What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire (2007)

Directed by

Timothy S. Bennett

Genre

documentary film

Country

United States

Runtime

2h 03m

Rating

7.5 of 10 from 4 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A man looks back on his comfortable upbringing and realizes that modern society is heading toward collapse. He talks to experts about environmental crises like oil shortages and climate change, arguing that a mindset of endless growth is the root cause.

contemplativesoberinginformativeurgentpersonalreflectivesomberthought-provoking

What happens

What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire is a 2007 documentary film written, directed and narrated by Timothy S. Bennett, that examines the unsustainability of modern industrial civilization. The film follows Bennett's personal journey from a complacent middle-class upbringing, shaped by the post-WWII prosperity and consumerism, to an awareness of impending societal collapse driven by interconnected ecological crises, including peak oil, climate change and the effects of global warming, population overshoot and species extinction. The documentary features data and interviews with experts such as author Daniel Quinn, environmental activist Derrick Jensen and academics such as Richard Heinberg and many others. The film frames these crises as symptoms of a deeper problem: a "culture of Empire", a mindset that promotes unsustainable growth disconnected from the Earth’s limits. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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