A thought or two about Earth 2100

I watched a program on ABC last night called "Earth 2100". Having just created my own program about the imagination and the future called "imagine it!" I was curious to see what a big Hollywood network had to say on the subject. I watched the first hour or so with my 13 year old son. I have to say while we were sitting there and watching, I wasn't sure if I should let him continue to watch it or not. If you think about it, that is quite sad considering the future they were discussing was his. He however solved the problem for me as he told me he didn't like it because the show was negative and opted out and went to bed. (As an aside, it took an hour and 45 minutes to get to a point where the show mentioned anything about hope and a potential "good" future...and then they only spend 8-9 minutes discussing the "upside".)

So my question is this...is showing bleak pictures of the future the way to motivate kids into solving these grand challenges they are inheriting? I think not. My theory is we all need to start embracing the imagine it! theory which is "positive is greater than negative". Let's show the kids (and adults) what the world could be like if only we apply our imaginations, creativity and hard work to solutions rather than pointing out all the problems.