„One cannot teach an old dog new tricks”. This saying tells a lot about how resistant we are to abandon our customs, change something in our dispositions or habits. However, what if the “old dog” is an entire civilization? We are accustomed to certain way of living that is related to the society we live in, our needs, goals and hopes, things we value and consider proper. Habits make up the very fabric of our everyday lives. Over the course of time, we have built these habits into the infrastructure of our societies: energy system, roads, buildings we live in, food we eat and cars we drive. Power of Habit is a story of human aspirations and needs, use of technology and its environmental impact. No man is an island: even the smallest of our actions may bear an impact on the world as a whole. What has caused us to alienate from the natural environment and by what means can we restore the dialogue? Is the environmental crisis really the crisis of environment – or is it the crisis of our beliefs, aspirations and habits?
Power of Habit is a part of the documentary series "Patterns of Life".
"PATTERNS OF LIFE "
Short synopsis
Patterns of Life is the story of human habits: how they have evolved, how they have rooted themselves in everything we use, and how they form recurrent patterns that resist time and change. We are accustomed to a certain way of life that is related to the kind of society we live in, the needs, goals, and hopes we hold, things that we value and consider proper. Habits make up the very fabric of our everyday lives. Over the course of time, we have built these habits into the infrastructure of our societies: energy system, roads, buildings we live in, food we eat and cars we drive. Patterns of Life is also the story of human beliefs: motives, aspirations and fears that trigger our action, and guide our use of technologies. We take the viewer along to a travel where he or she might recognize his/her own life – the questions, challenges and pursuits – and find there a link, an appreciation of the viability of other ways of living, feeling well, respected, and, all in all, happy.
The series is motivated by a certain feeling of being stuck with the odds and ends of our daily lives while the world we inhabit moves forward with a rapid pace. We feel the acuteness of environmental change. The epitome of the citzen of an urban civilization is someone trapped in a rush-hour traffic jam burning the ever more expensive gasoline, wondering: how did I get here? Changing rain patterns, soil erosion and salination, retreating glaciers, raising sea level, crop fields turned to desert, declination of rainforests – we may well witness the most complex and extensive environmental change in human history that has the power to alter the future prospects of societies and livelihoods all over the world. We are caught in what looks a lot like an environmental jam.
We approach our topics through personal stories of people all over the world: their aspirations and efforts, skills and livelihoods. The grand narratives of our lives are made up of minute details and small choices. These details form the big and exciting histories of cultures and civilizations, and our adaptation to life on Earth through our use of technologies. On the other hand we have scientists, scholars, social and technological innovators, and community leaders to share their experience, knowledge and insight on the relationship between human, environment and technology.
"Power of Habit" is produced by Northern Broadcasting Network (NBN)
Pärnu mnt 139c, 11317 Tallinn, Estonia
Main producer: Vallo Veering
Director: Marianne Kõrver
