The 1976 movie, "Soylent Green" was ahead of its time in portraying the dangers of non-sustainable growth and the consequence of an absence of environmental stewardship. It is in all probability the first movie (not documentary) that showed the possible effects from climate change to mankind. One of the interesting aspects of the movie is that despite the futuristic setting, it wasn't portrayed in a futuristic manner (as opposed to other movies with starships, lasers and teleporting devices). In fact, all of the technology presented in the film was available at the time the movie was produced. This movie was made to be gritty and not necessarily "fantastic". In many ways it intended to be a warning of the path that were on, and continue to be on.
This movie has become somewhat of a cult classic, but was still fairly popular when it first came out.
To conclude our study of this film, consider the following questions:
Are we on the same path (as a global society, and or as a nation) that precursed the plot (as was presented in the movie by Sal when he recounts why the world was in such dire straits)? Can we control our outcome? Do we want to control our outcome as a human race? What must we do if we are to help control our outcome on this planet?
You must post you responses to the questions no later than this Sunday 11:59 p.m.
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Honestly, if the world (mainly developed countries) continues to avoid making changes to our non-sustainable use of resources, then we could easily end up in the situation portrayed by "soylent green". We will run out of food, and be forced to find an alternative source of energy. As you said in class, we are going to hit the tree no matter what it's just a matter of how hard. In order to avoid getting to the extremity of soylent green, changes need to be made now. These changes are only going to be possible if our government takes initiative to do so. We can control the severity of the outcome, however it is too late in my opinion to avoid the inevitable. If humans want to preserve the earth for generations to come then yes, we want to to control our outcome. However, if we choose to not care and overindulge in places where we do not need to, then clearly people do not want to control the outcome. I have a feeling that the way people are looking at it is "It won't affect me now, so why bother changing it?" This is why our society is heading in this negative direction. We need to curb consumption, pollution, and non-sustainable activities now through government regulations in order to avoid destroying everything.
Soylent green portrays what the world fears today.
In the 70s, the depicted "ill earth" was only a warning fantasy...
Today (2009, EARTH) we have taken a few steps further to the end of Soylent Green's depicted "Diving board". (of earth health and happiness)...
Proof: Global Warming prooves to be a global warning of our earths unpleasant future.
Over population, lack of resources, poverty, and living in an undeveloped country are all related.
We have become aware. We are starting the fight. But more education and awareness will help the globe.
Soylent green was hardcore.
Go here, please :
http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/education/assets/einsteins_cat.jpg
The problem with our human race as a whole is that we want to blame others for what is happening. Its never our fault. Its the developing countries, and in the developing countries, its us. the people who consume and consume just because we can. There are all kinds of unnecessary items on the market, and we have this illusion that it is all something we need. The line between need and want has been blurred so much that we hardly know which is which anymore. Once we can get over this blame game, we can begin to realize that as a whole, we are all at fault. We are unwilling to change out ways, leave our comfort zone, and learn to live a sustainable lifestyle. Even though "Soylent Green" was created over 30 years ago, it still has a lot of truth behind it. what happens when the final trees are being cut, reproduction of wildlife slows, and every river, lake, ocean, and stream is overwhelmed with pollutants. The sad facts are, we as a race won't seem to truly understand until it happens.
The great thing is, we DO have the ability to control our outcome, I believe we can change if we really want to... but the real question is, do we really want to? When we get enough people to take a step back and actually look what we're headed into, maybe things are different. We can make the changes needed to create a more sustainable lifestyle, making us a more sustainable, long lasting, race.
I believe that if the human race continues the degredation of the earth the way that we are currently doing so then we will without a doubt be presented with a situation similar to that portrayed in "Soylent Green." Our food will be scarce, plants will be nonexistant, the population will be rediculously high, and the living conditions will be horrible.
If we want to steer clear of this future, we have to step up and do something about it. Stricter regulations on logging, emissions, energy use, waste management and all of that jazz. We have to begin the fight now if we want to be successful in preserving the outdoors for future generations.
We aren't in as much trouble as in "Soylent Green," but if we keep along out current path we certainly could end up there. There are definitely groups of people out there that DO want to control our outcome, but if we don't do something soon, it may be too late to control.
With this obsessive need and consumption of all our resources I think we will become something like the world depicted in “Soylent green.” We have constant appetites for oil and coal, and energy that can be provided easily now, but its not like we are sating our thirst for these things. Human wants and desires will never be sated they only grow as our population continues to increase. According to the Newsweek article we should be up 3.2 billion people by 2050, and we will be down millions of oil barrels by then, so we have no stable energy source to fall back on to help further our races life expectancy. With the death of nature due to waist and toxins that now litter earth soon the animals will be even more affected and die out, making us into something that could resemble a Soylent Green world. We have to make sure that certain areas always remain off limits, such as the Alaskan wildlife refuge we need at least some insurance that we won’t only have a few trees left in some tent in the future. We have to see this world as a investment, put money and effort into preserving the soils, and everything on it, so we can benefit from it for a long time to come.
I think we still are on that same path, if not on a worse path to what the movie showed. That movie was just another step for us to let the world know what kind of mess we're in. But I don't think that movies are the best way to get the point across. People watch a movie and won't do anything about it. The main reason why we're still on the bad path of world self destruction is APATHY- like McDicken said. It's easy to show people and tell the world that we NEED to protect our environment, but that still doesn't help the problem. No matter what people say or do, we're never going to save the planet, it's too hard, and no one will do anything about it(including me).
I feel like we are indeed changing and heading torward the same path as in the movie, except i feel like we'd be able to easily adapt to the new climate change, and learn to counter it, a good example would be if it became alot hotter in the future and was always sunny, we could use that to our advantage and get energy from solar panels alot more than we do today. we will still advance as a society and technological advances will thrive, but we still need to act upon global warming and drive more fuel efficient cars an not pollute the enviroment because those things take a long time to creat but a few seconds to destroy . What we should do is gain enough support in our society that we can fight and force demands upon the government to create change in the way everyone opperates, so that we can slow down or maybe prevent global warming, or any castostrophic disasters that maybe come in our way. Because if we don't stop this with numbers and force, then ntohing will change. right now i don't think peopple care enough to do anything.
We are on the same path towards a society similar to Soylent Green in a few ways. The first is the shrinking middle class in the world, and in the movie you were either living in a ridiculous apartment or squatting inside whatever building you could find. We eat large amounts of food and yet people are starving in parts of the world, you could say that we aren't eating food that we could get to them, but literally eating them, much like the movie.
The world could control its population if education about the dangers of overpopulation and lack of environmental concern was widespread. I don't think individuals care about the entire human race. They are too concerned with the insignificant occurrences in their daily lives and the worship of media idols. If we are to control our future, then people must believe they have purpose in life and and obligation to everyone else, instead of being shown by society and the media that all they can do is consume and think only of themselves.
If humans want to, then we could control our outcome for the future. The problem is that even though most people want the future to be better they are not willing to work for it or we create present day excuses to avoid working for a better future.
The empires that the oil and coal industries have built may yield massive financial profits, but our children and grandchildren will pay the price of our mistakes.Only alternative energies could break the this cycle, but there is still a long way to go before oil and coal fade away into the past.
Humans must also change the way we use and treat our environment. We can't keep treating it like a trash can and dumping our garbage and pollution everywhere and or using up all its resources as if there is an endless supply. Our population must also stabilize somewhere because it can't grow infinitely.
If these problems could be changed and fixed in the present, then we could make the future better. Its not the power and ability to change our problems and mistakes, its the "want" that we are lacking. If we as a society as a whole are not wanting to change our current lifestyle, than we are only leaving an even bigger problem for future generations to try and fix.
I think we as the human race, could easily find ourselves in a similar situation to those people in the movie Soylent Green. Many people refuse to realize they are part of the problem and think it is up to others and the people in power to fix the problem of climate change. In fact climate change is caused by everyones actions, although some more than others, we all need to find ways to curb climate change. This includes normal everyday people as well as the government.
If we want to control the outcome of the human race we need to educate people on the affects it will have today and in the future. People need to realize this will not only affet their grandchildren and the later generations but if we keep moving in the same direction and their lives will soon be affected by the negative aspects of climate change.
If we continue to go the path we are one now, without a doubt we will be in the same situation that was portrayed in “Soylent Green”. If we as a country and a world don’t do something soon to drastically change the direction we are going in, we will be faced with food shortages, a dwindling plant and animal life, high populations which will result in disease.
In order for these situations to not come true everyone needs to step up and do something about it. For changes to take place I believe government needs to step up and alert the public to change their ways and educate them on the consequences. The main issue I see is that we need to change the way we consume. With stricter regulations on energy, waste management, pollutants, and food, the idea that “Soylent Green” portrayed can be put off or even avoided.
The way we are now isn’t the situation that was shown in the movie, but if we continue to do what we do, we could in fact be the same situation that was portrayed in that movie. There are people that want to control the outcome of this planet but they are the minority. In order to make this group of people the majority, everyone needs to be educated and government needs to make a stand and start to set regulations.
If our society keeps going the way that it's going then i think we are going to end up in a simlar situation like the one in "Soylent Green." People are so stubborn to make any sort of changes therefore it's going to turn into a huge problem down the line. Our society can change the outcome but until there is enough people to step back and actually take initiative then nothing is going to change. But a lot of people just think that "oh it's not going to affect me, so why bother?" We need to start now or we're never going to be able to solve the problem.
I believe that we most definatly are on the same path because at the time "Soylent Green" was shot they feared what the future would bring and presented those possibilities. We need to do something now before its too late. We spend so much time talking about what we need to do and where we need to start so we need to do it. If we dont take any action soon our environment will be washed out of its resources and by then it will be too late. I believe that we can control our outcome but it is close to impossible because it would take our society as a whole to make a difference and i think there are alot of people that are oblivios or dont care because it wont be in their lifetime. Our society would need to create new lifestyles around being more eco friendly.
People (myself included) have been taking advantage of the resources that we have been offered throughout our lives. I'm sure that there are people who think that no matter how much they consume, everything is going to be fine and earth will last forever until the sun explodes, blah blah blah, because they dont know where all of their garbage really goes and how much of the earth it is destroying. I live in one of the greenest places in the country, and I dont really get a chance to see where all of my garbage goes or what really happens to my recycling. I think that a future like the one portrayed in Soylent Green can be prevented if people are educated on the impact they have on the world and take the right actions to decrease their impact as much as possible.
If we as a nation and global society continue down the path that we are currently on, then we will end the same as the plat presented in the movie. We take and we take without any thought to what we are doing to the enviornment or the consequences that will happen in the future. As long as nothing is directly interfering with our lives we give no further thought to it. This includes global warming. There have been no sever reprocussions so far due to global warming therefore we do not see it as something to fear. If we do not curtail our consumerism then we will hit the wall hard and fast. We need to control our habits, places restritions, and anything else that will help prevent, slow down, or decrease the impact of lack of food, space, and resources. However, people don't want to be controlled. They don't want to give up their comfortable lifestyles. So, the ignore the problem and leave it for someone else to deal with. We need to stop ignoring the problem and hope it resolves itself on its own. We need to take action now and slow down our desent to extinction. Just a quick note, it may seem weird but I see no problem with turing humans into food if it helps preserve what little resources are left.
Though "Soylent Green" was made over 30 years ago, it still has a strong message in the constantly changing world we live in and it contrasts even more today than it did when it first came out.
The world we live in is heading in the same direction that was brought up in the movie and even faster than we want to believe. With the global economy crisis that has taken a toll on everyday life as we knew it, stewardship and sustainability efforts have almost taken a back seat. Americans want instant change, instant end results and we are throwing all of our time and money to try and get out of this "Great Recession" instead of focusing on efforts to save the environment.
Granted, I don't think we will ever be able to say to our grandchildren, "And that's how we finally saved the environment!", I do think it still makes sense to try hard to get our overspending, over-using, and over reliance on fossil fuels under control and control the impact that us humans have on the environment. We can control the impact we have but no matter how much we think humans are in control, we can never control the outcome we will have in the future and to many people that is scary.
We are moving in the right direction toward a healthy relationship with the environment yet for many it's not enough. There are still people who's mantra is "ignorance is bliss" and all we need to do is shake them from this by showing the public how the way we are living is killing us and our futures. But I definetly agree with Brittany in that, no matter what, we are going to hit that tree- it just matters how fast and how hard.
I dont believe that we are on the same path for one reason... We are aware of the problem. In all of these instances people are unaware or apathetic towards global climate change. We however, are not. Well... We still may be a little apathetic, but that is changing everyday. People are becoming more knowledgable and therefore more in control of our future.
As a side note... I really liked that they kept lasers and telepoters out of this movie despite what people say.
Good grief. "Soylent Green" is fiction. It was written with the intention to be fictional. We are no where close to what is portrayed in the movie as a society. Nor do I think that that is where we are heading. Making chips out of dead human remains, you serious? Look, I get the whole hysteria about "omg the world's changing, we aren't doing things right, we're all going to dieee!" But to think that its gone so far to make people afraid that the world might turn into the world in "Soylent Green" now that's just sad. Yes, we have a lot of work cut out for us in the future; our resources are depleting, we've got a nice big hole in the Ozone Layer, and people continue to kill and feud over the most primitive and reoccurring issues - just to name a few, yet am I the only one here who has a little optimism? I mean, come on. Humankind has full control over what comes next, haven't we determined our history so far? Whether its been good or bad? I don't know about you but I know that I don't want to be snacking on flesh chips and scavenging for fresh fruit, so how about we stop worrying about what will "happen" and actually do something that could affect the outcome of the current situations we are faced with. Because if we don't then... well I guess we might be kickin' it like Charlton Heston as a badass futuristic cops, dreaming of $150 jars of jelly in a seemingly dystopian society.
Certainly we are on that path! The problem he had talked about was that as a result of Global Warming all the species were dying; the temperature was shooting far past their tolerance range (hence, the need for a tree exhibit with the only two surviving trees... shoddy looking ones at that). Today, much the same thing is happening but at a very different level. We are experiencing loss of species and migration of species due to global warming, and other environmental hazards. However, I think there is more of an effort being made than Soylent Green suggested. I see everything from clubs to attempts at environmentally friendly or sustainable vehicles, though these things don't always work enough to make a difference, they show intent. in Soylent Green I got the distinct impression that man didn't care until it was far too late, and while that may be the case today, i feel that we have a bit of a jump on the society of Soylent. In Soylent Green we discover that originally the food product was made of algae (one of the few remaining things alive)...however, the people never found out that Algae died. So then how was Soylent Green still being produced? They began to use people, which, though gory, is a fairly abundant resource... and the people never knew the difference. It just provides an example wherein society loses its' humanity because of it's mistreatment of the Earth. How to stop this? Well, we can't let ourselves get to the point where a) we need a universal food source b) there aren't enough species to choose from, so that we have to rely completely on one species... ending it's existence to support our society. In order for that to be avoided, we have to do everything we can to keep variety. There are so many species on Earth, in order to preserve them we have to cater to all of their needs. A universal way of doing that is to stop change. We know that they exist now, something must be right about this very day. So, stop global warming (rising temperatures destroy variety). Stop careless clearcutting etc (ruin or remove habitat). In conclusion, we need to take everything we are currently doing to help the Earth, and bring it to the next level... or 3 levels. What we are currently doing is growing and evolving at the expense of the Earth... Earth is running out of "money". If we are to grow, is has to be in such a way that does NOT cost the Earth.
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