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The Green Life: Movie Review Friday: The Great Squeeze

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October 16, 2009

Movie Review Friday: The Great Squeeze

Escape to the movies with one of our Movie Review Friday selections. Each week we review a film with an environmental theme that's currently in theaters or available on DVD. Seen a good eco-flick lately? Send us a short review and look for it in the next Movie Review Friday.

The Great Squeeze: Surviving the Human Project (2008)

Available on DVD

The Great Squeeze is a documentary about how our reliance on fossil fuels has created endless consumerism with dramatic social and environmental consequences. Through anthropologists, economists, and biologists, we hear a message that isn’t exactly new: If we continue down this path, we'll ultimately change Earth's makeup, and humans will go extinct.

However, the film does a great job of crystallizing this message, explaining exactly what we've been doing wrong and how it's affected the planet, laying out the problems that threaten our survival. These include India's and China’s growing industrial economies, the freshwater shortage, and overfishing. These aren't just regional difficulties, the film argues; if one nation fails, it'll affect the rest of the world.

Thankfully, the filmmakers leave viewers with hopeful thoughts about how to redesign communities and downgrade our consumerism to adopt a more sustainable economic model. However, there is an overwhelming element to the documentary, since it's so wide-reaching and covers multiple dimensions of climate change. However, it's definitely worth watching and sharing with others, and its message should not go ignored.

--Julie Littman

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