What a Way to Go
Freeacre

The Murphinator and I kicked back the other evening and watched the new documentary, “What a Way to Go.” It pretty much sums up the many ways the world as we know it is about to end, with input from the most astute writers and thinkers that we are familiar with on the internet.

It presents The Biggies: Peak Oil, Climate Change, Mass Extinction, Population Overshoot. Commentary by Daniel Quinn (“Ishmael” and “The Story of B” Must reads), Derrick Jensen (“The Culture of Make Believe”), Richard Heinberg “Powerdown”), Jerry Mander, Richard Manning, even Ran Prier. Tim Bennett wrote it and Sally Erickson produced it. Together, they have put together a cogent and sensitive portrayal of the situation that we find ourselves in with very few punches pulled. Taboos are violated. It suggests a radical fix – returning to a stepped up version of Hunting and Gathering to restore the balance of life on earth. Hunting and gathering…. Tell that to a Beltway pundit. No wonder you will never see this stuff on T.V.

My one criticism is that I wish the narration hadn’t been done so similarly to Michael Moore’s style of casual understatement. When I am told that five out of six of us are most probably going to die a lot sooner than we think, I want some affect going on. I want passion, anger, outrage - name-calling, head-banging, cursing, spit flying, and dire threats to those responsible – not just grief and angst. Maybe it’s just me.

When I think of trying to show this film to my central Oregon neighbors, I cringe. These are good people with usable skills. They are ones who can fix things and will lend you a hand, have parts on hand, and feed your animals for you if you are laid up. But, I’ve got a feeling they would view this movie with the utmost skepticism. Not because they don’t believe that the world is all fucked up, but because of the emotional disconnect, for them, with which the message is delivered. Much like their reaction to Al Gore, my neighbors, I think, would point and laugh.

Despite that, it is worth purchasing. Google “What a Way to Go.” I’m going to use it to remind me of what the hell I am doing all this for, when I’m up to my eyeballs in corn on the cob, boiling pears for jelly, and blanching and freezing mountains of kale. I’m from Napa and Tahoe. I used to get hot stone massages, reflexology foot rubs. I had manicured nails. I was in the newspaper business. I’ve got a Salesperson of the Quarter certificate on my wall.

Murph has three degrees. He walked into the college office in Tahoe and took the test to see if he could tutor math classes after an absence of five years from doing anything with mathematics. After the test, they told him he could tutor any math class they had. Now he’s digging holes to bury garbage cans in which to store potatoes and squash. He just finished hauling, splitting and stacking ten cords of firewood. That’s a lot of damn wood. Before that, he re-furbished the chicken coup and installed a wood stove in the garage so he can re-load ammo in the winter – and he’s 67 years old.

Are we nuts?

Well, maybe. Or maybe we are just sick to death of this somnambulistic, sick-assed, out of whack, death and cancer culture we live in. Maybe we’re mightily sorry that we’ve been a part of destroying the ecosystems of so many animals and fish and forests. Maybe we’re gearing up for the firestorm of anger, panic, theft, and viciousness that will come with hunger, homelessness, and disease as the money collapses and the wars come home. Maybe we are conscientious objectors to this war on the world.

I know what we are preparing for, but I’m not sure who we are preparing for anymore. I have a feeling that we might not be the ones to break into the stored food supplies. Maybe it will be our son. Maybe it will be someone else. It doesn’t seem to matter much anymore.