Just for a moment, enjoy this beautiful video, Peace Piece. Music by Bill Evans adapted by Nino Josele, with paintings by Mariscal. Peace.

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The film opens with an abstract shadow moving across the surface of an ocean. We quickly realize that it belongs to a cargo plane soaring like a steel raptor towards the country of Tanzania, its empty belly to soon be filled by it’s bounty

The narrative begins with focus on a giant fish, the Nile Perch that has taken over the central African great lakes, a result of a single deposit made by a lone individual some 25 years earlier. This phenomenon has created an international fishing industry, while also decimating the native fish population. One is initially led to believe that the Darwinian nightmare the filmmaker Hubert Sauper is alluding to, is regarding evolutionary biology. The genesis of this incident is never fully explained. Instead we are taken deeply into the social Darwinism embodied by the relationship between a struggling 3rd world African economy beholden to the world bank and the IMF.

Here we have a film that is part poetic essay, part cinema verite documentary on the brutal inequities of modern capitalism. The intimacy with which Saupert presents us his human subjects is the key to the film’s success in delivering this message. In fact Saupert is rarely heard from at all, there are no 3rd person voiceovers calling us to action amidst the sensational imagery of war and famine. But there are numerous heartrending portrayals of individuals, both European and African, caught in its web. The luminous, and at times, terrifiying eyes of Raphael, the night watchmen/fisherman/guide, the abandoned children of the Mwanza streets, the dreams of a prostitute who we later learn was killed by one of her pilot johns. We experience up close the humanity of a people, which begs us to question why members of our own species are condemned to live under conditions we would find intolerable through the economic systems we support.

The DVD edition features an in-depth interview with the director, and Sauper speaks eloquently about his view on the social Darwinism portrayed in his film. Darwin was absolutely correct in his observation of natural systems of selection. i.e. the survival of the fittest, but when this observation becomes a paradigm wielded by humans toward humans, the result is fascism.

If you want to be challenged, emotionally affected, educated on a personal level about the ongoing tragedy(ies) in Africa, or are a fan of the films of Chris Marker or the Maysles Brothers, then you must see Darwin’s Nightmare.

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Over the weekend, we saw An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s uber-budget slide show that he has presented globally for a number of years. Although seeing it felt a bit like preaching to the choir - afterall, we do live in west Sonoma County, CA - the subject is especially timely, given the last year’s worth of weather extremes, and the reality that we are all carbon addicted. So what can we, as individuals do? Their website provides 10 things to do to help stop global warming:

Change a light
Replacing one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb will save 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Drive less
Walk, bike, carpool or take mass transit more often. You’ll save one pound of carbon dioxide for every mile you don’t drive!

Recycle more
You can save 2400 pounds of carbon dioxide per year by recycling just half of your household waste.

Check your tires
Keeping your tire inflated properly can improve gas mileage by more than 3%. Every gallon of gasoline saved keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere

Use less hot water
It takes a lot of energy to heat water. Use less hot water by installing a low flow showerhead (350 pounds of CO2 saved per year) and washing your clothes in cold or warm water (500 pounds saved per year).

Avoid products with a lot of packaging
You can save 1200 pounds of of carbon dioxide if you cut down your garbage by 10%.

Adjust your thermostat
Moving your thermostat just 2 degrees in winter and up 2 degrees in summer can save about 2000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year with this simple adjustment.

Plant a tree
A singel tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime.

Turn off electronic devices
Simply turning off your television, DVD player, stereo, and computer when you are not using them will save thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Root would like to add a few more things to the list -

Pay attention to the products you buy - Buy locally, act globally - the less products have to travel to market, the less carbon load.

Pay attention to the people we elect - and fight for your vote! Don’t allow corporate interests to override the interest of the planet.

And most importantly,
don’t become jaded. Teach our children how to live with awareness of these truths, and live them ourselves.

See An Inconvenient Truth - and pass it on.

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Root Concepts is in production on a series of eight video segments for Traditional Medicinals. The segments will highlight TM’s source stories, introducing their consumers and retail customers to the connections for their herbs around the world. The first of these stories will feature the breadnut of Guatemala.

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