Reading Bill McKibben’s book The End of Nature as a teen, I became a doomer early in life. I learned how we had fucked up the chemistry of every corner of the world with the byproducts of our industrial civilisation. From Everest to the Mariana Trench and everywhere in between, we were systematically turning this orb into a dead, uninhabitable lump of rock. Thirty years on, the worst dystopian forecasters were proven correct: animal and plant diversity is still being extinguished at a stunning rate, while human life has become crushingly artificial and false, as well as materially and/or spiritually impoverished. Intractable hyper-problems all point in one direction: the end. And the list goes on: obscene oligarchal wealth, apocalyptic levels of inequality, out-of-control AI-led tech corps, Donald Trump and co., resurgent racism, mass idiocracy, the refugee crisis, climate tipping points wherever you look. Things are not looking so hot.
When Ben told me about We’re All Going To Die, the project immediately spoke to me. Ben was feeling what I was feeling – but instead of stewing in self-pity and frustration about near-future collapse, he let his dread lead him down the rabbit hole of collapse preparation, caused him to engage with the “end of the world” by engaging with people who have made it their mission to prep physically, emotionally and spiritually for the coming end times.
Working with his fabulous crew – Lea, Ingo, Amit – Ben did what he set out to do: confront our private and collective fears and emerge at the end of this film journey a changed, bigger and less fearful person. We can’t halt the end of the world, we can’t halt the end of ourselves – only the way we live with that knowledge.