The Age of Stupid People’s Premiere

Last Sunday I helped out at the Age of Stupid’s premiere in Leicester Square. I was very aware I wasn’t really helping at all as all the hard work had been done in the months before hand, and one of the few times I did help in the office resulted in about 100 envelopes having to be repacked! oops.  Anyway, I was very proud to be watching my friends and housemates who have been working on this 24/7 for the last few months, get their chance to shine.

It was a grand affair with the swooping white tent in the middle of the square, the green carpet, the pedal powered popcorn machine, and a large screen televising lots of faces I did know out to the people I didnt; Pete Postlethwaite, Will Young, Vivienne Westwood all arriving on bikes, expecting hoards of dribbling fans and snapping paps only to be greeted by mellow appreciators of the real stars-dirctor Franny Armstrong and Producer Lizzie Gillett-both paying no more attention to the ‘celebs’ than they would me. We need more people  like these two.

 

As I watched the film for the second time, noticing its improvements since I last watched it, and then witnessed the spectacle that was the live feed from the premiere in the solar at Leicester Square (I retreated to a cinema off Leciester Square) it dawned on me how much of a ‘moment’ this was in history. THEN the President of the Maldives came on the screen larger than life, announcing something environmentalists have inadvertendtly and undoubtedly played over in their head  from day 1. “The Maldives will go carbon neutral in 10 years” he said. That was history. I shall never forget it, and I sure hope Ed Miliband doesn’t either. His squirming CCS excuses just didn’t cut it, not before, not at the premiere, and geuss what, not NOW!

The Maldives is a very interesting case in point, and now perfectly poised to leverage some kind of action out of our rich countries (The UK, US, Canada, Australia, Germany etc). The point is, if a developing island can committ to, and feasibly make their country carbon neutral through domestic means (no offsetting abroad) then why on earth cant we?

President Nashir said:

“We don’t want to pretend that this plan is going to be easy to implement. There will be hiccups, and electricity supply will occasionally be disrupted. But we think that building a near-zero-carbon Maldives is a realistic challenge. Get it right and we will show the apathetic developed world that action is possible, and at reasonable cost.”

What foresight, what committment, what realism. So why does it take a film to achieve this?

anyone….?

no one….?

Ed…..?

thought not.