touches on how culture as a 'created design for living' does not necessarily act in its own best interest. Where guides for the behavior of men can often be irrational and nonrational as is evidenced in how our current culture has such a strong love affair with consumerism at any cost. In the film there was a great emphasis on our dependence on fossil fuels. The film mentioned that the money that Exxon brings in for one year is more than the profit from all the world's car manufacturing companies combined. Often when we think of our need for fossil fuels we think of only the money coming out of our pockets to pay for gas. The 11th Hour reminds/awakens us to the reality that our fossil fuel dependence goes well beyond just fuel needs of our vehicles. Fossil fuels are used to import, make, transport, and distribute all the consumer goods that we think we need. We are so out of touch with our actual dependence on oil that we do not realize that we do not make enough as a country to support our addiction/dependency. The film educates us on the fact that we borrow $800 billion a year from the rest of the world in great part to finance our oil imports and continue our destructive culturally designed path of unnecessary consumerism.
Where has our culture gone wrong? Since the Industrial Revolution humans have harnessed the resources of nature for a variety of uses. The faulty "irrational" thinking that has led us into our dangerous predicament is the assumption that nature is capable of limitless use. All we saw in the environment was what we could get out of it. The cultural attitude became based upon selfishness, economics, and a political structure that perpetuates a destructive economic system. Even in the face of our possible own extinction our cultural values still remain the same.
After watching The 11th Hour I saw hope. I realized that the only way we can change things is to create a relationship with sustainability. A relationship that looses its ideological ties to consumerism and as the film describes embraces values of "frugality", sustainability, and responsible living. To quote the film "We must change the idea behind limitless expansion." The film informs us that the technology is there to change our destructive path, but cultural changes must support a relationship with sustainability before any great advances can be made. The most important information I received from the film is that actions at the individual level are important in order to "shift the way we act" and the individual actions will "demonstrate to those in political power that we care." In other words everyone must do their part to foster and grow a healthy relationship between culture and sustainability.