http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone/2010/survivingthefuture/index.html

Not too long ago, the future was a dreamscape of flying cars, robot servants and holidays on the moon. But today, our high tech dreams are about survival – finding a way to prevent, or at least deal with the problems we will face this century: nine billion people using the planet’s resources by 2050, climate chaos and the extinction of up to half the species on the planet. If the worst predictions come true, ecological and economic disintegration could lead to the collapse of our high tech civilization.   

The paradox is, at the very same time, science has brought us to the cusp of the most hopeful and transformative period in our history. Scientists are now using revolutionary new technologies to transform human existence, seizing control of nature’s laws to enhance and extend healthy life and alleviate human suffering.

From biotech visionaries growing new body parts, to in vitro meat, from a global sensor web that monitors the health of the earth’s biosphere, to a massive effort to reverse-engineer the human brain, Surviving the Future takes a disquieting and astonishing look at some of science’s most radical new technologies.

The film also takes a hard look at the ‘new normal’ of the climate crisis, as we balance our desire to be environmentally responsible—to ‘do the right thing’—and still participate in the consumer economy that is, for better or worse, the basis of our society.

Surviving the future is an unsettling glimpse into the human psyche right now, as our culture staggers between a fervent belief in futuristic utopian technologies on the one hand, and dreams of apocalyptic planetary payback on the other.

Thought provoking and visually stunning, Surviving the Future looks at the stark and extreme choices facing our species as we prepare ourselves for the most challenging and consequential period in our history.

Surviving the Future is written and directed by Marc de Guerre, writer and director of the Gemini award-winning documentaries Gamer Revolution and The Disappearing Male.