I went and saw the movie Battleship. The U.S. Navy had a decent public relations campaign with the creators of the movie; I think a better PR campaign could have been accomplished by simply using the money more wisely. Knowing that the movie is based on a classic board game should frame most individuals expectations. Yet checking out reviews of the movie it is getting panned for poor acting, military personification, and storyline. But one of the comments I read was about what else could have been done with the estimated $200,000,000 that was spent making this film.
I’ve been reading through the book Abundance (a great read by the way) and have a few thoughts on how to do a better job with the $200 million dollars that was spent making Battleship.
I’ve talked about the Goal Zero Yeti- At $2,000 a piece for the Yeti Solar Generator Kit
you could have provided remote portions of the world that have little power resources a few of these, each. That’s right - we could have purchased 100,000 of the Yeti Solar Generator Kit. That would provide 120 Megawatts of distributed solar power to a significant amount of people that need it to ensure they have the ability to sanitize water, keep medical supplies cold, and maintain communication (I recommend reading Abundance
to get a picture of what the cascading effects). I’d even wager to say that with that buying power Goal Zero would provide a free Light-a-Life with each kit. They are already working with the Village of Bwe in the Congo in Central Africa through Tifie.
Lifesaver- First take a watch of Michael Pritchard’s TED presentation. At $149 for a Lifesaver Bottle
plus an extra Lifesaver Filter
($99) the $200M could have provided 800,000 Bottles+Refill cartridge packs. This equates to providing 6.4 Billion Liters of clean water to those that still struggle with this significant part of life. This knocks down the waterborne disease problems that pose life threatening dangers. If you wanted to go a bit bigger with the water container you could use the Lifesaver JerryCan
with a 20,000 Liter Capacity and for the same $200M you’d provide the ability to filter 8.8 Billion Liters of clean water (again looking for the big picture - Abundance).
Want a Big Idea? If you want the Navy to be in the spotlight - hand these filters and generators to us! I guarantee that not only the Navy will be in the spot light but the organization that does will be too! And not in the kind of spotlight that the movie Battleship provided. That would be “A Global Force for Good!”
I wish I wouldn’t have spent the $5 that it cost to see the movie knowing this information. It’s really our choice - why not make a better one?
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