Recipe for Disaster

I saw this film tonight at Bloor Cinema. It's about a family in Finland that decides to give up fossil fuels for a year. This means no cars, planes, and switching to renewable energy (all easy enough, really), and not buying anything made out of or packaged in plastic. That was (in my opinion) the hard part. It seems easy enough to avoid plastic and not buy over packaged goods, but this family gave up all plastic altogether, which proved to be challenging when shopping for toilet paper, toothpaste, etc. There was a Q&A session with the filmmaker via Skype after the film was shown.

They made many changes in their lifestyle, not just for the one year but long term. It was the husband's idea and the wife wasn't as keen, but I liked how they involved the children in the project and were very open with the kids about climate change, doing it in a way that was fun for the kids and not stressful.

They were an example of actually making real changes in your life to reduce your carbon footprint (note that the film is focused on carbon and doesn't really discuss many other environmental issues).

Living in Toronto and getting around fine by bus and subway I personally have an enormous dislike for car culture and get annoyed when people just can't seem to live without cars. I understand that the infrastructure in many areas is so built around driving (which also makes for a very classist system) that it is difficult for people to live their lives without cars. When you're used to driving everywhere its hard to make the decision not to. But if someone took your car away, you would find alternatives, adjust, and do just fine. Yes, some people actually do need their car, but most people don't but aren't willing to make the personal sacrifice to give it up. Anyways, this film is aimed at middle class suburb dwellers, so if you think you can't do it, then watch this film and see people who are. Also, biodiesel itself has led to many environmental problems not discussed in this film, so please do reasearch on that yourself and note that the film maker carefully sourced his biodiesel.