Documentary Review: The True Cost (2015)

 A stark reminder of Fast Fashion's Toll on People and Planet

A decade after its release, "The True Cost" (2015) remains an essential watch for anyone committed to sustainability and ethical living. Directed by Andrew Morgan, the documentary exposes the devastating environmental and human costs of the fast fashion industry, a system build on exploitation, overconsumption and environmental destruction.

The documentary shines a light on the hidden side of cheap clothing: garment workers subjected to unsafe conditions, toxic waste polluting rivers, and a disposable culture fuelling landfills. Tragically, many of the issues highlighted in the documentary persist today. While awareness has grown and sustainable fashion brands are gaining traction, fast fashion giants continue to dominate, producing at unsustainable rates and driving resource depletion.

Yet, the film also offers home, urging viewers to embrace conscious consumption: buy less, choose ethical brands, and demand systemic change. In 2025, these lessons resonate louder than ever. As climate change accelerates, the need to rethink our relationship with fashion, and the planet, is undeniable. 

"The True Cost" is more than just a documentary, it's a call to action. Revisit it today and let it inspire you to choose sustainability over convenience. A better future depends on it. 

Documentary Review: Before the Flood (2016)

 A visionary wake-up call we still haven't fully answered. 

Nearly a decade has passed since the release of Before the Flood (2016), the powerful documentary directed by Fisher Stevens and fronted by environmental advocate and actor Leonardo DiCaprio. In many ways the film remains a hauntingly relevant call to action - a mirror held up to humanity, reflecting the environmental crossroads we faced then and still face today. watching it now in 2025 feels like revisiting a warning siren that blared loud and clear, yet was only partially heeded. 

At its core, "Before the Flood" painted a vivid picture of the climate crisis, blending start scientific evidence with deeply emotional storytelling. DiCaprio's journey across the globe (visiting melting Arctic ice, deforested rainforests, and flood-prone island nations) offered a visceral understanding of the interconnected systems being disrupted by human activity. The film challenged audiences to to confront uncomfortable truths about fossil fuels, industrial agriculture, and corporate greed, while also spotlighting solutions like renewable energy and sustainable practices.

Looking back, the documentary was prophetic. Many of its predictions, the intensification of extreme weather events, the acceleration of ice melt, and the rising displacement of vulnerable communities, have become our lived reality. Extreme heatwaves, wildfires, and floods are no longer future threats; they're dominating headlines in 2025. The film's urgency is no less relevant today than it was in 2016, perhaps even more so.

If you haven't seen "Before the Flood" yet, or if it's been a while, now is the time to revisit it. Let's not let this be another decade of missed opportunities. The time to save our world is today. 

Review: Ocean (2025)

 Watching "Ocean" (2025), the latest documentary from Sir David Attenborough, feels like bearing witness to a planetary emergency. 

With haunting underwater footage, the film reveals the brutal reality of bottom trawling—industrial fishing vessels dragging weighted nets across the seafloor, reducing centuries-old coral forests to deserts of broken skeletons. If you haven't watched it yet, it's time...

Every time we choose seafood, we're voting for this destruction. Bottom trawling causes more damage to seafloor habitats than any other human activity, affecting an area twice the size of the continental United States every year. When massive nets are dragged across the ocean floor, they obliterate everything in their path—coral reefs, nursery habitats, and complex ecosystems that took decades to establish, are destroyed in minutes.

The carbon implications are staggering. Bottom trawling releases as much carbon annually as the entire aviation industry, literally destroying one of our most important carbon sinks when every fraction of a degree matters in our fight against climate change.

Deep-sea corals that have grown for centuries are reduced to rubble. Fish populations lose their breeding and feeding grounds. The ripple effects travel up the entire food web, creating a biodiversity crisis that mirrors rainforest destruction, except it happens where we cannot see it.

The persistence of bottom trawling comes down to economics—it's currently cheaper to destroy habitats than to fish sustainably. But this is exactly why we must stop supporting these industries entirely. When we purchase any seafood caught through these methods, we're funding the continued devastation of ocean ecosystems.

The solution is clear: plant-based eating. The same consciousness that drives us to choose organic, locally-sourced foods on land must extend to rejecting all products that come from destroying the sea. Our oceans are not resources to be strip-mined—they're complex, vital ecosystems that sustain life on Earth.

But here's the hope that *Ocean (2025)* also reveals: marine protected areas where sea-floors have regenerated beyond expectations, and fish populations rebounding at rates that surprise scientists. The ocean is remarkably resilient when we stop harming it.

The anger we feel when learning about bottom trawling is justified. Channel that anger into action. Choose plants, not fish. Our oceans have sustained life for millennia. The least we can do is stop destroying them for food we don't need.

The choice is ours. The time is now. And when we choose plants over destruction, we might just have a future on this planet.