Surviving Progress is a 2011 Canadian documentary film written and directed by Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks, loosely based on A Short History of Progress, a book and a 2004 Massey Lecture series by Ronald Wright about societal collapse.
[4] The underlying message here is that current models and strategies of economic growth have no practical connections with the real world.
Some notable examples include The Corporation, an likely [sic] hit that diagnosed capitalism's basic organism as a psychopath; The Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's power-point polemic, which put global warming on the map; and Inside Job, a forensic inquiry into Wall Street's 2008 financial meltdown.
The popularity of these films (the last two won Oscars) underscores a genuine appetite for global analysis that the fragmented vision of the news media fails to provide....The latest example is Surviving Progress, a Canadian documentary about the increasing weight of the human footprint of the planet.
It's a high-level lesson that is enlightening, engrossing and beautiful to look at.Kenneth Turan calls it "brainy and light on its feet, bristling with provocative insights and probing questions"; according to Turan, "though it features lively editing and a wide variety of involving visuals, Surviving Progress depends for its impact on the intelligence and eloquence of the numerous people interviewed.