Tired of “angry-man” rhetoric and general teeth-gnashing diatribes? These guys are. It’s becoming increasingly evident that all the doom and gloom about Global Warming is getting us down, creating an all-pervading sense of helplessness and powerlessness. The sensationalist and often one-sided coverage by corporate controlled press only adds to the gloom, not to mention governments reneging on promises to take action, repeated failures to get international agreements. What can we do?

The new “Coalition of the Willing” think they can see an answer that will give everyone hope and a reason to stop “leaving it all to someone else to solve”. Two freethinkers have an idea they want to share with everyone, that involves everyone who wants to be involved. British animator Simon Robson and Australian philosopher Tim Rayner have teamed up to deliver Coalition of the Willing – a collaborative animated film and web-based event about an online war against global warming in a “post Copenhagen” world.

“The film offers a response to the major problem of our time: how to galvanize and enlist the global publics in the fight against global warming. This optimistic and principled film explores how we could use new Internet technologies to leverage the powers of activists, experts, and ordinary citizens in collaborative ventures to combat climate change. Through analyses of swarm activity and social revolution, 'Coalition of the Willing' makes a compelling case for the new online activism and explains how to hand the fight against global warming to the people.”

We currently live in a world where we learn “to be defined by the things we buy”, according to Tim Rayner. Where the meaning of life is to accumulate, expand, live more and increase ourselves in various ways. However the current strategies for the fight against global warming extol exactly the opposite: Live less, buy less, get a smaller car, turn out the lights – live in the dark. “What a bummer” of a strategy. No wonder we are so ambivalent about the struggle against global warming.

Web 2.0 to the rescue

This film, insanely ambitious from the outset (in their own words), is an example and a product of their idea in action – collaborative creativeness empowering people! They propose we get out of “our fishbowls” and refuse to be corralled by the top down, governmental-led direction on global warming. Instead, using the internet and web 2.0, we can gather together as human swarms to unleash the creative energies of the global population. The result? Mass enthusiasm, excitement, empowerment and the opportunity to take a “big bite out of the problem”.

“We can do more than just turning out the lights!”

Film: Coalition Of The Willing

Coalition Of The Willing from coalitionfilm on Vimeo.

Notes on the film:

Released on 30 June 2010 – Coalition of the Willing has been Directed and produced by Knife Party, written by Tim Rayner and crafted by a network of 24 artists from around the world using varied and eclectic film making techniques. Collaborators include some of the world’s top moving image talent, such as Decoy, World Leaders and Parasol Island.

Links:

Web 2.0 Definition (from Wikipedia):

The term "Web 2.0" is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centred design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with each other as contributors to the website's content, in contrast to websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups, and folksonomies.

Written by: Suze Chalmers

Image credit: Coalition of the Willing