What Would Leo Do?

What Would Leo Do?

And now, a brief message from Leo himself.

I went to a screening of the film on August 10th at the QuickSilverEdition Mission in Venice, CA. Our dear friends at Global Inheritance have been screening documentaries all summer that focus on issues facing our society.

The Mission has a cool vibe. Very hipster. There was free beer, wine and Jack Daniels. There were also about 250 people dressed in their finest Leo-hunting attire. I’m pretty sure most of the people there were media-whores praying for a rare Leo sighting, but a small percentage generally seemed interested in the film’s message.

That message is drilled home pretty deep. My gripe: I don't really appreciate being FLASH CUT to my demise with horrifying shots of overflowing landfills, refugees, hurricanes, flames and sad polar bears. Interspersed are hard-to-watch interviews with brilliant experts reciting a lot of nauseating facts. Let me tell you, reality is certainly hard to face. Just when you can’t take it anymore, when you feel like you want to scream "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!", here comes Leo, his mesmerizing eyes and soft tone, right there in some gorgeous setting waiting with a warm fuzzy.

OK, maybe not so much a warm fuzzy as the cold, hard truth. God Bless him for at least taking his time, using his fame responsibly, and spending his money in an attempt to save the world. This movie definitely doesn’t hide from the fact that we are all FUCKED. It takes a lot of courage to truly face our dire circumstances head on. Courage we are all going to need. That’s what I like about Leo, he’s certainly not one to live in denial.

And neither is Kenny Ausubel. There must be some hope, I mean, isn’t that what this movie is supposed to leave us with? At least Mother Nature is generous. Right? But according to Thom Hartmann, the problem isn’t global warming so much as the basic human mentality--so that’s a relief.

Now I think I get it. Basically, our generation of humans needs to change the way we've been thinking and behaving since the birth of mankind. Pardon me….IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!!! Forgive me, I really can’t help those outbursts. It was all I could do to contain them at the screening.I guess, like chain-smoking and pounding Jack Daniels, they are knee-jerk reactions to being faced with extinction. Everyone in the place seemed to reaching for any numbing substance they could get their hands on to cope with the stress.

Oh that’s just fuckin’ great. We humans can't even do what's healthy for our own bodies, let alone Earth. We're the same morons who fill our lungs with smoke and our bellies with fast food—and now we're supposed to save the planet? We can’t even save ourselves! We can’t even the children! We can’t even save the whales!!! Now we have to save the world? THE END IS NEAR!!!

The end of the movie that is...which provides us with some exciting possibilities just beginning to poke their sustainable heads out of the sand. But what about all the shit still piling up? And after over an hour of demise, you can’t help but wonder, is it already too late? It seems we humans would literally have to stop everything this minute--all consumption, all war, all destruction, all killing, there would have to be global friggin’ peace--in order for us to rally together and save this planet.

Now, I’m not saying that it’s impossible--miracles have been known to occur--and I will at least die trying to prove the cynics wrong, but the geniuses in The 11th Hour are right about one thing, it truly is a great time to be alive. We may well be the last humans to step foot on this planet.

Go see the movie. Open your eyes to the truth. Despite the dreary facts, fight the good fight. It’s all we have left.