"How to Boil a Frog" is that rare beast, a funny movie about peak oil, climate change, etc. Early versions have been circulating to the delight of those lucky enough to see it. It's good news indeed that the movie will now be viewable by the public. From a review of an early version of the film by Olga Bonfiglio:

The film tells the story of Jon Cooksey, an ordinary man on a mission, who decided two years ago that he had to do something personally to make sure his 12-year-old daughter would have a future, given all the bad news on global warming.

As he began this quest he was especially keen on waking people up to the disinformation campaign against global warming. However, after interviewing top experts in the field, he discovered a much bigger picture: the world is in “overshoot” where peak oil, global warming, overpopulation, diminishing natural resources, and a system where “the privileged few rule” come together to a point that no one problem can be addressed without tackling all of them.
... "How to Boil a Frog" is especially useful for people struggling with paralyzing guilt, despair and/or ignorance over the state of the environment. Here Cooksey puts it bluntly: “If you believe you can make a difference, you can; if you don’t believe you can’t make a difference, you can’t.” Of course, he hopes he can convince you to act.

One interesting effect of deciding to act is that citizens come together in cooperative ways to fight for their communities—and the can make a lot of friends, just as Cooksey did. This is something, he says, that we have gotten away from in our society where competition and the acquisition of private property and goods are more valued than our relationships with each other.

-BA

Hello all,

News from the Frog has been sparse over the past 8 months (or so) while we worked hard on finishing the movie, which is now done! We’ve delivered the movie to the two Canadian pay TV networks – The Movie Network and Movie Central – who believed in the project back when we were still figuring out how to make a comedic documentary (a what?). No word yet on when the movie will start to air in Canada – we’ll pass that on when we know.

Meantime, there’s 2 big items on our To Do list:

1. First, we have to find out who’s interested in buying and showing the movie OUTSIDE of Canada. We’re entering lots of film festivals as a way to get it out there, and will be sending screeners to friends and contacts involved in that side of the business. You can help! For those of you in the TV and movie business, we welcome suggestions of people who might be interested in looking at the movie. And for those who aren’t, beat the drum wherever you’d like to see the movie – your local film fest, your favorite network, even your community movie theater! All help greatly appreciated. The sooner 6.8 billion people see it, the sooner we can start the party!
   
   

2. Second, we have to transform the How to Boil a Frog website. It’ll still offer free stuff – links, articles, funny web shorts, and other things that reflect the global Frog perspective and sense of the absurd – but we want it to be a lot more than that. We want it to be a place that YOU and a lot of other people can be a part of – a place to find other people in your area and around the world who like the idea of saving civilization while having fun and making a lot of new friends. Make Fun, Make Friends, Make Trouble is our motto, and we want to make the HTBAF website the place to go for all 3.

This video, sent in by Friend o’ the Frog Anita Burke gives a good idea of what we have in mind: http://vimeo.com/12772935. What can 1 person do in the face of wars galore, a triple-scoop (sorry, dip) recession, China buying 2 of your 3 children (their offer was amazing) and pieces of the Arctic breaking off that are, well, the size of the Arctic? Wrong question. The right question is: what can MANY of us do together?

So Frog is putting out its singles ad: “Attractive movie/website, curvaceous, seeks legion of Heroes for live music, community-building and corporate/government ass-kicking. Upload pic to Facebook page. No Hummer drivers.”

How To Boil A Frog presents Peak Oil pt. 1 - What's Peak Oil

We’ll be transforming the website over the next couple of months to put in The Pond, a place where Friends o’ the Frog can find each other, share ideas and successes, and create their own lily pad – look for pads based on areas of interest, proposals for fun-based corporate smackdowns, or just a desire to get together with other people who want to figure out how to re-make the world so it’ll work for everybody sometime beyond next Tuesday. Because that’s our goal. And if you have skills in web design or social media, or just want to be part of the team transforming the site, write us back! We’re going to need lots of help.

In the meantime, if you’re jonesing for a little Frog input while we’re under construction, sign up to follow us on Twitter for a no-more-than-daily link to something inspiring, funny, outrage-inducing, or all 3.

Thanks to all of you for joining us as we prepared for our journey, because finishing the movie was only the first step. If we’re going to right the Poseiden before it topples over, we have much to do – and we plan to have a lot of fun doing it.

More soon,

Jon & all his friends at www.howtoboilafrog.com

PS The movie’s done, but the bills aren’t paid, so if you’re inspired, buy a conversation-starting t-shirt, or send us a few dead flies!