The Age of Stupid: New Film Gives Us a Painfully Realistic Look at Life in 2055

By Sean Pool, Climate Progress. Posted March 19, 2009.

London is underwater, New Orleans won’t be rebuilt a third time, the arctic is ice free, and agriculture is failing, which leads to global food riots and ultimately the collapse of civilization…. This is the premise of the new crowd-funded British independent film The Age of Stupid.

Set in 2055, the film portrays a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by the worst impacts of climate change, and looks back at the critical period between 2005 and 2015 to examine why we didn’t save ourselves when we still had the chance.

In an opening sequence, the narrator (played by Oscar nominee Pete Postlethwaite) takes us through a montage of news reports describing visible impacts of climate change: A 101 degree day in London, 700 dead after record flooding in India, record breaking drought in Melbourne, desertification in China progressing at the rate of 3 miles per year, dozens of Antarctic ice shelves collapsing faster than anyone predicted, 18 million affected by flooding in parts of Africa, and a glacier in France having shrunk 150 meters since 1945.

The fact that the clips in this montage are all real-life news reports from 2007 and 2008 is chilling.

Indeed, although framed by a post-apocalyptic narrative set in the future, the bulk of the film is actually a documentary about the impacts of climate change that we are already seeing in 2009 — and its not pretty.

That the impacts are depicted through the lens of real human stories makes the film’s message all the more accessible and compelling. Here is a snapshot of some of the characters and their stories:

Alvin DuVernay is a career oil paleontologist from New Orleans who spent his life directing drill bits for Shell. When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, he personally rescued 100 people in his boat, but lost his home and all his possessions.

I lost everything. Everything that I owned. Quite literally. Except for my boat. I mean everything from family heirlooms to the paper towels sitting on your kitchen counter. And everything in between. It goes on and on.

I mean what more of a wake up call do you need? At the very local level all the way through and including the top federal level I just don’t see that awakening, that epiphany in the politicians’ eyes. I don’t see the sense of urgency. And I certainly don’t see movement. A year or so later, after the event, and not a whole lot has changed.

Then there is the 80-year old French Alps mountain guide who, over the course of his 45-year career has seen the glacier that he loves shrink by 150 meters:

When I first saw all these mountains. The beauty. It was wonderful. It was truly love at first sight.

We created this problem. Always progress, progress, progress. Always demanding more and more from the planet.

And then there is the wind farm developer whose noble attempts to get a few wind turbines installed in a rural part of England are rebuffed by selfish grassroots resistance (the whirling of the blades might hypnotize people while they are driving….)

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