Confounded by global warming and in search of an affirmative politics that links ecology with social change, Matt Hern and Am Johal set off on a series of road trips to the tar sands of northern Alberta—perhaps the world’s largest industrial site, dedicated to the dirty work of extracting oil from Alberta’s vast reserves. Traveling from culturally liberal, self-consciously “green” Vancouver, and aware that our well-meaning performances of recycling and climate-justice marching are accompanied by constant driving, flying, heating, and fossil-fuel consumption, Hern and Johal want to talk to people whose lives and fortunes depend on or are imperiled by extraction. 

They are seeking new definitions of ecology built on a renovated politics of land. Traveling with them is their friend Joe Sacco—infamous journalist and cartoonist, teller of complex stories from Gaza to Paris—who contributes illustrations and insights and a chapter-length comic about the contradictions of life in an oil town. The epic scale of the ecological horror is captured through a series of stunning color photos by award-winning aerial photographer Louis Helbig.

Seamlessly combining travelogue, sophisticated political analysis, and ecological theory, speaking both to local residents and to leading scholars, the authors propose a new understanding of ecology that links the domination of the other-than-human world to the domination of humans by humans. They argue that any definition of ecology has to start with decolonization and that confronting global warming requires a politics that speaks to a different way of being in the world—a reconstituted understanding of the sweetness of life.

Chair

Presenter for the BBC’s ‘One Show’, and columnist for the Observer, Lucy Siegle has focussed on social and environmental justice in her reporting for a number of years. Lucy has extensive experience in humanizing environmental science, from climate change to consumer energy use. In 2004, she created the paper’s Observer Ethical Awards (OEAs), dubbed the Green Oscars, which have been running for over eight years. She is a regular columnist for the Observer and contributes to Radio 4’s ‘Today Programme’.

Speakers

Matt Hern lives in East Vancouver on səlil’wətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) territory, with his partner and daughters.  He is co-directs Solid State Industries and has co-founded and directed many other community projects.  He currently teaches with multiple universities, and continues to lecture globally. Matt’s books and articles have been published on all six continents and translated into thirteen languages.

Am Johal is Director of Simon Fraser University’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. He is the author of ‘Ecological Metapolitics: Badiou and the Anthropocene’ (Atropos Press, 2015) and is co-author with Matt Hern (with contributions from Joe Sacco), of “Global Warming and the Sweetness of Life: A Tar Sands Tale.” (MIT, 2018). He is the co-founder of UBC’s Humanities 101 program and is an associate of SFU’s Centre for Dialogue and SFU’s Institute for the Humanities. He previously served as co-chair of the Impact on Communities Coalition, as a board member with the Vancity Community Foundation, the Or Gallery, the Vancouver City Planning Commission, the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House and many other organizations.

90% of the goods we consume in the West are manufactured in far-off lands and brought to us by ship. The cargo shipping industry is a key player in world economy and forms the basis of our very model of modern civilisation; without it, it would be impossible to fulfil the ever-increasing demands of our societies.

Yet the functioning and regulations of this business remain largely obscure to many, and its hidden costs affect us all. Due to their size, freight ships no longer fit in traditional city harbours; they have moved out of the public’s eye, behind barriers and check points. The film answers questions such as: Who pulls the strings in this multi-billion dollar business? To what extent does the industry control our policy makers? How does it affect the environment above and below the water-line? And what’s life like for modern seafarers?

Taking us on a journey over seas and oceans, the newest film from veteran director Denis Delestrac (Banking Nature) reveals in an audacious and gripping investigation the many faces of worldwide freight shipping and sheds light on the consequences of an all-but-visible industry.

Directed by: Denis Delestrac
Country: Spain
Year: 2016
Runtime: 90 mins

The future of water isn’t a simple topic – it is vast and can often be overwhelming. During the discussion we will explore how this topic can be made accessible through the power of storytelling and film.

We will premiere four short documentaries which were produced as part of the global sH2Orts film competition, organised by WaterAid in partnership with the Public Media Alliance’s WorldView project. Each film offers a unique insight into the global water crisis and urges us to think about how we can respond to it.

The discussion which follows will focus on climate change, innovation, urbanisation and inequality – and how they relate to the global water crisis.

Panelists

Mark Galloway, Director of International Broadcasting Trust (Moderator)

Before joining IBT, Mark worked as a journalist, current affairs producer and documentary filmmaker. He’s been a Channel 4 Commissioning Editor, responsible for Education and Features, and has made films for ITV, Channel 4, the BBC, Discovery and Al Jazeera, winning more than a dozen national and international awards including a Gold Medal at the New York Film Festival, a Peabody Award and a BAFTA. At IBT, Mark is responsible for the day to day running of the organization, overall strategy, research and relations with IBT’s members.

Alok Jha is a journalist, broadcaster and author of The Water Book. He is the science correspondent at ITV News. Before that, he spent a decade at the Guardian and made programmes for the BBC.

Bethlehem Mengistu has over 12 years experience in the development sector, with special focus on gender equality, human rights, good governance and provision of basic services. She has worked within senior roles for organizations such as WaterAid, Care International, Action Aid and notable grassroots women’s organizations in East Africa. Bethlehem has solid experience in programme management, strategic campaigning and advocacy and policy analysis. Her educational background is in Law and Sociology and is currently working at WaterAid as Regional Advocacy Manager for East Africa and Acting Country Representative for WaterAid in Ethiopia.

Menka Sanghvi is an innovation researcher and facilitator focusing on global health and wellbeing. At the Humanitarian Innovation Fund she leads a dedicated fund to improve water, sanitation and hygiene conditions for vulnerable communities. In her role she supports a wide range of project teams in building ideas, testing them out, and scaling to achieve better impact. Menka brings over a decade of experience in delivering innovation projects with organisations such as Oxfam, Unilever, Barclays Bank, Impact Hub, and with local communities. She serves as a mentor for the Global Sustainability Jam, and a judge for the UNDP Equator Prize.

Sarah Mosses is CEO of Together Films, a new consultancy working with social issue film content to reach new audiences. She helps filmmakers craft Impact Distribution Campaigns to increase both their social impact, audience reach and revenue potential. As an award winning Producer, Sarah’s debut feature documentary They Will Have To Kill Us First had its World Premiere at SXSW 2015 and European Premiere at London Film Festival 2015. Sarah is a mentor for Documentary Campus, Eso Doc, Sheffield DocFest, On Screen Manitoba, working with emerging producers to enhance their film narrative and distribution/marketing potential.

Film lineup:

PLACE OF SWEET WATERS
Directed by: Sven Harding
2015/South Africa
www.svenharding.com

Place of Sweet Waters will take us to the underground tunnels which run beneath the city of Cape Town, transporting millions of litres of water from Table Mountain directly into the sea. As South Africa grapples with its worst drought in more than 30 years, the film raises questions about why this urban water source is being ‘wasted’.

BLANKETED SNOWS
Directed by: Vardan Hovhannisyan
2015/Armenia
caucadoconline.com/projects/author/25

Filmed in a stunning mountain region of Armenia, Blanketed Snows will encourage the panel to think about how climate change affects water supplies and livelihoods, and how the two are inextricably linked.

AUTOMATIC TUBIG MACHINE
Directed by: Giselle Santos
2015/Philippines
twitter.com/sampunglitro

Automatic Tubig Machine is a fly-on-the-wall documentary about remote communities in the Philippines who are using an innovative water supply technology. During this observational film we are offered a unique and fascinating insight into how children and adults gain access to this vital resource.

THE HOIST
Directed by: Ibrahim S Kamara
2015/Sierra Leone
http://www.wateraid.org/film-competition/sh2orts2016/winners

Set in Sierra Leone, The Hoist looks at the ingenuity of a local young woman who wants to simplify the time-consuming and physical task of collecting water. The film raises questions about the role new technology and innovation can play in the face of the global water crisis.

In a heated debate on Wednesday 11 November at the Frontline Club, a panel of writers and scientists discussed the extent to which a drying world is a contributing factor in the ongoing migration crisis.

Chairing the debate, the Guardian’s environment editor John Vidal began by saying: “The Middle East and North Africa is highly politicised. There’s endless debates we could have about Israel, Iran, Iraq, Syria and so forth, but the question is, is there water at the root of these problems? The answer is probably no, but lets find out.”

James Fergusson, an author and freelance journalist, drew on his experience working in the Middle East and Africa.

He said: “It was in Somalia that I started thinking water really was at the root… The turning point in the war against al-Shabaab, the al-Qaida franchise in Somalia, was about water.

“What was actually going on in Helmand in Southern Afghanistan was a water war… Water is at the root of all of this.”

Professor Tony Allan, an author and academic who advises governments and agencies in the region on water policy reform, contested this idea. “People think that if you run out of water you go to war, but in fact all you do is import some more food.”

He acknowledged that a water shortage is more likely to lead to instability in countries suffering from extreme poverty, but said “it’s food [security] that is the issue.”

Roger Blench, an anthropologist and international development specialist, broadly agreed with Allan: “There is no connection between land degradation, water shortages, rural poverty and revolutionary movements,” he said.

Explorer and filmmaker Mikael Strandberg said that from his experience in Africa, “a lot of people are migrating North to Saudi Arabia not only due to water – that’s a small part – but because they have no other opportunities.”

Fergusson contested the ideas put forward by the three other panellists, saying: “I would certainly contend that water shortage is a prime driver of a lot of conflict which leads on to war. So I would say that Syria, what’s going on now, that began with a conflict about water.”

Blench, however, argued that water conflicts were not the deep-rooted causes for war.

Allan said he agreed with Fergusson about the impact of water at a local level: “I happily agree at a lower level of social organisation and state: farmers kill each other, villages fight each other, conflict is there all the way through. But states don’t go to war over water; it would be really serious if they did.”

Taking Syria as an example, Allan argued that the conflict was a “post-imperial madness, the whole of the Middle East is a post-imperial madness… The instability that is there… is the problem; it isn’t the water.”

Strandberg said that in his experience of speaking to migrants in Yemen, “very rarely do they bring up the issue of water… They have no future – that’s why they leave – so I’ve never heard of the issue of water as being as big as this.”

Blench said that demographic growth was the central problem, and criticised failures to deal with demographic growth through policy. He said: “If we were to have science-based policy then probably priority would be trying to halt land degradation and slow down urban water mismanagement.”

On the matter of policy failure, Blench and Fergusson agreed. Fergusson said he thought policy focus should be: “Much more on soft power solutions like science and technology and… I think that water would be a good place to start.”

On Tuesday 10 November the Frontline Club hosted a preview screening of Julia Dahr’s Kisilu: The Climate Diaries, ahead of the film’s December screening at the UN climate change conference in Paris. The screening was followed by a discussion with the film’s producer, Hugh Hartford.

The documentary, produced for Al Jazeera, focuses on the eponymous farmer from southeast Kenya and his first hand experiences of the effects of climate change, as he captures much of the footage himself.

Kisilu Musya shows us how his house is destroyed by savage winds and how his crops are first parched and then flooded. In Musya’s words, the extremes that climate change brings mean “everything is being contradicted.”

Throughout the filming period, Musya helped both himself and his community by beginning a village-wide movement to improve the quality of the soil by planting trees.

Yet the documentary is not solely focused on the environment. Hartford said: “If we made it too much about the trees, it would take over the story.” As the film progressed “the trees got surpassed by his relationship with his wife,” said Hartford. “It’s much more of a personal story.”

The producer was clear about the fact that the film provides no grand solutions to the environment crises.  Instead, in the film, “what we’re witnessing is a person becoming a leader,” said Hartford.

The film begins not with a description of the global problem, but with a depiction of Musya’s family life and the nine children he supports.

One audience member said that they felt the introduction of the subject of climate change was sudden, to which Hartford replied: “Delaying the mention of climate change is actually deliberate.”

He underlined the idea that although the film is about Kenya’s environmental problems, Kisilu’s life and personality formed the central narrative.

Great film tonight @frontlineclub by @JuliaDahr about #Kisilu – fighting #climatechange in #Kenya. Catch it on @AJWitness 7 December.

— Louise Orton (@louloulorton) November 10, 2015

Another audience member congratulated Dahr’s distinct approach to such a large problem that is difficult to understand. He said she was the only director who had the “creativity to get out of the non-government organisation straightjacket, as it were, and do bigger films.”

Hartford concurred, and commented on the fact that the film’s special quality comes in part from the fact that the viewer cannot always tell who is behind the camera.

Although Kisilu is a useful tool for climate change activists, “we’re not making a campaign film,” he said.

Another audience member raised the question of how foreign filmmakers manage to tell the Kenyan story without being personally involved, Hartford replied that there was “an interesting dynamic between the crew and the family,” but that was “never a reason not to do something.” The relationships between crew and Musya would endure, Hartford said.

This sentiment of collaboration is expressed in the film. As Musya filmed insects working in teams, he contemplated human inaction in the face of climate devastation. Musya said that insects, “have power in coming together… I wonder why human beings are not doing it.”

Meet Kisilu Musya, a Kenyan farmer and father of eight children, living at the front line of our changing climate. Through Kisilu’s poignant video diary and director Julia Dahr’s observational footage, we follow Kisilu and the Musya family through their day-to-day life over three years. We experience their struggle against the extreme storms and increasing droughts that threaten to destroy their home and ruin the crops that provide their food.

This personalised narrative documents a grassroots environmental awareness movement, as Kisilu determines to inform his community of tactics to help prepare their homes and crops for extreme weather.

Kisilu is an intimate portrait of a tightly knit family and one innovative and impassioned man battling the impacts of climate change to create a better future for his local community.

Kisilu: The Climate Diaries was awarded the Student Award at the 2015 One World Media Awards and will be broadcast on Al Jazeera Witness on 2 December 2015.

Director: Julia Dahr
Production Company: Banyak Films
Producer: Hugh Hartford
Runtime: 60′
Year: 2015
Country: Norway

The Green Caravan Film Festival (GCFF) is a travelling festival of environmental and socially conscious films. It has toured Kuwait and Dubai for four years and now makes its London debut with screenings at the Frontline Club in west London and Rich Mix in east London.  The Frontline Club will be hosting three days of screenings showcasing the best of the festival, taking place in the evenings on 29-31 October.

The festival hopes to bring together a variety of audiences, filmmakers, NGOs and supporters that can discover, share and cooperate on the vital issues presented by the films in an atmosphere of inspired camaraderie and passion.

This year the festival has invited short films from the MENA region to enter an audience judged competition for the first time. The feature length films that make up 80% of the festival are carefully curated by GCFF to ensure that the stories being told and issues brought forward are done in an inspiring and well crafted way. The festival believes that the powerful medium of film can be a catalyst for positive change and we hope that it will entertain and challenge all those involved.

Website: www.thegreencaravan.com
Twitter: @gcfilmfest
Facebook: /gcfilmfest

Screening schedule:

Thursday 29 October, 7:00 PM – I Am the People

Friday 30 October, 8:00 PM – The Wanted 18

Saturday 31 October, 4:00 PM – Babushkas of Chernobyl

Saturday 31 October, 7:00 PM – Hadwin’s Judgement

The panel will discuss how knowledge and understanding of environmental impact, extraction of resources and geopolitical issues have moulded the region, and what the consequences are for those of us watching from afar. With oil firm Royal Dutch Shell having recently won conditional approval from the US Department of Interior to explore for oil in the Arctic, we will be asking what this kind of exploration means for the region.

This event will be chaired by BBC Science editor David Shukman, whose reports on research have taken him as far afield as the Antarctic ice-sheet, the Amazon rainforest and the depths of the Gulf of Mexico. Since joining the BBC in 1983, he has covered Northern Ireland, defence, Europe and world affairs. He is author of An Iceberg As Big As Manhattan: Reporting from science’s new frontlines and Reporting Live from the End of the World.

The panel:

Pen Hadow is an Arctic Ocean explorer and advocate. He is the founder and leader of the multi-award winning Catlin Arctic Survey (2007-2013), an international research programme on the Arctic Ocean, and the associated environmental research-sponsorship agency, Geo Mission. A decade on, Pen Hadow remains the only person to have reached the North Geographic Pole, solo and without resupply, from Canada.

Professor Martin Siegert FRSE is co-director of the Grantham Institute. Previously, he was director of the Bristol Glaciology Center at Bristol University and head of the School of GeoSciences at Edinburgh University. His particular field of expertise is to use geophysics to measure the subglacial landscape and understand what this tells us about changes to the environment. In 2013 he was awarded the Martha T. Muse Prize for excellence in Antarctic science and policy, and in 2007 he was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Charles Emmerson is a writer and historian based in London. He is the author of The Future History of the Arctic, exploring the past, present and future of our relationship with the Arctic, from past mythologies of the north to the modern emergence of the Arctic as a zone of geopolitical interest and massive environmental change. He is an Associate Fellow at Chatham House.

Frank Hewetson has worked for Greenpeace for over 25 years. He has particular knowledge of protest against the off-shore oil industry, he has spent many months at sea and worked consistently on the Arctic campaign for the last 5 years, and was one of the ‘Arctic 30’ detained by the Russians in September 2013.

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT WILL BE FILMED AND STREAMED LIVE ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Protecting our planet has become big business, with companies like Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan Chase promoting new environmental markets. Investors buy up vast swathes of land, full of endangered species, to enable them to sell ‘nature credits’. Companies whose actions destroy the environment are now obliged to buy these credits and new financial centres have sprung up, specialising in this trade.

Many respected economists believe that the best way to protect nature is to put a price on it. But others fear that this market in nature could lead to companies taking a financial interest in a species’ extinction. There are also concerns that – like the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 – the market in nature credits is bound to crash. And there are wider issues at stake. What guarantees do we have that our natural inheritance will be protected? And should our ecological heritage be for sale?

In Banking Nature, directors Sandrine Feydel and Denis Delestrac investigate the commercialisation of the natural world. Interviews with respected economists like Pavan Sukhev reveal the polarised views toward this method of placing a monetary value on natural resources that are in jeopardy of disappearing.

Directed by Sandrine Feydel and Denis Delestrac
Duration: 90′
Year: 2014

“Wherever you go in the world, democracy has been corrupted by individuals with a lot of power”, said Anthony Baxter by way of an introduction to a screening of his latest film, A Dangerous Game, at the Frontline Club on Monday 12 January.

The documentary, which follows on from Baxter’s first international success You’ve Been Trumped, depicts the devastating impact of luxury golf resort developments on local communities around the world. The film travels to locations as diverse as the historic site of Dubrovnik, Croatia, and the Scottish seaside town of Balmedie, to explore how tycoons influence authorities to concede to their lucrative plans, despite opposition from the residents who are most affected.

“The spirit in that city [Dubrovnik, Croatia] against this development is huge, and that would not have happened if it had not been for these people doing that referendum, and there is no doubt that the project is stalled at the moment”, the director stated, on the subject of the activists leading the fight against powerful developers in Dubrovnik.

Baxter first started to investigate the consequences of large-scale resort developments after American tycoon Donald Trump began construction on a golf course in Aberdeenshire, North East Scotland, just 40 miles from the filmmaker’s home town. He commented, “I felt the story had not been covered in a way that represented the people on the ground, and also the environmental aspect”.

Baxter related to the audience the many difficulties he encountered while making the film, including his arrest whilst filming in Scotland. Despite obtaining access to relevant police documents under the Freedom of Information Act, the director remains in the dark regarding the reason for his arrest. He said, “the official line is that their officers were met by a challenging, difficult and unusual situation when they found this interviewer with a local resident in her property, and they felt the need to arrest us”.

In response to an audience question, Baxter said that this was not the only obstacle that he and his team had faced during the project, as Donald Trump’s lawyers had threatened to sue the BBC before they broadcast You’ve Been Trumped. Fortunately the BBC ignored threats of legal action, airing Baxter‘s previous film to a highly positive reception.

The role of former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond was also explored during the Q&A. Baxter highlighted that the golf resort under development by Trump was within Salmond’s constituency – “he drives past this site everyday” – and yet he had never visited the local community. Despite the success of You’ve Been Trumped, which highlighted the corrupt and greedy actions of Trump and fellow tycoons, Salmond is yet to demonstrate his support for this local Scottish community who have been irrevocably affected by the golf course development.

On the subject of the complicity of Scottish authorities, Baxter said: “We did not have any direct evidence of corruption of the Scottish government, but they were certainly, as David Milne, one of the local residents, says, blinded by the bling and by the promises”.

A Dangerous Game has screened at a number of film festivals worldwide, including Vancouver International Film Festival, Moscow International Film Festival and Edinburgh International Film Festival. The film has already demonstrated its impact: shortly after its release, UNESCO demanded that the Croatian government put a halt to all construction work until further investigations into the potential impact on Dubrovnik’s World Heritage Site have been carried out.

For more information on A Dangerous Game, including upcoming UK screening dates, click here.