I went to watch documentary Surviving Progress last weekend. The fact that notorious names such as Pr. Stephen Hawking and Pr. David Suzuki were in this movie was a paramount incentive for me. To a lesser extent, the fact that the movie was a canadian production also sparked my curiousity.
Per its trailer, the movie was supposed to show how humans all over the centuries have been trapped in a pattern called progress. According to many civilizations, progress meant and seemingly still means, expanding at the expense of overly exploiting natural resources. Moreover, stronger civilizations got weaker ones in debt and then took, agressively, the latters' natural resources as payments.
You have guessed it, the documentary has a strong ecological tone. Alas, Surving Progress, did not elaborate on the historical progress traps. Some parts of the movie are just boring and others do not bring anything new. This is unfortunate, because the main idea of the movie, i.e. historical progress patterns, is a promising one. Also, Stephen Hawking did not make an appearance in Surviving Progress, but we just heard his sythesized voice.
Nevertheless, the contribution of Pr. Vaclav Smil in this movie was instructive and entertaining at the same time. His intervention cannot come in a better time than now with the economic recession and with all these voices calling for a rational use of our resources, whether being natural or artificial and encouraging a lifestyle based on saving. As Smil pointed out "Many people think that limiting is against progress, though limiting can be progress".