Rebooting the end of the world: Teaching ecosophy through cinema

Figures & data

Table 1. Ten films that depict ‘the end of the world’.

Film title	Premise for end of the world	Effects on human society	‘Timescape’
2012	Heating of the Earth’s core	Panic - only a few privileged survivors on super ‘arks’	Centres of the Mayan prophesy of 2012
Greenland	Comet strike	Small population survive in underground shelter	Random collision of comet causes end of world countdown
12 Monkeys	Pandemic	Human population forced to live underground	Time travel back and forth to pre-pandemic possible
Melancholia	Planetary collision	Entire planetary extinction event	Time irrupted through imminent planetary collision
The Road	Meteor strike	Few remaining humans live on in horrific conditions	Post-meteor time of survival and high needs
The Day After Tomorrow	Abrupt climate change	Mass migration to southern lands	Time changed according to climate conditions
The Tomorrow War	Alien invasion – climate change (defrosts aliens)	Human survival depends upon exterminating aliens in the future	Time travel back and forth from alien exterminations
Mad Max	Societal collapse due to nuclear war	Humans live in scattered lawless communities	Time interspersed with violence and speed
Dr Strangelove	Nuclear attack	Humans to be possibly exterminated by Doomsday device	Chaotic countdown to the potential launch of Doomsday device
Apocalypse Now	War – end of western civilization	Reversion to primitive, cultish existence	Time defined by trip up the river to its end and Kurtz.

Figure 1. The spectrum of concepts/positions laterally connected to ‘ecosophy’.