When a young arms dealer discovers his work is harming families in less affluent societies, he has an ethical crisis and begins a decades-long journey to redeem himself and make the world a better place. SAVING WALDEN’S WORLD is a revealing new film following Jim Merkel as he raises Walden, a budding scientist, in an off-the-grid homestead and wonders: could the very people his past-life’s work targeted, hold the keys to a sustainable planet?
A journey ensues, meeting powerful women who reshape society to work for all. Far from affluent utopias, Kerala, Cuba and Slovenia offer women free college, access to contraception, maternity leave, childcare, dentistry and healthcare. Services unimaginable in much of Jim’s blue-collar America.
As earth temperatures soar, the stakes couldn’t get higher.
Powerful women reduce infant mortality, poverty and family size while increasing longevity.
Immerse yourself in this intimate father-son exploration of a global shift, where personal and collective decisions about procreation and consumption ripple through generations, resulting in fewer yet healthier children.
Land reform, literacy and universal higher education dramatically increase well-being.
Family planning, child care and public health programs yielded results similar to advanced European social democracies in "poor" societies.
Many of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals were achieved by empowered women.
Some were not pleased.
Declassified documents reveal covert plots to undo these efforts.
Imagine…
the world’s wealthy consume less,
the poor exit poverty,
fewer — yet healthier children are born,
easing extinctions, hunger and climate change.
A self-reinforcing cycle where all win.
The 1987 Iran Contra hearings exposed how the KL-43 that I help design was used by Ollie North to illegally arm dictators favorable to US business interests. Two years later, I watched T.V. coverage of the EXXON Valdez oil spill in a bar-room in Stockhlom while marketing the KL-43. Something snapped.
I began questioning everything.
Along the way I wrote “Radical Simplicity” as a way to learn and share ways of living in harmony with this miraculous planet.
