Planet Earth: The Future (TV Mini Series 2006) Poster

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7/10
Repetitious and incoherent, but still informational
rgcustomer9 February 2011
Warning: Spoilers
In comparison with the parent series "Planet Earth", this is a letdown, but still worth seeing.

A good part of the screen time is devoted to replaying scenes from the original series, beyond what is needed to make the point. Additionally, from episode to episode, statements are repeated as well. This content should have been delivered in half the time. Pity.

There was some useful information presented in this series, reflecting on the very real danger that many species in "Planet Earth" are in, largely due to us, whether through "sport" (somehow they never get to shoot back at humans), predation by humans, habitat and resource loss due to humans, or global warming due to humans. In some way, it apologizes for "Planet Earth"'s deceptively rosy picture of life on the planet. That series' success is due to finding the most extremely successful pictures of life, and gives a distorted view of what's really going on. How can any show called "Planet Earth" ignore the huge areas humans have dominated? Even "Planet Earth: The Future" doesn't show many metropolises, airports, refineries, strip mines, etc.

Unfortunately, while pointing out that we're in a mass extinction, they also want to tie it up in a pretty bow and claim that we can survive it OK by taking baby steps, giving in to economic desires, and making slight modifications to methods, rather than outcomes. It's completely unbelievable. If you take what they say seriously, then their proposals are wholly inadequate. Significant paradigm-shifting steps need to be taken immediately, if we are to minimize the damage and ensure that our centuries of work won't be for nothing. We must reduce BOTH population AND lifestyle, then change the systems (steady growth) that led us down this path. There is no other credible answer. Furthermore, it WILL happen. Won't it be better if we tackle this now, instead of waiting until the last minute to respond to it, and finding it's too late to adapt?

Last, they seem to give religion a free pass, and further propose it as a solution rather than a problem. For Christianity, consider Genesis 1:26-28, and especially Genesis 9:1-2, and Psalm 8. Even today you can find US federal lawmakers in House leadership positions, who say it doesn't matter what humans do to the earth, because "God" put us in charge, and will not allow us to come to harm. This is not a fringe view in the US, which already has a notion of "exceptionalism" to fuel this. Also consider the Catholic prevention of condom use. Before religions can be taken seriously as part of the solution, they need to own up to their contributions to the problem. (Similarly science and technology-glorifiers need to own up to causing global warming in the first place).
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