Your Chance to Live: Pollution
Defense Civil Preparedness Agency
1974

The 1970's saw the birth of a new era in American civil defense, one which focused less on the possibility of a nuclear attack and more on conventional disturbances like mass power outages and natural disasters. Spearheading this change were the policy makers of a new federal authority, The Defense Civil Preparedness Agency (D.C.P.A.) which was created in 1972 as a successor to The Office of Civil Defense.(1) The tone of the D.C.P.A. was radically different than its more conservative and straight-laced predecessors. Using absurdist art, humor and folk music, the early years of the agency were marked by an effort to use civil defense to present a liberal message about respecting the power of nature. Nowhere is this environmentalist message more visible than in the D.C.P.A.'s first information campaign: Your Chance to Live. In September of 1972 an extensive booklet was published under that title. Over the following two years a series of motion pictures were released with each one corresponding to a chapter in the booklet. Covering disaster situations like hurricanes, floods and forest fires, each film addresses its topic in an offbeat way, often relying on creative narration, dark comedy and folk rock music. Even the final installment, which talks about a nuclear attack, does so by self-reflexively following a director as he wrestles with the morals of producing a civil defense film. One film in particular takes this environmental approach further than all the rest. Pollution, released in 1974 as the 8th film in the series, is set in a world where toxic contamination has killed off all humanity.(2) The narration consists entirely of an ode to Makind's time on Earth.








References:
1. Civil Preparedness: A New Dual Mission. D.C.P.A. Annual Report FY 1972. Government Printing Office. 1973. iii.
2. Mandate for Readiness. D.C.P.A. Annual Report 1974. Government Printing Office. 1975. 34.
3. Civil Preparedness: A New Dual Mission. D.C.P.A. Annual Report FY 1972. Government Printing Office. 1973. 1.