Episode 4 lays the focus on the economic side of the problem. What Zizek critiques, Tim Jackson has something like the beginning of an answer for. Alessio Rastani, the guy who shocked the (economic) world by naming the problem on BBC a couple of months ago also plays an important part. This episode also features biologist Paul Ehrlich and astrophysicist Michio Kaku as well as the usual weirdness found on Youtube. Immerse. (Image credit: HTV de IJsberg)
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Tracklist and sources:

It’s Gonna Be A Long Walk – Apparat
Tim Jackson on Novelty
2am – Gareth Davis & Frances-Marie Uitti
Slavoj Zizek on Capitalism as Religion
Submergence – Greg Haines
Carl Sagan has bad dreams
I Was All You Are – Birds Of Passage & I’Ve Lost
Paul Ehrlich on Research and Change
Ermetti – Greg Haines
Balkop – Kreng
Alessio Rastani: Goldman Sachs rules the world (that trader on BBC)
Sleepwalk – Moon Ate The Dark
Random TV reports on dead animals
Weight Of Days – Jasper TX
Paul Ehrlich on Toxics
Angry German Kid
Tim Jackson on Carbon Targets
The Human Eye
Audrey’s Prayers – Angelo Badalamenti And David Lynch
Alessio Rastani is telling the truth
Rocky Mountains – Wendy Carlos
Rube – Olan Mill
Climate Voices from Holland
End Silence – Insa Donja Kai
The Human Skin
183 Times – Greg Haines
Michio Kaku on Liquid Water
Tim Jackson on Tools for Utopia
My World – Husky Rescue

The full video with the talks by Tim Jackson and Paul Ehrlich can be found here

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The key quote in this episode comes from Zizek when he refers to Lars von Triers film Melancholia: “If you really want to do something good for society you should go through this fundamental experience of accepting that someday everything will be finished. I think this can be a deep [...] experience that strengthens ethical activity.” (Image credit: Joe Collier)
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Tracklist:

Alva Noto & Sakamoto – Moon
Slavoj Zizek on Disavowal
Neil Postman on Cyberspace, 1995
Bola – VM8
Raquel is an uploaded file
Olan Mill – Amber Balanced
Green School Bali Kid
Katie Sleep Talking
Mycroft – Pyramids of Tin
Emo girl crying over the news
Saaad- Forget Our Depths
Tim Jackson on the dilemma of growth
Alex Tiuniaev – Daylight
Aaron Martin – Sitting in a roofless room
Bill McKibben Timecapsule
Christoph Berg – Farewell
Anna Rose Carter
inbred – Charlie Chaplin Remix (Final speech in The Great Dictator)
Nils Frahm – Familiar
Alex Tiuniaev – I can feel again
Slavoj Zizek – Why Be Happy When You Could Be Interesting
Nils Frahm – More
Slovaoj Zizek – The Optimism of Melancholia
Sleep Party People – I’m Not Human At All

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Tracklist:

01 Slavoj Zizek on Nature as Catastrophe
02 Ulysses By Murcof
03 Carl Sagan: The Pale Blue Dot
04 The Trenches Choir By Worrytrain
05 Dell Tech Support Call
06 The Opportune Movement Iii By Kaisen
07 1950′s Housewife on LSD
08 Red Sky By Hecq
09 Television by Todd Alcott
10 It All Falls Apart By Max Richter
11 Angry BT Customer
12 Wonder By Soap&Skin
13 Hasret By Sema
14 Bill Nye on How to Talk to an Alien
15 Snippet By Nils Frahm
16 Nazim Hikmet: Yine Sana Dair
17 The Lovers Dreaming By Max Richter
18 David Suzuki on the Human Genome Project
19 Steep Hills Of Vicodin Tears By A Winged Victory For The Sullen
20 Thom Hartmann: 100 Years Onwards
21 Poland By Olafur Arnalds
22 John Todd: Getting to Know a Place
23 Myth By Beach House

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Tracklist:

01 Forecast By D_Rradio
02 Robert F. Kennedy on GDP, March 18, 1968 at Kansas State University
03 The Opportune Moment – Movement Viii By Kaisen
04 Slavoj Zizek in Examined Life
05 Climate Voices I
06 Sweet Surrender By Esmerine
07 Buckminster Fuller on Spaceship Earth
08 Climate Voices II
09 Trains Are For Chemicals By Worrytrain
10 Submissive Hypnosis
11 Climate Voices III
12 A Dance For You By Everything Is
13 Richard Alpert on The One
14 Self By Hildur Guðnadóttir
15 Whisper
16 Sleep talking
17 Iv (Feat. Keith Kenniff) By Julien Neto
18 D MollBuy By Tosca
19 Climate Voices IV
20 Infra 4Buy By Max Richter
21 Memory By Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
22 Severn Suzuki speaking at UN Earth Summit 1992
23 Goodbye (Feat. Soap&Skin) By Apparat
24 Goodbye By Dose

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How will life in cities be by 2040? Forum for the Future launched a series of videos called ‘Megacities on the Move’ which imagine four scenarios for urban life by 2040 when most of us will live in cities. The videos touch topics from moving away from car ownership, using real-time traffic information to help plan journeys and having more virtual meetings. Their report argues that if we don’t start future-proofing our cities, they risk becoming dysfunctional places with shortages of food, water and energy, and severe deprivation: 

For the first time in history more than half the world’s population is living in towns and cities. We passed this milestone in 2008 and by 2040 two in three people are expected to live in urban environments. Urbanisation presents us with a wealth of new opportunities and huge challenges. It has the potential to further economic development and innovation, but also threatens to exacerbate key global problems, including resource depletion, climate change, and inequality. Megacities on the move sets out to find solutions to one of the biggest challenges – how billions of city-dwellers can access what they need without putting intolerable strains on the planet. It focuses on how to achieve sustainable urban mobility, looking at all the ways in which people will access goods, services and information and make contact with each other. It goes beyond transport to consider ICT solutions, innovative urban design and much more. (forumforthefuture.org)

Although the videos raise some very interesting socio-environmental questions and provide food for important discussions, the bottom line statement seems to repeat the overarching tone that only topdown-planned technology will save us. I find it quite ironic to release such technofix-visions in times when the UK transport system starts to fail as soon as temperatures fall below zero.

Wonderful video by IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which helps the world find pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges. The film’s narrative tells us that an effective way of communicating biodiversity is to embrace the natural world we still have rather than to grief for the loss of species.

I always disliked the term sustainability. In fact everything is advertised to be sustainable these days. Mitchell explains in this short video why one of the trendiest terms in recent years is a little too dry, misleading, and a lot like a hero-less, changeless, baseball team. We need to ‘dig deeper’ than sustainable alone as the good professor argues. And I think he’s so right.