ABC's Earth 2100

[Anasazi]

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Earth2100

OK, I only tuned in for 10 minutes about an hour through.

Admittedly the short segment I watched may not have been representative of the entire presentation, but it was all I could stomach.

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Earth has problems galore but science and engineering solves them.

Made me want to puke.  Reminds me of the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs. Visions of a future with problems but conquerable with technology.

Bordered on outright feel good propaganda for the masses.

Kunstler was featured in shorts. (not the Bermuda kind)

Feel free to correct me if you managed to sit through the whole thing, I couldn't. (and it wasn't just the crude cartoons reminiscent of Clutch Cargo and his dog Paddlefoot or the smarmy narrative female's voice over)

[mgcardin]

You tuned out waaaay too early, Anasazi. It's in hour two right now and is an all-out freaking doomer porn party. I'm flabbergasted that this kind of unadulterated doom could make it onto primetime network television.

Interviewees now include not just Kunstler but Thomas Homer-Dixon and Richard Heinberg. In the fictional story line, a super-plague has caused a die-off to the tune of 50 percent of the human population. Sea levels have risen to catastrophic levels. The entire power grid has gone down.

Get the idea?

I repeat: I'm astonished that this level of doomer speculation is playing on primetime American network television.

[Anasazi]

OK, I'm back in and watching.
We'll see...

[Anasazi]

Nope, they lost it in the last 10 minutes.

China and India reducing emissions along with the US.

Screwing in compact fluorescents.... enough water for the US Southwest and Las Vegas, food production in the cities for all occupants....

No, this is not going to bring out the best in humanity as they claim, children will not be disease free and I don't share thier optimism about humanity. Maybe that's why I am on a doomer board.

Still a feel good ending that's unrealistic as hell.

[tofu2u2]

. . .the crude cartoons reminiscent of Clutch Cargo and his dog Paddlefoot . . .

oh wow! I haven't heard that name in decades!! 

[mos6507]

Nope, they lost it in the last 10 minutes.

I know, but this is still a major milestone, man.  Appreciate it for what it is.  Something like this on the major networks would have been considered unthinkable a few years ago.

[Chesyre]

  I repeat: I'm astonished that this level of doomer speculation is playing on primetime American network television.      

i'm not , american exceptionalism and materialism will lead the chumps to see themselves in the car . as opposed to on foot pushing a shopping cart in dust storms.
 

[mgcardin]

I've gotta agree with both of you, Anasazi and mos6507. This broadcast is a milestone. Imagine it taking place 10 or even five years ago.

But still. . . those final 10 or 20 minutes were pretty gooey with the techno-utopianism, weren't they? I thought one of the most notable things about that concluding run was the prominent absence of the Kunstlers and Heinbergs.

But even so, can you imagine the impact of the program's dystopian story on good old Joe Blow who has never really thought about such things and just tuned in for an evening of zoning out to the tube, only to be confronted with the end of the human race, buttressed by commentary and quotes from Important Talking Heads? Pretty profound, I think.

[SeasonOfPain]

Yep, I knew they'd turn unrealistically Pollyanna in the last 15 minutes.

Still, the first 7/8 of the show was actually very good. If someone with an iota of rationality (enough to scoff at the incredible absurdity of the "alternate ending") watches this, they might actually get a valid picture of what's coming.

I even kind of liked the story line (made me think a bit of a World Made by Hand chapter written from a different perspective), except that the silly woman kept gushing about having babies (HELLO, OVERPOPULATION, ANYONE??!!) and the time frame should have been compressed by about 1/10. I thought the population counter dropping to around 2 billion, the MZBs on the road, the wipeout of the coasts and the southwest more than made up for the silly "live in a brownstone with mini-windmills and a built-in greenhouse and drive to work in an electric car" idea (which at least proved to be futile in the end of the story anyway).

Not bad doomer porn at all, if you switched off right before the last part (right about where they pucker up to their sponsors and say "And now, don't worry, here's what will really happen, don't worry, you'll still be able to mindlessly consume.").

What the hell was up with bringing that hack Thomas Friedman in the last portion? Most of the show had great interviews with credible sources on where we're headed: Diamond, Tainter, Heinberg, even Kunstler... and then they bring on that officious windbag who helped cheerlead us into this mess with his now plainly-failed economic exuberance of globalization and expansion?

And speaking of sponsors, was anyone else baffled by ABC's advertising choices? I mean, do they really think an appropriate target audience for this program would be avid viewers of "Dancing with the Stars" and "Wipeout"??

[DarthBruder]

Nope, they lost it in the last 10 minutes.

I know, but this is still a major milestone, man.  Appreciate it for what it is.  Something like this on the major networks would have been considered unthinkable a few years ago.

I agree it's a milestone, but James Burke was talking about the Trigger Effect 30 years ago on a major BBC series and Malthusian catastrophe has been debated for two centuries now and even was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal as a real possibility a year ago.

[mos6507]

And speaking of sponsors, was anyone else baffled by ABC's advertising choices? I mean, do they really think an appropriate target audience for this program would be avid viewers of "Dancing with the Stars" and "Wipeout"??

They had one ad for a depression drug, though.  They might as well have just come out and said "Just so you don't OD on sleeping pills after watching this doomer porn, check with your doctor about xanax (or whatever it was)."

[Doomerologist]

Too bad they didn't show more of Kunstler and Heinberg; I wish i could see their whole unedited interviews to see all the stuff they left out. But having said that, it IS really amazing to see them featured on prime time TV.

I kept hoping they would say (if only in passing) the magic words "Peak oil" at some point, though

[SeasonOfPain]

Oooh, and if nothing else, the comments section on ABC's site are predictably hilarious...

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Earth2100/comments?type=story&id=7697237

[Doomerologist]

Another thing i just remembered, I thought it was pretty cool that they mentioned Easter Island (including the fact that they resorted to cannibalism) and used it as an example of what could happen to humanity.

Here's a C&P from the transcript found here:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Earth2100/story?id=7736882&page=1  (I hope it's ok to post it)

BOB WOODRUFF
Easter Island: one of the most remote places in the world.   
 
HEIDI CULLEN 
Easter Island is sort of, this iconic image of what collapse looks like.  You know,
because you, you can see it so visibly, they, they built these massive monuments, and
there’s nothing there now.   
 
BOB WOODRUFF
It’s hard to imagine that a civilization once thrived on such a barren island. But it
didn’t always look like this. 
 
JARED DIAMOND 
Easter Island used to be covered by a forest of dozens of tree species including the
biggest palm tree in the world.   
 
BOB WOODRUFF
But as their population grew, so too did their demand for wood.
 
JARED DIAMOND
As they gradually cut down more and more trees, the trees didn’t grow back rapidly
enough to replace the trees that were being cut down. So sometime in the 1600’s the
last tree was cut down. 
 
HEIDI CULLEN 
You saw all of the classic signatures of collapse, they stopped building these
monuments, the population plummeted, there was starvation, and, I mean essentially
they turned to cannibalism.  The question is, what was that person on Easter Island
thinking when they chopped down the last tree.   
 
BOB WOODRUFF 
The pattern is clear. Civilizations that grow too large and consume too much
damage their own life support systems. As resources run out, they begin to fight
each over what little is left. Then, they either starve, or leave. But in our case,
where can we go?
 
HEIDI CULLEN 
I think Easter Island is the perfect metaphor because it’s this small fragile island, sitting
within the Pacific Ocean, it’s very remote, and, and it, it no longer was able to sustain
the population that lived there.  It’s no different than Earth being this small planet, in a
vast galaxy.

[DarthBruder]

Oooh, and if nothing else, the comments section on ABC's site are predictably hilarious...

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Earth2100/comments?type=story&id=7697237

Interesting because the tide seems to be turning in those comments as doomers get on board.

(Who said what now about mixed metaphors?)