The screening on Monday 14 September at the Frontline Club lived up to its bold name. How to Change The World, directed by Jerry Rothwell, journeys to the beginnings of the environmental movement and organisation, Greenpeace. As heartwarming as it is harrowing, the film is an homage to non-violent activism. From the bomb tests of Amchitka to whale and seal poaching in Alaska, How To Change The World chronicles the journey of a small group of friends in Vancouver who attempted to do just that. The film’s executive producer Stewart Le Marechal joined the Frontline Club audience for a discussion following the screening.
Stewart Le Marechal
Comprised mainly of archive footage from the 1970s, the documentary also includes present day interviews with the eclectic founding members of Greenpeace. These two elements are bound together by the writings of Bob Hunter – former journalist and reluctant leader of the group – which provide narration throughout.
Le Marechal spoke of the scale of their project over the eight years it took to develop: “In the archive in Amsterdam there were 15,000 cans of film and 50 hours of audio. What was kind of amazing was that a lot of this stuff has not been looked at for 40 years.”
The film chronicles the group of environmental activists as they venture boldly into the unknown, more often than not on a boat. Their lack of practical experience is made up for by no shortage of enthusiasm and an abundance of quirky humour – a clear advantage when it came to the essential appeal of their campaigns.
Although the film contains much humour, it does not shy away from including the power struggles that threatened to dissolve the movement. Hunter and his team are depicted both as vulnerable heroes exposed to harrowing situations and as victims of their own sensitive group dynamic.
As the story developed, the depth of the rift between members became abundantly clear. Perhaps the biggest dilemma of all was whether or not to unite the Greenpeace groups that had sprouted up independently. Was simply bearing witness to the crimes they saw enough? For some yes, but for others it was only the motivation to go much, much further. For Paul Watson in particular, who describes himself as the “most extreme” of the group, this was certainly the case. He clashed with Patrick Moore, who would later come to denounce much of Greenpeace’s work.
When asked how the filmmakers managed to engage all the protagonists to participate in the interviews, Le Marechal said: “Even though they are at different ends of the spectrum, they all have a genuine love for Bob and wanting to honour him through this documentary.”
He emphasised their role as documentary filmmakers rather than dramatists, and commented that it was important “to represent all their voices so they could get a fair hearing.”
Le Marechal explained how impressed he was by the many interviews conducted: “These people that had done these crazy things 40 years ago, seeing how they felt about it now and how they see what they did.”
The Greenpeace movement coincided with the beginnings of electric communication, and Bob Hunter was immediately very perceptive of its power. He thus revolved his brand of activism around capturing a premeditated shot; with this he created “mind bombs.”
An audience member asked Le Marechal: “Do you or any of the other filmmakers have any goals or hopes that this will spark another resurgence of action?”
He responded that they primarily wanted to bring this story to life but, “Heck, if it inspires someone then that’s fantastic.”
The film ends with a look to the next generation of ecological activists inspired by Greenpeace, notably Hunter’s daughter who lovingly continues her father’s work.
Click here for more information about How to Change the World and upcoming screenings.
]]>How to Change the World chronicles the adventures of an eclectic group of young pioneers – Canadian hippie journalists, photographers, musicians, scientists, and American draft dodgers – who set out to stop Richard Nixon’s atomic bomb tests in Amchitka, Alaska, and end up creating the worldwide green movement.
Greenpeace was founded on tight knit, passionate friendships forged in Vancouver in the early 1970s. Together they pioneered a template for environmental activism which mixed daring iconic feats and engagement with worldwide media: placing small rubber inflatables between harpooners and whales; blocking ice-breaking sealing ships with their bodies; spraying the pelts of baby seals with dye to make them valueless in the fur market.
The group had a prescient understanding of the power of media, knowing that the advent of global mass communications meant that the image had become a more effective tool for change than the strike or the demonstration. But by the summer of 1977, Greenpeace Vancouver was suing Greenpeace San Francisco and the organisation had become a victim of its own anarchic roots, saddled with large debts and frequent in-fighting.
How To Change The World draws on interviews with the key players and hitherto unseen archive footage, which brings these extraordinary characters and their intense, sometimes eccentric and often dangerous world alive.
Directed by: Jerry Rothwell
Produced by: Al Morrow & Bous de Jong
Year: 2015
Running time: 110′
“We use nature because she’s valuable, and we lose nature because she’s free,” comments Pavan Sukhdev in Banking Nature, which screened at the Frontline Club on Monday 2 March. Sukhdev, the CEO of Gist Advisory, is just one of the multitude of economists, analysts and activists interviewed in the film, which focuses on the commercialisation of the natural world. After the screening, director Sandrine Feydel joined the audience for an insightful discussion.
Sandrine Feydel
In Banking Nature, Feydel and co-director Denis Delestrac document how protecting the planet has become big business. Financial companies like Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan Chase now promote environmental markets to investors who buy up areas of land, largely full of endangered species, so they can sell them for ‘nature credits’. Companies whose actions harm the environment are obliged to buy credits to offset the damage that they have caused. Banking nature poses the question of whether financial markets can succeed where politics has failed.
“I can’t trust that these same financial institutions that led us to the last financial crisis, big corporations that [caused] so much damage to the environment, could be the ones who now say ‘no problem, don’t worry, we’ve learned our lesson and are now able to protect biodiversity’,” said Feydel.
Feydel spoke of her unease with the methods used by the companies working in these new environmental markets, when so many of these same tactics – speculation, insider trading, market trading – had led to the devastation of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. “This is the same logic we are facing here,” said Feydel.
Members of the audience spoke of their shock at the reality of the situation, as the film at first seems largely pro-market before revealing the devastating consequences of treating nature as a financial commodity. “A lot of what is presented as green is not. This is what the film is trying to show,” said Feydel.
Feydel also spoke of how governments have facilitated the process, enabling financiers and corporations to invest heavily in nature.
“For the companies that want to mitigate the damages they are posing the environment, [they follow] the ‘mitigation hierarchy’. First, you avoid any destruction. If you can’t, you have to minimise the impact. And at the very end, if you can’t either avoid or minimise, you have to mitigate. And this is what is really shown by corporations and governments: it’s a way of pretending that they want to protect nature,” said Feydel.
Feydel also spoke in greater depth about the actual process of mitigation in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, where the first green stock exchange opened a year ago.
“Landowners had to keep 80% of the forest they own, they are just allowed to cut 20% of the forest, but the government found out that the law was not really enforced. So two years ago they decided to change the forestry code. And so now they say, ‘Oh you cut 60-70% of the forest you owned? It’s not a problem. You can go the stock exchange and you can buy credits from some other landowner who didn’t cut and still has 80% of his forest’,” said Feydel.
The session concluded with a question from an audience member about what role politics can play in this new market. Feydel said: “What was surprising when we made this film [was that] NGOs had no clue about these financing mechanisms. This is the new way of making profit for financial markets.”
For more information on Banking Nature and upcoming screenings, click here.
]]>A lively audience gathered at the Frontline Club as a distinguished panel grappled with the factors driving change in India. Leaving the country’s recent growth wobble aside, the panellists unravelled the economic revolution that has thrust India to the front of the global stage.
The discussion began on a positive note as travel writer and author Oliver Balch recounted stories from his latest book India Rising. His optimism for the future of India lays in his belief that young Indians can now realistically aspire to a professional career.
“For the first time if you’re the son of a carpenter, who’s the son of a carpenter, you don’t necessarily have to be a carpenter. That is a dramatic change… For the Indian youth to have the chance to be something else, that’s what the economic story has given.”
Balch’s positivity was complemented by the cautious optimism of second speaker Dr. Ruth Kattumuri, co-Director of the India Observatory and Asia Research Centre at LSE. Stating that India has improved vastly in the past 40 years and remains a work in progress, Kattumuri praised the strength of India’s plural democracy.
“The fact that people have a voice to say what they want, to go and demonstrate in the streets, the fact that Anna Hazare is able to influence certain things in the country, that’s what makes India dynamic.”
Moderator Shahzeb Jillani, South Asia Editor at BBC World Service News then brought in Abhik Sen of the Economist Group and the discussion moved towards doubts over the sustainability of India’s rise.
“For everything that is true about India, the opposite is true as well. For every great entrepreneurial success story that Oliver’s written about, there are thousands if not millions of possible success stories that have been stymied by all kinds of forces beyond the control of individuals.”
Sen cast doubt on the popular idea that India is a land of inventive entrepreneurs, stating that many Indians have to show a street wise cunning in order to survive.
“This entrepreneurial spirit that we talk about, it’s not something that’s been plucked from Mars. It is something that all Indians have to be to get through daily life. You have to be an entrepreneur of sorts to get a gas connection or a phone connection. You have to be innovative and inventive to make sure that you’ll have food on your table.”
Robert Wallis of the Panos photo agency added another sceptical voice as the lights were dimmed and the audience treated to a multimedia piece. The short piece detailed the impact of mining activity on agrarian communities in Jharkhand state.
“Most of these mining operations are highly industrialised so there’s very little employment for former farmers. The only employment that results for the people whose land this once is usually a type of scavenging.”
In a lively Q & A session, the panel debated the above issues without reaching a consensus although they agreed that the implementation of people’s rights is an important step for India.
India is the world’s largest democracy with a population of over 1.21 billion people, and growing. With an impressive population it faces constant challenges of poverty, development and most critically, environmentalism.
But India, as a country in transition, has a positive and optimistic attitude about its own future. With a burgeoning middle class and a wealth of entrepreneurs, India is set to be at the forefront of the international system.
However, what is really driving change in this vast country and what sort of ‘New India’ will emerge in the years to come?
Join us at the Frontline Club to discuss the rise of India and where it might be heading.
Moderated by Shahzeb Jillani, South Asia Editor at BBC World Service News. He was previously Editor of BBC Urdu service leading the radio coverage to Urdu listeners in India after which he was based in Washington as South Asia reporter covering the US-India nuclear deal.
With:
Oliver Balch, travel writer and author of India Rising: Tales from a Changing Nation.
Dr Ruth Kattumuri, Co-Director of the India Observatory and Asia Research Centre at LSE. A centre for research and programmes related to India’s economy, society and politics. Her research interests include growth, inclusion and development. She is also involved in research on climate change and environmental sustainability.
Abhik Sen, Managing Editor for business and management research at The Economist Group. He was previously editor of multimedia and interactive content at Bloomberg and has also edited an international daily newspaper headquartered in India.
Robert Wallis, a member of the Panos photo agency, he has documented countries undergoing rapid social and economic change, from the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union to developments in 21st century China and India. His recent work focuses on the dark side of “Shining India”- a term coined by the Indian government to project the positive side of India’s rapid industrialisation.
Picture credit: Oliver Balch
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