Surviving Progress (2011) on Netflix

Plot summary

Structured as a series of interviews cut with footage from around the world, the documentary carries the argument of A Short History of Progress into the present. Progress traps are technologies and belief systems that meet an immediate need while putting the future at risk, and past civilizations were destroyed by them. Where the book dealt with the ancient world, the film turns to concentrated wealth and to growth models that have no connection with the real world. An economic historian, a primatologist, an energy researcher and a former environment minister are among those interviewed. Their shared subject is the pressure that overconsumption puts on natural resources, and whether a globally connected civilization can escape the population collapse that this makes more probable.