The term Anthropocene
was introduced... ...by climatologists,
chemists and geologists. It's not a recognised term
in social or political science. It's derived from natural sciences. It's presented to others sciences
as a mystery. It's an unclear term that hasn't been
approved by the scientific community. A question mark, in other words. But it contains an important message: Try to guess... ...what the most important
geological force is at the moment. That's mankind,
we're just not sure in what form. In any case,
it's human behaviour at large... ...in our modern industrial society. In Europe, between the 17th century
to the 20th century... ...the natural order... ...was pretty much in the background.
Like a set. In the foreground stood
the history of mankind. People on the stage,
and the set, or background... ...was a fairly stable environment. With the introduction
of the Anthropocene... ...or reintroduction: we knew about it
but only in a symbolic sense... ...the set entered the stage. That means that the actions
you need to pay attention to... ...also encompass those
of the earth and the climate. And those are our reactions to how
the earth responds to our actions. That turns nature upside down. Especially because we used to think
that it didn't affect nature. People had their passions,
ideas, ideologies and religions... ...but they didn't affect nature. It's not true, nature is
very sensitive to our actions. You can't talk about nature the way
people did in the 20th century. Questions about nature
were far from people's minds. The issue of controlling nature
or being controlled by it. Nowadays, there is more confusion. It's not about nature in general,
it's about the earth. Nature is about the stars,
the centre of the earth and so on. The term nature is far too broad. When we talk about climate change
in the broadest sense of the word... ...it's the reactions that take place
in a tiny part of our primal nature: The earth. An important part. Not the entire earth, just the
thin layer of the earth's surface... ...the basis for all known life. There's nothing left
of the old view on nature. Neither the indifference,
nor the sense of enormity... ...nor that nature is above us
or that we can dominate it. That's difficult for modern man,
because everything changes now. When can you harvest the tulips? Next week. Unconstrained means: I can hear
alarm bells but I'll carry on anyway. It's a perverse development that's
taken place in the last two centuries. We hear alarm bells,
but we take no notice. There was a movement like that
halfway through the 19th century. People saw the effects
of the industrialisation. But they decided: We'll carry on,
we won't let it stop us. We need to be more receptive
to the warning signs... ...but we must also
change our behaviour. We have to adapt to new boundaries. Obviously that goes
against many beliefs... ...regarding our glorious
modernisation... ...that breaks taboos and
tramples over all resistance. So it's a conflict of values too. We're on board the Tres Hombres. It's the only sailing freight ship that
regularly sails across the oceans. It's completely engineless.
A two-masted ship. We're causing a revolution
in the transport sector. The market for organic
and Fair Trade products... ...is the only market
that's still growing. The only missing link in
that product cycle is transport. That's where we come in. Drinking organic wine from South
Africa is not the right way to go. The poison you're not adding
to the soil in South Africa... ...you're throwing into the air
during the transport. This is a symbol, an ambassador... ...for a new world. A world in which
different standards apply. Instead of keeping up with the times
we're going against time. I mainly focus on downy mildew.
That's the most important disease. That's your opponent, so to speak.
- Yes, that's right. I've been working on this wild lettuce
species for over ten years. It's called lactuca saligna. The reason it's interesting is that
it's the only type of wild lettuce... ...that's resistant to all those
varieties of downy mildew. We want to transfer this property
into our cultivated lettuce. That's the lettuce we buy in the shop? Then it will have half of the properties
of this plant, and half of that one. Then you cross it with cultivated
lettuce a few more times... ...so you have 95 percent
of this plant's properties. And that one interesting property,
the resistance, from this plant. Every year, new mutations
of this fungus occur. So they have to get straight to work
before they spread across Europe. It might just be a few fields now. But if they don't do anything about it
these fungi and lice will be everywhere. I want this to be the mother,
so I just want its egg cells. They already have pollen,
sort of sperm cells, themselves. But we don't want them, we want these.
We want this to be the father. I'm going to rinse off
the pollen with water. Then you take a flower
that blossomed today... ...and which has some pollen on it. What I'm doing is
rubbing pollen... ...onto the other flower. When the Europeans discovered
America, the New World... ...they felt like their horizon
had hugely expanded. The same is happening now. What's
going on, what have we discovered? Who are these people,
what does the new world look like? Those questions are coming back,
but not on the surface... ...but under our feet. There is a new world
that's sensitive to our actions... ...which we didn't know before.
It's a new world. You talked about making people
sensitive. How can that be done? Not make them sensitive.
You either are or you aren't... ...depending on how able you are
to understand the world you live in. If a fire alarm went off, we wouldn't
keep talking, we'd go outside. Sensitivity is something you develop,
for which you need instruments. You need instruments, alarms,
hearing aids, all kinds of devices... ...to be sensitive. The same way
you need equipment to make a film. There are a few examples
of this sensitivity. First of all science, natural sciences. They made us sensitive to
climate change in a broad sense. The arts also play an important role... ...in understanding certain phenomena. What matters is that society is able... ...to detect the changes
it brought on itself in time. This court is now in session. I will now give my verdict. The court rules that the CO2 emission
in the Netherlands in the year 2020... ...is to be reduced by 25 percent
compared to the year 1990. In other words, if the reduction is less
than that, it will be an illegal offense. Is it all a bit much? What a relief. This is incredible. We worked so hard for this. And it's of such social importance. I'm going to have to lose my
professionalism for a moment. This is one of those cases
you put your life and soul into. We had to work so hard to convince
the judge that we had a case. And that it was up to the judge
to intervene, as he said himself... ...considering the huge scope of the
danger threatening our near future. Is this a small revolution?
