I was wondering when you'd post this. =P Quite well made.

I am officially unsubscribed from TH as of now. This is how you're trying to mainstream green?

cool video. great animation. thanks for posting this.

but it a rather bleak outlook. it presents humans as rather simplistic: If humans exist then we have a "sick planet". so the only way to save the planet (and universe?) is by...um.. killing every last one of us?

this is sounding familiar. deep ecology comes to mind but I think i have the wrong environmental ethical framework in mind. It has been a while since i took that class in college.

Entertaining cartoon, but misleading. I think the only thing that a celestial body like a planet can be afraid of is another celestial body like a giant meteor. The earth has been devastated by something like 6 massive meteors in its 4.5 billion year history (one of them possibly having created the moon by ejecting millions of tons of material into space). To suggest that people will somehow sicken the earth is pretty misleading. I think the cartoon is great. I love the animation, but c'mon... The earth will be fine. All the life that currently inhabits the earth... well that's a different story. Who knows if we'll ever even reach the pinnacle of technology where we would be able to colonize another planet. To me, that would seem like an evolutionary success story. And maybe by then we'll have learned how to live within our environment rather than live through our environment.

@mdl: Well you're certainly not going to turn green mainstream by being an uptight critic like you. It seems people look for any stupid reason to dismiss an entire movement these days.

Respectfully, you're only going to turn people away from the environmental movement with things like this.

Mainstream environmentalism should not be about preaching guilt, but about making people aware that a healthy planet is necessary for sustainable human prosperity. If people are simply a destructive virus, then there is no hope and consequently no motivation for change.

I love most of the articles on TreeHugger, but I think things like this really exemplify what turns people off to environmentalism.

@stradric:

Treehugger.com is an entire movement now? he said he was leaving treehugger, he didn't say anything about leaving "greenness". I hugely dislike greenpeace and peta but I still consider myself an environmentalist.

This reminds me of "The Wit and Wisdom of Cancer" by Nina Paley, made for the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT).

Wow. I'm not sure how that's supposed to influence me to take better care of the planet since it reduces me and everyone I know into mindless, destructive invaders. What's the expected reaction? By the presented logic of this animation, the best solution might be for the "fever" to break, so I guess genocide of the entire human race is the solution? Of course I'm exaggerating, but I think this is much more critical than constructive.

I thought that was a pretty clever cartoon. I suppose some humans might take umbrage since it is pretty personal, but once they get over their defensiveness they might see whatever merit this cartoon has to offer and think twice before buying Snow Leopard seat covers or toothfish steaks. Or maybe not. Thanks for posting.

Too far, too much and too, well too everything. Sorry, TH. You're way off the mark on this one.

Enough already. Humans created this mess, and humans will get us out of it. Hating your own fellow people isn't going to solve anything.

You know what? Actually, thanks. This finally gave me the little push I needed to start checking gristmilll.

So human beings are an infection rather than a highly successful species? What purpose does something like this serve other than to give an even louder voice to the misanthropy that sits just under the surface of the extreme arms of the environmentalist movement? Newsflash: Human beings are part of the earth. We came from it, eventually we all go back to it. We're not some foreign invader. What is this film maker trying to say? When he talks about humans as a plague, is he including himself?

Is it just me or does Tree Hugger seems to be in some kind of a race to the margins here? What happened to the Tree Hugger I could turn to for upbeat, RATIONAL discussions of alternatives to business as usual?

Wow, these people are touchy...it's a cartoon...can we all say SATIRE?! Chill out, it's meant to push buttons, overreacting to this just unveils the self-centered human lifestyle the animation is portraying. On some level, all the points the video made are true - we are responsible for depletion of resources, we are responsible for diminishing biodiversity, and we are responsible for polluting the atmosphere. Granted, we may not be evil viruses and we are part of the global ecosystem just like any other life form, but there should come a point where we should take our brilliant, progressive minds towards responsible innovation. Progress isn't only limited to a steady incline. If we are so smart, than we should have the moral responsibility to stop and reflect and come up with a new plan of action. There is no shame in realizing that we may have made some mistakes. Shame is greatly due, however, if we ignore the parts we got wrong in history and refuse to do anything about it.

I can't believe I wrote that much just to defend a 1 minute animation. RELAX everyone, we are all not evil...though to say that we are all not ignorant, would be a lie.

Come on and lighten up everyone -- this is just a funny cartoon. It's like the political cartoons in the paper, it's meant to over-exaggerate a bit and make fun of a situation. We all need a laugh in our day -- and this was definitely my laugh for the day -- thanks TH :o)

Ok, so no the earth will not get sick and die because of us. It will be around for billions of years long after we're extinct. But it's exagerations do have a point. We do reproduce indiscriminately. And without any predetors, there's nothing to keep the population down short of self-restraint or political intervention (China for example). And neither of those options are realisitic. We are finding alternate methods of farming and resource harvesting, but we still continue to ravage the earth.

Alternate sustainable energies and resources is all nice and fine, but what's going to stop the population explosion and the exponential need for these energies and resources? nothing short of ecological meltdown, nuclear war, giant meteor, etc...

I typically dislike this kind if depressing look at the world anyway.

"Dears Sirs,

This cartoon is a farse of reality and has made mockery of general common sense and logic by displaying antropomorphic factories with chimney hair eating a forest, an ungodly sight that I am almost sure doesn't exist.
(for 'tis too evil-awesome)

I haven't felt this outraged since I last saw a desert canine defending itself from a plummeting boulder with an obviously small and innefficient umbrella!

I hereby demand that all animated creatures shown here discuss the environment between themselves in a sober, decent and rational fashion or I will find a place on this Internet that does not offend my feelings in such a way and that does not display funny videos for content (please email link when found).

Yours, etcetera, etcetera,

Whiny S. McCrybaby
"

I am with the lighten up crowd. And who is calling viruses evil...that is so virus-ist! They just want to live and thrive like the rest of us magnificant creations of life.

if you are offended by the cartoon, then it's doing it's job.

you should be offended by the way society is being run. you should be offended by clearcutting, animal cruelty, the plastic island in the middle of the pacific, and everything else we've done!

it is our society that is EFFED UP! it needs revamping so that we don't end up killing the world or (more probably) ourselves.

treehugger can't always be about the positive changes we can make on a daily basis, (by buying a bunch of crap we don't need with the words eco, green, organic, or sustainable emblazoned across them?!) sometimes we need to be reminded of the true reason we come to this website.

now go read some derrick jensen, and toughen up already!

Wow, loosen up everybody. It's a cartoon. It presents a funny and exaggerated commentary on our situation here. Being an environmentalist doesn't mean you have to be uptight and on guard at all times. Have fun!