Intro

One thing that is often a challenge to communicate about the climate crisis is that it's the greatest threat to -- and crime against -- humanity, most life and most future life ever, RIGHT NOW.

This Valentine's Day 2012, ecoSanity invites you to consider the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster (maiden voyage April 6, 1912, sank April 14/15, 1912) through the fictional love story depicted in the 1997 movie (like it or hate it) and the similarities between the circumstances that surrounded the real event then vs. the dire realities of the climate crisis NOW:

Coal (fossil fuel)-powered; was avoidable; multiple unheeded warnings; didn't react fast enough; fate sealed before anyone knew it; denial; tipping point beyond which ship had to break in two, then sink; poorest / lowest class / most vulnerable / least culpable suffered most, and so on.

When you watch the original trailer (above), yup, mega Anglo/white (just one person of colour on board who did not survive and was not depicted in the film). Heterosexual. Classist. Colonial. Symbolic of the limits and excess of our growth and consumption-based economic model, technological hubris, and more than a little bit of a metaphor for the (potential) 'end of the world'.

But with sympathetic characters you may care about / relate to in peril, who love, risk and sacrifice for each other through a tragedy of epic proportion, our intent is to help stir and elucidate the kind of intensity, emotion and sense of imminent danger we all need to connect to in order to get to a mindset that can compel us to confront (with EMERGENCY action at EMERGENCY, world war-time speed) the true scale, scope and urgency (planetary EMERGENCY) of our shared, global predicament.

There's a lot to cover, so below is part 1 and a taste of part 2 (of 5), with the rest to follow between now and the actual April anniversary.

Contents (Bold below. Unbold to follow over the next few weeks.)