The newest trailer for James Cameron’s epic—Avatar—was recently released on Yahoo! Movies. Avatar looks intriguing, because it’s packed with environmental and social themes amongst an elaborate and ornate alien wilderness. The basic plot surrounds humanity’s quest to commodify natural resources. However, humanity’s insatiable need for natural resources have led them to Pandora—a moon with a lush alien environment that also contains a highly valuable mineral. In order to gain access into Pandora’s environment (the air isn’t breathable to humans) and gain the trust of the Na’vi—an indigenous humanoid race—the humans employ avatars. These avatars look like the Na’vi, but humans are able to occupy their minds, therefore, humans can walk Pandora within a Na’vi shell. Of course, once inside the Na’vi’s environment, humans begin to question their motives or pursuits to exploit the Na’vi’s home world for minerals. The movie is due in theaters on December 18, 2009. More from Variety:
“Avatar” tells the story of an extreme rehabilitation program: In an attempt to walk again, a paraplegic former Marine named Jake travels to the jungles of the extraterrestrial realm called Pandora, home of the Na’vi, a technologically primitive but physically superior race.
To picture Pandora, Carter created what he calls a “lush homegrown forest that’s way overscale for anything we’ve ever experienced, but also has enough alien qualities that you realize what you’re seeing is not just a few flowers poked into the midst of an otherwise normal environment. The essence of it is very different.”
At night, the forests of Pandora light up like a psychedelic black-light poster. Cameron’s inspiration for that, Carter believes, came from his deep-sea diving experiences.
“The whole idea of (that) bioluminescent world at night is something he’d actually witnessed when he was down at the bottom of the ocean during his ‘Titanic’ time,” Carter says. “That bioluminescence is almost like a nervous system of the planet, and that’s what’s at stake in the movie, as you start to get past the initial foray into the Na’vi culture and seeing the drama start to emerge between the military-industrial complex that wants to exploit the world.”
In order to breathe on Pandora, humans have created human-alien hybrids (the eponymous avatars), and it’s through one of these creatures that Jake is able to walk again. But will he remain human or go native after he falls in love with one of the locals, a girl named Neytiri? Intergalactic peace depends on it.
Update (2 Nov. 09): James Cameron’s Vision Featurette:
Basically, the Chamber’s policy positions are not only anti-environmentalism but they’re anti-business too. For example, according to Wikipedia, the Chamber, in addition to being a supporter of nuclear power, globalization, and free trade, supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and supports drilling offshore for energy. These policy positions are shortsighted and dangerous. For example, nuclear power requires massive amounts of water and produces radioactive waste that seems impossible to dispose. Globalization and free trade agreements lack meaningful environmental and social mandates and drilling for oil offshore or in ANWR isn’t meaningful energy policy. Furthermore, drilling domestically for oil doesn’t necessarily lead to domestic consumption, since oil is sold on the international market.
Due to its anti-environmentalism position, the Chamber is waging a losing battle. As energy availability and natural resources continue to decrease as populations continue to increase in countries around the globe, environmental regulation—and not just market-based mechanisms—will be necessary to protect and adequately distribute energy and resources to businesses and communities. Consequently, over-population, unchecked development, depletion of non-renewable resources, and depletion of other natural resources are real issues that businesses must reconcile and help remedy if they’re to survive into the future. Unlimited development is impossible, and unsustainable development exacerbates the unavailability of energy or entropy. Consequently, the sooner the Chamber can grasp these concepts, the sooner they’ll truly be pro-business.
Recently, the Chamber suffered an embarrassing prank over its hostility towards meaningful greenhouse-gas regulation:
In a dramatic announcement at the National Press Club today, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reversed its position on climate change policy, and promised to immediately cease lobbying against the Kerry-Boxer bill.
Not.
Within minutes of the Chamber’s dramatic announcement, it was revealed that the “Chamber spokesperson” was an impostor, and the press conference an elaborate hoax designed by activists to draw attention to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s “troglodytic” fight against climate change legislation. At the close of the news conference, a visibly rattled Chamber of Commerce spokesperson (Eric Wohlschlegel) barged into the room and declared the event a fraud. (Videohere.)
The stunt was pulled off by the Yes Men, the activists best known for posing as corporate executives in order to reveal how corporate greed negatively influences public policy. Recently, the Yes Men have focused their attention on the urgent need for action on climate change. Today they sought to highlight relentless corporate lobbying of elected officials aimed at derailing domestic climate legislation and a much-needed global climate accord.
The group of reporters at the Press Club listened closely as U.S. Chamber “representative” “Hingo Sembra” (Andy Bichlbaum of The Yes Men) asserted that the Chamber would put its full weight behind supporting the Kerry-Boxer bill, while working with Senators Kerry and Boxer to strengthen the bill.
“We believe that climate legislation currently being considered by the U.S. Senate is a great start towards a bill that will spur American innovation, create jobs, and give us all a good chance of survival,” he said. To the visible delight of reporters in the audience, he added, “We at the Chamber have tried to keep climate science from interfering with business. But without a stable climate, there will be no business.”
The Chamber has recently come under fire for launching multi-million dollar advertising campaigns designed to derail climate negotiations. Their position has been so controversial that Apple, Exelon, PNM Resources, PG&E, PSEG, Levi Strauss & Co, and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce have all left the U.S. Chamber, and Nike very publicly stepped down from the board.
“The Chamber’s position against climate legislation is completely troglodytic,” said Bichlbaum. “The rest of the world sees the need for urgent action on the climate. The rest of the world’s rich countries have pledged large emissions reductions. With scientists saying if we don’t reduce carbon emissions, then sooner or later we’re doomed, the Chamber represents corporate America at its most backwards.”
“An entity claiming to represent the public good, but that opposes action on the climate, is obviously illegitimate,” Bichlbaum added.
“Public relations hoaxes undermine the genuine effort to find solutions on the challenge of climate change.
“These irresponsible tactics are a foolish distraction from the serious effort by our nation to reduce greenhouse gases. The U.S. Chamber believes that strong climate legislation is compatible with the goals of improving our economy and creating jobs. We continuously seek opportunities to engage in a constructive dialogue to achieve these goals.
“We will be asking law enforcement authorities to investigate this event. Beyond that, the Chamber will simply continue to focus on a positive vision for getting people back to work and growing our economy.”
The U.S. Chamber is the world’s largest business federation representing more than 3 million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region.
Last night on his HBO show “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Maher had a message for climate change disbelievers. More specifically, Maher dismantled Republican Senator James Inhofe:
This man is the ranking Republican on the Environment Committee in Congress. He has no science background whatsoever, yet he’s gonna tell the hundreds of climate scientists assembled in Copenhagen—you know the people with the PhDs in the relevant fields—that they don’t know what they’re talking about. Education means nothing in America, because Mr. Inhofe is hardly alone, [since] three-quarters of the Republican Congress basically agrees with him, and they’re even pivoting from their old excuse of ‘global warming needs more study’ to . . . ‘it’s too late, might as well keep burning coal . . .[and] adapt’ . . .
Furthermore, Maher said, “These people are so stupid they make me question evolution.” The relevant portion is about 2:00 into the video.
In addition to ignorance, Kirk Cameron is clearly guilty of misrepresentation. As an evangelical “Christian,” I guess that makes him a hypocrite.
And he’s called out for distorting or spinning the facts:
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There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
In the image below, Greenpeace sends President Barack Obama a strong message—the United States must develop an effective policy and regulations that tackle global climate change—so no more politics as usual as Alaska Governor Sarah Palin would say. From the Christian Science Monitor:
Greenpeace activists scaled Mt. Rushmore today to issue a challenge to President Obama. “”Our brave climbers rappelled down the face of Mt. Rushmore today to issue a challenge to President Obama: If he wants to get his face on this monument, he needs to be a true leader on global warming, not a politician,” said one Greenpeace member.
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