If film and television have a role to play in our society, if they are capable of helping important social change, if they have a part in the transformation of human society, then T.S. Bennett and Sally Erickson have fulfilled that purpose. What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire is the culmination of the “big social issue documentary” genre of Michael Moore’s films, or An Inconvenient Truth, and particularly of the “using ironic 50’s footage” sub-genre, such as The End of Suburbia. It deals with the same issues, but follows them deeper, all the way to the root of the problem in the Agricultural Revolution. Along the way, it hits all the important points: peak oil, mass extinction, climate change, overshoot, and the stories that keep us on the path to self-destruction.

The movie bills itself as, “A middle class white guy comes to grips with Peak Oil, Climate Change, Mass Extinction, Population Overshoot and the demise of the American Lifestyle.” That is an understatement. Daniel Quinn was much more fair when he said, “Hundreds of my readers have told me that my novel Ishmael should be read in every high school classroom in the world. Naturally I’d be delighted to see this happen, but I really think it would be more to the point to have What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire seen in every high school classroom in the world! The two hours of this documentary are two hours that bring hope for the future of humanity by awakening and informing in the most profound yet lucid way imaginable.”

The opening scenes warn that the documentary is “dense” and that trying to take it all in at once may be futile; rather, it advises you to let it all wash over you, and then go back. That’s good advice; some of it can sound hokey and almost hammy in its catastrophism on the first viewing if you’re looking for something to criticize, but that would be very much missing the point. It inspired me and brought me to the brink of tears; it lionized me and made me want to go to war; it’s completely the emotional wave the introduction warned me it would be. Let it wash over you, let it embolden you, and it will give you the courage to seize the future.

In two hours, What a Way to Go admirably covers all the major points I made in the Thirty Theses. The Theses still provide a good resource for backing up claims, but What a Way to Go provides something we’ve been sorely lacking: an effective introduction.

The documentary interviews people whose names you’ll frequently find in Anthropik bibliographies, like Daniel Quinn, Derrick Jensen, William Catton, Richard Heinberg and Richard Manning; our own friend Ran Prieur; and other big names like Thomas Berry, Gerald Cecil, Douglas Crawford-Brown, Sally Erickson, Lyle Estill, Chellis Glendinning, Otis Graham, Jerry Mander, Stuart Pimm, Paul Roberts and William Schlesinger.

I’m not sure when they managed to film the brief scene where they broke into my apartment, pulled all of the books off of my shelves, and arranged them on a table, but a quick glance at the “Further Reading” list on their website will reveal some more names familiar to Anthropik readers, like David Abram, John Taylor Gatto, Joan Halifax, Thom Hartmann, William Köttke, James Howard Kunstler, Michael Ruppert and Matt Savinar.

My only real regret about this film is that we didn’t hear about it until it was finished, so we couldn’t help at all in the process. But now, we’re going to be doing everything we can to help it along now. The Tribe of Anthropik will be helping plan a Pittsburgh stop on the “Get Tim & Sally Out of Debt Tour” for August 27—more information on that to come, and if you can make it to the Three Rivers around that time, you might want to plan on it now. It’s worth it. As Dale Allen Pfeiffer put it, “Heart-felt and poignant, this documentary will touch you as very few things can. It will scare, and it will make you think. Though it will give you hope, it will leave you with no easy answers. This documentary does a thorough job of presenting the pending mega-crisis in all of its aspects, and then goes even deeper to probe all of the causes, both technological and social. A careful viewing will leave you stunned, informed, and ready to step off the train and begin dismantling the tracks. Watch it yourself, and then present it to as many people as you can. Your life, and your children’s lives, depend on it.”