by John D. Boswell aka Melodysheep

June 09, 2025

from AEON Website
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The US filmmaker John D. Boswell (aka Melodysheep) is known for crafting meticulously researched CGI documentaries that, epic in both production and scope, probe the deep past and peer into the future.

 

In his latest, Engineering Earth, Boswell surveys geoengineering projects - some quite speculative, others already underway, but all of them at least theoretically possible - to offer an audaciously hopeful vision of humanity’s trajectory.

 

The operatic work takes viewers on a tour of strange, wondrous and beautiful potential futures, exploring concepts ranging from,

artificial tree forests to orbital solar power arrays accessed by space elevators,

...with the grand obstacles and potential risks only lightly addressed.

 

Taken as a whole, these brief glimpses of bold, nascent ideas make a case for techno-optimism at a moment when, for many, such sentiments have fallen exceedingly out of vogue.

 

 

Mankind has become the pilot of spaceship earth, whether we like it or not.

 

Half of all habitable land on earth is now dedicated to supporting human activity. And as of the year 2020, the mass of all man-made materials now outweighs the mass of all life forms on earth.

Despite all this, we are still newcomers - untrained pilots steering an ancient, ever-changing planet.

 

If we want to survive long-term and continue to grow, we will have to make bigger technological leaps than ever before.

This film explores the wildest, most ambitious, most dangerous ideas to keep Earth and humanity thriving, by protecting each of its layers, from the lithosphere to the stratosphere.

Many of our ideas may never materialize, but by dreaming them up, we can open our minds to the full potential of human willpower and intellect.

 

The future is ours to build...!

 

 

Video also HERE and HERE...