SOYLENT GREEN 1973.

How can anything survive in a climate like this? A heat wave all year long. A greenhouse effect. Everything is burning up. Okay. Wise guy. Eat some Soylent Green and calm down.

Well what do I think of the 3rd series of the new Dr Who on BBC 1, is the obvious question. The interesting question is what can we learn generally from science fiction as a form of culture? How does it make us think politically, especially about ecology? I watched the 1973 dystopian classic Soylent Green last week for the first time. It is worth a look and I guess you can borrow it from some of the dvd schemes on the net.
My copy had a really cheesy documentary that put me off and yes it is a bit of a boy movie, full of violent action and casual sexism not cool. However it is interesting with all the climate deniers claiming that there was a big scare about global cooling in the 1970s to note that back in 1973 greenhouse concerns were in popular culture.
Soylent Green is set in New York in 2020, climate change means that food is artificial, the oceans are dying and its unbearble hot all the year around. The rich are protected, the multitude riot for the artificial food Soylent Green.
It is based on Harry Harryson's novel 'Make Room! Make Room!' and seems Malthusian inspired, the plot though shows that corporations wreck the planet and then profit from selling more commodities to the survivors.
Perhaps Soylent Green are Exxon! What is the secret of Solyent Green, well you probably know already but I won't spoil things by saying just in case you don't know.

See you at the anti-Exxon Party in Leatherhead, tomorrow on Good Friday!


Stop oil addiction
'Exxon is the worst of the oil companies. Their role in funding climate change deniers like Chris Horner's Competitive Enterprise Institute and bankrolling George Bush means they should be the number one target for those of us who want to protect our beautiful planet. In the 1960s and 1970s tobacco companies funded attempts to deny that smoking led to cancer, by delaying effective action 1,000,000s of people died, by delaying action on climate change Exxon could kill far more.
We need to oppose Exxon....break our addiction to oil and show that climate change cannot be combatted simply by individual lifestyle change, the big corporations need to be challenged and political change needs to occur so we can all go green in a meaningful way'
Climate change cannot be delt without challenging the growth illusion. Our economy cannot grow for ever, we consume 52 million barrels of oil a day, we cannot keep consuming, Americans Gordon brown's model of commercially responsible humanity are profligate, producing 20 times the co2 of the worlds average citizen. The mathematics behind western civilisation simply don't add up. But tell an addict to cut their habit and they get angry, everyday politicians are tightening the tourniquet and mainlining on petroleum.'