Educational Media Reviews Online

This cinematic think-piece has a sterling pedigree, being produced by the team behind the documentaries Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media and The Corporation. Like these films, Surviving Progress mixes thoughtful analysis of current (and future) issues with a healthy dose of entertainment, displaying a technical bravado that helps engage younger minds accustomed to CG special effects. In other words, this film will please viewers who enjoy an explosion or two as they philosophize. The sparing use of such visuals does not distract, but rather enhances, the ideas being discussed.

The directors do not make quite the unified argument in evidence in the earlier films. Instead, a number of well-known thinkers (e.g. Margaret Atwood, Jane Goodall, Stephen Hawking, and David Suzuki) discuss several distinct areas in which human progress is likely to lead to future difficulties: environmental changes, overpopulation, and economic crises resulting from limited natural resources. This “big picture” perspective is both a strength and weakness of the program. The overarching theme of the discussion, apart from explaining the concept of “progress traps”, is the need for ethical approaches to solving humankind’s problems. As such, the film would best serve an Intro to Philosophy or Ethics class; a course on Environmental Ethics would also benefit from the film’s introduction to various issues the instructor might include on the syllabus.