When Neanderthal hunters learned to drive one or two mastodons off a cliff, the tribe ate well for weeks. When they stampeded the whole herd over a cliff, the tribe's own survival was threatened.
That's what British historian Ronald Wright calls a "progress trap." It's a crisis that occurs when innovators deplete the very elements that allowed them to initially advance, like parasites killing off their host.
The accessible, visually striking and lucidly reasoned "Surviving Progress" argues that civilization is now at such a brink, like the Sumerians, Mayans and Easter Islanders of old.
"Unlimited economic progress in a world of finite natural resources doesn't make sense. It's bound to collapse," says naturalist Jane Goodall.
Unfortunately, like our hominid ancestors, we are wired for short-term rather than long-term decision-making.
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Co-directors Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks have assembled a stellar cast of interviewees ranging from astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and genome researcher J. Craig Venter to behavioral scientists to economists to the former Brazilian minister of the environment.
They raise warnings that laissez-faire capitalism and growing consumer demand in the developing world threaten to shred the social fabric and despoil the planet's natural resources.
They shy away from proposing solutions, and the filmmakers capture humanizing clashes that illustrate the challenges of finding a balance that serves all parties.
In the Amazon we observe arguments between sawmill laborers and deforestation activists. In China we meet an entrepreneur leading cross-country auto tours who sulks when his college professor father mentions air pollution.
"Surviving Progress" offers no glib answers to such conflicting interests, but to fault the movie for that is like blaming a brilliantly constructed fire alarm for not being a hose.
Review
Surviving Progress
****
• Not rated.
• Directors: Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks.
• Running time: 86 minutes.
