[billg]

See TRAILER for upcoming film: "2012: Time for Change"

"2012: Time for Change" projects a radical alternative to apocalyptic doom and gloom. Directed by Emmy Award nominee Joao Amorim, the film follows journalist Daniel Pinchbeck, author of the bestselling 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, on a quest for a new paradigm that integrates the archaic wisdom of tribal cultures with the scientific method. As conscious agents of evolution, we can redesign post-industrial society on ecological principles to make a world that works for all. Rather than breakdown and barbarism, 2012 will herald the birth of a regenerative planetary culture, where collaboration replaces competition, where exploration of psyche and spirit becomes the new cutting edge, replacing the sterile materialism that has pushed our world to the brink.

Interviews with design scientists, anthropologists, physicists such as Dean Radin, Barbara Marx Hubbard, John Todd and Paul Stamets and celebrities such as Sting, Ellen Page and Gilberto Gil.

(note: this is not a review...reviews will come after film is released)

[Timo]

This reminds me of the hoopla leading up to the last planetary alignment. True believers held hands while they meditated to soak up all of the goodness that permeated through the solar system, surely the dawning of a new age of humanity's salvation.

Turned out that our collective lowly human nature prevailed.

[billg]

There will likely be multiple paths to follow come 2012...there will be no sudden enlightenment for the vast majority of people on the planet..each will awaken to a new reality....or perhaps the old lessons need repeating.

[Revi]

I talk with people about the date 2012 all the time. It turns out to be when we first really feel the effects of peak oil, it's the Mayan calendar's time of change and it's about the end of the Kondraitieff winter period.

Clearly there is something going on around 2012.

I think of it as not the end, but the beginning of another way of looking at the world.

We really begin to deal with the multiple crises that are hitting our culture, and the age of renewables begins.

I lived with the Mayans for 2 years and they are very time focused. Time goes in cycles. One of those cycles ends and another begins in 2012, but that means that we are at the beginning of another way of doing things.

[cipi604]

An increasing consciousness level doesn't mean that everything will be hunky dory , on the contrary, this is a forced revolution, induced by the lack of things to go around with.

[mos6507]

It looks worth watching.

That was the chick from Juno being interviewed about being in an ecovillage.

I agree with the paradigm shift aspect. I don't really like getting hung up on spiritual aspects, or using the timing to validate the Mayan calendar or Hopi prophecy. I think by overlaying that eschatology, that you risk losing a lot of your secular audience. A secular audience who, by the way, may be suffering from "Avatar blues".

When I was in Transition Training, there was a matter-of-fact proclamation of what we're going into as "The Great Turning" and the teachers incorporated a lot of Joanna Macy's ideas. I think what the grief we're dealing with (or will deal with) requires people who are able to offer some sort of meaning or useful methods of coping.

I think too much of doomerism is concerned with the nuts and bolts of prediction and the cold mechanics of preps but falls short on fashioning new philosophies and value systems.


BTW, I'm not sure Sting has much to worry about from doom. You'd be shocked how much land the guy owns. He'll be a feudal lord in a post-peak era.

[Revi]

We need a new myth to replace consumerism.

God died and we replaced him with consumerism, but if that's impossible we need something else to believe in.

I think that is going to be the power of the sun, the earth itself and the renewable power of nature.

We just have to emerge from our fossil fuel induced trance and see it again.

2012 is a great time to do it.

[mos6507]

We're only talking about regaining some respect for nature, and for our behavior to reflect that newfound respect. It doesn't have to mean being steeped in superstition and performing human sacrifices like the mayans did.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'W')e're only talking about regaining some respect for nature, and for our behavior to reflect that newfound respect. It doesn't have to mean being steeped in superstition and performing human sacrifices like the mayans did.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', '
')I lived with the Mayans for 2 years and they are very time focused. Time goes in cycles. One of those cycles ends and another begins in 2012, but that means that we are at the beginning of another way of doing things.

[mos6507]

I'm looking forward to getting 2012 over with so we can evaluate it in the rearview mirror. I suspect that enough crap will have gone down for the true-believers to classify it as a watershed, but that it will still seem anticlimactic. I don't see billions dying, that much is for sure. Considering that it's an election year, I suspect it will usher in Palin or some other neocon, which would be enough to cause millions to think we're doomed.