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l33tminion) wrote2009-09-21 11:37 pm
l33tminion) wrote2009-09-21 11:37 pm
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The Age of Frustrating, At Any Rate
Today, I went to the premiere showing of The Age of Stupid, a documentary on climate change. While the premiere event was mostly boring (save for a very amusing appearance by The Yes Men) and marred by technical difficulties (in a record-breaking stunt, they decided to broadcast the premiere by satellite instead of actually shipping the film to theaters), the movie was awesome. Despite covering the same subject as An Inconvenient Truth, it was practically that movie's polar opposite, providing a far broader perspective and focusing on the stories of individuals as opposed to the numbers of climate science.
The central conceit to the documentary's narrative is that the film is being created on-the-fly in post-apocalyptic 2055 by an archivist trying to figure out why his generation did nothing about climate change. Smartly, the movie doesn't spend too much time on speculation, focusing on documentary footage from the near past. The individuals it highlights are varied: An Indian old-money entrepreneur seeking to found a new low-budget airline, a family of orphan war refugees from Iraq, a young woman from Nigeria who wishes to become a doctor, an old glacier tour guide, a family trying to cut their carbon footprint, a man living in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a British activist whose efforts to build a wind farm are thwarted by his neighbors (probably one of the most frustrating scenes in the movie is in the immediate aftermath of the town meeting defeating the proposal, where one of the leaders of the anti-wind-farm-because-it-will-mar-the-view faction ironically states she "wants to see" a solution to climate change).
Personally, I found the segments from Nigeria the most compelling, since they make a clear case for why our present system is messed up independent of climate change. The movie doesn't spend a lot of time expounding on the backstory, just showing the effects of the current order on the lives of a few particular individuals.
The extraction of Nigeria's oil wealth is a tragic case of neo-colonial exploitation. It's an example of the "resource curse": Since the discovery, most of the country has become significantly poorer. Not only is the oil removed, but other natural resources are marred: Drinking water is polluted by spills, fish populations are greatly reduced (and what's left is often contaminated), air is polluted by natural gas being "flared off" (the gas could be sold locally, but that's insufficiently profitable). Hiring of locals is intentionally minimal. The portion of profit promised to local communities is diverted by corrupt politicians or stolen outright. Injustice and desperation predictably lead to violence, and Shell and others were quick to use the violence as an excuse to break more of their promises to help local communities. Instead, the Nigerian government cracked down on the rebels, indiscriminately killing and terrorizing the population to make the area safer for big corporations. Manipulating governments works much better than hiring mercenaries for Shell and the like, since they can decry the actions of the government while benefiting from the "free market" / "free trade" policies. (The pattern of development in Nigeria is neither new nor unusual. Rather, it represents the normal, wide-spread, and long-established pattern of global capitalism.)
I'm not sure whether the movie was overall hopeful or pessimistic. If disastrous, uncontrollable climate change is around the corner (and the filmmakers think it is), I'm not very optimistic. There's only so much voluntary, individual lifestyle change can do (Derrick Jensen said some interesting things on that very theme in a recent episode of The C-Realm Podcast). In general, progressive change is not achieved without political struggle, and large-scale political struggle may not happen on this issue until things are bad (i.e. too late). There is some growing dissatisfaction with the current structure of society, but consumerism (though often the origin) is often not the target of that dissatisfaction. The makers of the film are trying to get people to pressure politicians to get a strong treaty at the Copenhagen Summit this December, but even if the US is pushed to participate this time, any agreement without massive political support will become unenforced at the first sign of inconvenience. The movie itself is well written and nuanced, but climate change isn't a new issue and people are pretty entrenched in their opinions (to the point where the expectations in their heads may be more vivid than the actual content on the screen (evidently are, in the case of some of the reviews I've read)), so I wonder if it will change any minds. Then again, maybe the film will be effective just by rallying those who already care. Speaking of which, what became of that Cape Wind project, anyways?
The central conceit to the documentary's narrative is that the film is being created on-the-fly in post-apocalyptic 2055 by an archivist trying to figure out why his generation did nothing about climate change. Smartly, the movie doesn't spend too much time on speculation, focusing on documentary footage from the near past. The individuals it highlights are varied: An Indian old-money entrepreneur seeking to found a new low-budget airline, a family of orphan war refugees from Iraq, a young woman from Nigeria who wishes to become a doctor, an old glacier tour guide, a family trying to cut their carbon footprint, a man living in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a British activist whose efforts to build a wind farm are thwarted by his neighbors (probably one of the most frustrating scenes in the movie is in the immediate aftermath of the town meeting defeating the proposal, where one of the leaders of the anti-wind-farm-because-it-will-mar-the-view faction ironically states she "wants to see" a solution to climate change).
Personally, I found the segments from Nigeria the most compelling, since they make a clear case for why our present system is messed up independent of climate change. The movie doesn't spend a lot of time expounding on the backstory, just showing the effects of the current order on the lives of a few particular individuals.
The extraction of Nigeria's oil wealth is a tragic case of neo-colonial exploitation. It's an example of the "resource curse": Since the discovery, most of the country has become significantly poorer. Not only is the oil removed, but other natural resources are marred: Drinking water is polluted by spills, fish populations are greatly reduced (and what's left is often contaminated), air is polluted by natural gas being "flared off" (the gas could be sold locally, but that's insufficiently profitable). Hiring of locals is intentionally minimal. The portion of profit promised to local communities is diverted by corrupt politicians or stolen outright. Injustice and desperation predictably lead to violence, and Shell and others were quick to use the violence as an excuse to break more of their promises to help local communities. Instead, the Nigerian government cracked down on the rebels, indiscriminately killing and terrorizing the population to make the area safer for big corporations. Manipulating governments works much better than hiring mercenaries for Shell and the like, since they can decry the actions of the government while benefiting from the "free market" / "free trade" policies. (The pattern of development in Nigeria is neither new nor unusual. Rather, it represents the normal, wide-spread, and long-established pattern of global capitalism.)
I'm not sure whether the movie was overall hopeful or pessimistic. If disastrous, uncontrollable climate change is around the corner (and the filmmakers think it is), I'm not very optimistic. There's only so much voluntary, individual lifestyle change can do (Derrick Jensen said some interesting things on that very theme in a recent episode of The C-Realm Podcast). In general, progressive change is not achieved without political struggle, and large-scale political struggle may not happen on this issue until things are bad (i.e. too late). There is some growing dissatisfaction with the current structure of society, but consumerism (though often the origin) is often not the target of that dissatisfaction. The makers of the film are trying to get people to pressure politicians to get a strong treaty at the Copenhagen Summit this December, but even if the US is pushed to participate this time, any agreement without massive political support will become unenforced at the first sign of inconvenience. The movie itself is well written and nuanced, but climate change isn't a new issue and people are pretty entrenched in their opinions (to the point where the expectations in their heads may be more vivid than the actual content on the screen (evidently are, in the case of some of the reviews I've read)), so I wonder if it will change any minds. Then again, maybe the film will be effective just by rallying those who already care. Speaking of which, what became of that Cape Wind project, anyways?