Climate of Our Future

Leonardo DiCaprio’s “The 11th Hour” is a feature length documentary concerning the environmental crises caused by human actions and their impact on the planet. “The 11th Hour” documents the cumulative impact of these actions upon the planet’s life systems and calls for restorative action through a reshaping of human activity. With the help of over fifty of the world’s most prominent thinkers and activists, including reformer Mikhail Gorbachev, physicist Stephen Hawking, and Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai, “The 11thHour” documents the grave problems facing the planet’s life systems. Global warming, deforestation, mass species extinction, and depletion of the oceans’ habitats are all addressed, and their causes rooted in human activity. The combination of these crises call into question the very future not of the planet, but of humanity. However, the most powerful element of “The 11th Hour” is not a portrait of a planet in crisis, but the offering of hope and solutions. Scientists and environmental advocates such as David Orr and Gloria Flora paint a portrait for a radically new and exciting future in which humanity seeks not to dominate the earth’s life systems, but to mimic them and coexist. “The 11th Hour” calls for a future now within our grasp that is both sustainable and healthier.