Reflection on 'The 11th Hour'

The film the 11^th hour tells us the earth is in danger due to our damage to the environment and how we can stop it to save our environment.

The film can be divided into three different sections, the first section is describe how the earth develops, how the ecosystem changes and what had human done to the environment in the recent years; the second section analyzes on what caused the environmental crises; and the third section gives some possible solutions to the problems.

The cause of the environmental crises is human beings are taking too much of the natural resource without caring about the balance of the ecosystem and the rules of nature while most of the resource is non-renewable. As mentioned in the film, “There are too many us, using too many resources too fast”, “This lack of understanding of the Earth's interdependent systems has created a convergence of crises.”,  “Governmental indifference tied to its allegiance to a corporate economy that is addicted to growth at any cost and perhaps, most insinuating of all, to the culture of consumerism.” As a result, the human put the whole earth in danger and all creatures including human ourselves are going to pay for what we have done. People ruin the planet of earth, almost kill themselves, and we are all going to die if not doing anything to fix it. “Not only is it the 11^th hour, it’s 11:59” said the guy in the movie. As suggested, we need to stop what we are doing right now and get the things fixed. If human beings are the source of the problem ，we can be the foundation for the solution. “This generation gets to completely change this world.”

In the film, several aspects of solutions are proposed which are political, economic and technological and so on. From the economical aspect, the tax of petrol can be increased to force people use public transportations. From the technological aspect, which we need to concern more as designers, is to think more of green, renewable energy such as solar energy. For example, buildings with the ability to photosynthesize can be designed to absorb CO2 and release oxygen, or have the ability to transfer solar energy to other energy. And find the replacement for gasoline or design much better public transport to encourage people use public transport instead of cars, etc. Also, we human beings need to change our sense to think more for the environment. We need to recycle the wastes, save water, plant more trees and have fewer children and so on. It is our responsibilities to save the environment, to save our earth.