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

WHAT A WAY TO GO:
Life at the End of Empire

The evening begins with a social hour and optional pot luck supper at 6:00 pm,
followed by the film at 7:30 pm,
followed by a discussion at the end of the film.


WHAT A WAY TO GO:
Life at the End of Empire

This is a different sort of "Peak Oil movie." Rather than focusing on the approaching decline in oil production and its likely effects on our petroleum-powered modern lifestyles, this stunning film presents that issue merely as a symptom of a larger problem --- modern society as empire.
The film surveys the litany of collateral damage due to our entrapment in the empire:

1) environmental degradation, including the approaching disaster known as global climate change;
2) species facing a new mass extinction event --- this one caused not by killer asteroids but by the march of "human progress";
3) dissociation from the details of how life's basic commodities (such as energy, water, and food) are provided to us;
4) our general ignorance of the technological wonders that we depend on;
5) the dominant use of violence (war) as a means of overcoming obstacles and expanding influence;
6) our Ponzi-inspired, never-ending-growth economic model, which logically must fail on a planet that's not growing any bigger.

We've been encouraged to live beyond our economic, natural, and spiritual means, and we've done quite a job of it. The film lays out the bleak truth for us in a surprisingly watchable package, nicely incorporating narration, interview clips, and strangely cool archival material. Elegant and almost poetic in tone, it gently takes us by the hand as it explains to us the harsh reality of how things really are, where they're likely to go, and how difficult the challenge is.

Wheelchair accessible around the corner at 411 28th Street

$5 donations are accepted


Contact Florence: 510-681-8699