This Changes Everything (2015) Movie Script
1
[ Wind whistling ]
-Can I be honest with you?
I've always kind of hated
films about climate change.
What is it about those
vanishing glaciers
and desperate polar bears
that makes me
want to click away?
Is it really possible to be
bored by the end of the world?
It's not that I don't care
what happens to polar bears.
It's just that we're told that
the cause isn't out there.
It's in us.
It's human nature.
We're innately greedy
and short-sighted.
And if that's true,
there is no hope.
But when I finally
stopped looking away,
traveled into the
heart of the crisis,
met people on the front lines,
I discovered so much of what
I thought I knew was wrong.
And I began to wonder,
what if human nature
isn't the problem?
What if even greenhouse
gases aren't the problem?
What if the real
problem is a story,
one we've been telling
ourselves for 400 years?
This first struck me
in the craziest place.
I was in a stately home
in the English countryside
that looked an awful
like downton Abbey.
[ Laughter ]
It was an invitation-only
meeting hosted
by the world's oldest
scientific organization...
The royal society.
Instead of ordering
around the servants,
the people here were trying
to order around the sun.
I mean the sun... in the sky.
- carbon emissions and so on.
-They were discussing a plan
to spray chemicals
into the stratosphere
to turn down the
temperature for planet earth.
-What you need to do is put
a small number of particles
up into the upper
part of the atmosphere.
And those particles will
deflect just a tiny bit of light.
One garden hose to the sky
could eliminate global warming
for the entire
northern hemisphere.
-In other words,
let's solve the problem of
pollution with more pollution.
-So, people are terrified
about talking about this
'cause they're scared
that it will prevent us
cutting emissions.
- Right, and also
that it's sulfuric
acid. [ Laughter ]
- It is.
- You're burying the lede.
Is there any possible
way this could come back
to bite us in the ass,
blanketing the
earth in sulfuric acid?
'Cause I'm all for it.
-Here's the thing...
This idea may be crazy,
but it's also totally
logical within the story
that the royal society
pioneered in the 17th century.
Here's how it goes.
The earth is not, as most
people thought back then,
a mother to be
feared and revered.
No.
Science had granted
men godlike powers.
The earth is a machine,
and we are its
engineers, it's masters.
We can sculpt it
like a country garden.
We can extract from
it whatever we want.
These scientists helped turn
the mother into the mother lode.
This story is where the long
road to global warming began.
When I realized that,
I stopped tuning out
those sad polar bears
because unlike human nature,
stories are something
we can change.
-In the shadow
of the arctic circle
lies alberta, Canada's
massive forest.
An expansive virgin timberland
the size of New York state
undisturbed for 10,000 years...
Until now.
It's oil... up to three times
what the Saudis have
in their backyard.
No drill can tap it.
It's a sticky, tar-like
oil called bitumen.
And getting the black gold
out of this useless goop
is imperative.
-I find it hard to look
at the alberta tar sands,
this vast hole at the
center of my country,
which is strange because
it's pretty hard to miss.
It's the largest industrial
project on earth.
When I do make myself look,
I feel like I'm seeing that old
story reaching its crescendo.
For centuries, we've
been treating nature
as a beast we have to break
and then force
to do our bidding.
And this is what it's come to.
But that story doesn't
just shape the earth.
It shapes people...
What they see and
what they can't see.
-The land up here...
Lots of muskeg,
lots of bog, very,
very few inhabitants.
We've got a few native
bands that are up here,
been here for years I imagine.
I wouldn't say it's a wasteland,
but certainly if the oil
sands wasn't here, nobody
would even know where this
land was on the big scale of things
because there would be
nothing to come here for.
What they would of first is
they would log off all the timber.
They bring dozers in,
and they strip the
overburden, is what it's called.
So, they will strip all
the sub-soil, the top soil,
and the Clay off of this.
-Canada has the third
largest oil reserves in the world.
The vast majority of
which are in the oil sands.
We're investing
about $20 billion a year
in development of this resource.
That's expected to continue
for the foreseeable future.
In terms of the capital
that's projected to be invest
in the oil sands development,
something in the range of
$150 billion to $200 billion
over the next decade or two.
If you look at the fact
that oil's gonna produced
and used in any event,
we believe we've got
a value proposition
that's very attractive.
-I guess I'd describe the
sheer scale of the work
that's going on
and what the mining companies
are doing, it is fantastic.
I look at it this way.
We're cleaning up one of
the largest oil spills on earth.
We take the oil out, we
put back fresh new sand.
You give it 20 years
after it's complete.
It comes up trees.
-The fact is the tailing
ponds are being cleaned up,
and you'll to be able
to drink from them.
You're gonna be
able to fish from them.
The land will be brought
back to its original state.
[ Crow caws ]
-When those British
scientists first said
the earth is a machine
and we are its masters,
it was really just a theory.
Humans still had to
listen to nature's rhythms
and live within them.
Ships could only sail
when the wind blew.
Factories could only run
where there was rushing
water to power them.
But then something changed.
Engineers figured out
how to take fossil fuels
from beneath the earth
and burn them on
an industrial scale.
It was the merger of an ideology
with a breakthrough technology,
and it changed the world.
Suddenly, we were
calling all the shots.
Ships sailed in any weather.
Factories could
be built anywhere
and run around the clock.
The ultimate one-way
relationship with nature itself.
But that kind of
relationship takes its toll.
I've spent time
in fort mcmurray,
the town at the heart
of the tar sands boom.
It's a place that seems
to run on anything
with the power to numb,
especially the most
intoxicating drug of them all.
-We make about 4 grand a week,
and that's too much
money, man... too much.
-I work half the year and
make about $150,000.
-Grossness.
[ Cheering ]
-It's the money that
brings everybody here.
In the long run,
it's not because
I think everybody
loves what they do.
-I'm not for fort mcmurray
or against fort mcmurray.
I could give a shit really about
what happens to fort mcmurray.
I could go get a
job somewhere else.
Doesn't make a difference to me.
-They're losing a lot.
You look at the rate of
divorce or separations
when people move out
here to work, it's huge.
You see it in people's faces
because they're leaving
their families behind.
But they're doing
it for their family.
-A lot of people judge it,
and they call it fort mcmoney.
Now, I wouldn't want
to judge that, but...
Sorry, I just got
to blow my nose.
-[ Laughs ]
-They're making
astronomical amounts of money
that they can actually
have $500,000 in the bank
five years later.
And they can go home with
that and start a normal life
in their hometown
where they're from.
-Yes, there's ups,
there's downs,
but, hell, we're
having a good time.
Like, I don't even
know who this guy is,
and he's hugging me.
- We don't even know him.
-Well, there's one
story of a foreman
who on the exact day
that he hit his five years,
he'd left a note in his camp
room just, "see you later.
I'm done. I'm never coming back.
I have $1 million in the bank,
and I'll never see
you guys again."
-If you plan on staying
in a place forever
and your entire culture
and history are here,
how does that change
you world view?
I found some answers
just a few hours away.
A different story about the
land and our relationship to it.
This story doesn't have
government and
industry on its side.
But it does have
some other tools.
-Okay, crystal.
-When I was a kid
up in the athabasca,
there was no industry up there.
All you saw was trees,
and it was beautiful up there.
-We'll pick some sage.
-It's drastically changed
in our territories.
That used to be all
pristine boreal forest,
and it's cleared now,
and all you see is,
you know, husky
signs, shell signs.
When these people came over,
they wanted to own the land.
We don't believe that.
That's why in this treaty,
there's no talk about ownership.
We believe that
the land owns us.
We're here just as
visitors on this land,
so we can share it with you.
We can't give it to you, though.
-To alberta now, where
there's a growing concern
over a toxic spill.
Distilled petroleum is still
seeping out of the ground
after leaks at a site were
discovered months ago.
Now, the spill his located
north of bonnyville, alberta,
near the edge of a
restricted military training site.
-Just in the past little
while, like a month,
there's just been like
one spill after the other.
You know, when I
heard about the spill,
I was really hurt.
You know, and then I started
getting information about...
Further information
about the spill itself
and that it was a lot worse
than what was being reported
and that it's actually a
lake that's been affected.
-Hi.
-My name is crystal lameman,
and I'm a member of the
beaver lake cree nation.
I got a report that
there was a spill
out on the primrose site.
My understanding is that
the water was affected.
-And it's not up to
me, but if you go over
to that building over there,
they'll talk to you for sure.
- Hi, guys.
- Hi.
- You guys can't film in here.
- Okay.
-You can't, okay?
-So, you've heard
about cnrl oil spill.
-The spill.
-I understand you
want to go and access.
We can do that, but
there's a process.
- Okay.
- I can't give you access.
-This is the beaver
lake cree nation
traditional hunting territory,
and it's my
constitutional right...
-I respect it. I can't
give you access.
- to be able to go onto
my traditional territory.
-I'm trying to tell you how
we're going to get this done.
What we want to do is we want
to try and facilitate this for you.
- Okay.
- But you need to get ahold
of Mr. Dick Brinkley...
Number one.
He's the range
activities officer
and the first
nations liaison officer
for the Canadian forces
at 4 wing cold lake.
-Okay, so both of these
people are at 4 wing.
- Just one person.
- Dick Brinkley.
-I'm sorry. Did I
miss something?
I'm sorry. Did I confuse you?
- No, you didn't confuse me.
- Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm throwing out a
lot of names and stuff.
-I know that you know
that I have the right
to access our territory.
-I wish I had better news
for you, but that's the process.
-No, eventually,
we'll get in there.
- Oh, you will.
- [ Laughs ]
- "Did I confuse you?" That's
how he was talking to me.
Like I was just
some dumb Indian.
-She did it right back.
-And they don't
even know what it is.
It's not a pipeline leak,
and there's black
spots all over the ground
just oozing out of the ground.
Our ancestors from
beaver lake here
are buried in the
southwest part of that lake,
and the spill happened in
the southern part of that lake.
So...
-The environment...
It's suffering.
-My uncle al lameman... He
was chief for about 35 years.
He started to notice decline
in the woodland caribou,
which is one of the
animals that we subsist on.
And it was directly
linked to industry.
As long as the grass grows,
the rivers flow,
and the sun shines,
we will always have an
inherent right to the land.
We will always be able
to hunt, fish, and forage
the same as we did yesterday,
the day before that,
and the day before that,
and we'll be able
to do that tomorrow,
the day after that,
and the day after that.
What makes our lawsuit
different than other lawsuits
is that we're not taking
on one oil company.
We're taking on the
Canadian government.
[ Telephone beeps ]
[ Telephone rings]
-[ Clears throat ]
It's dick Brinkley.
-Hi, dick. This is
crystal lameman calling.
Hello?
- Who's this again?
-My name is crystal lameman,
and I'm a member of the
beaver lake cree nation.
- Uh-huh.
- I'm also sitting here
with one of the leaders of
the beaver lake cree nation.
We would greatly appreciate
the opportunity to just go out
and be able to put
our minds at ease
over what is happening
out there currently.
-Well, [clears throat] Ma'am,
you don't have access agreement.
And in fact, your band
is in litigation right now
regarding access as
well as compensation.
So in reality, there's
nothing I can do for you
from that point of view.
-How do we go about
getting an access agreement?
-That's what the litigation is
supposed to settle, ma'am.
I would direct you to
speak to Albert environment.
A. E. R.
- I know who a. E. R. Is.
-Right.
- Okay, very good.
- Okay.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
[ Telephone beeps ]
-So that's our answer.
If we lose this litigation,
we will never have access.
-What can one person do?
I see pictures on
video or on TV,
and all this land is just no
trees, no plants, nothing.
It's just like barren waste.
You know, my great-grandchildren
have to live with that.
-That why what you're
doing is so, so important
[ voice breaking ] And
why you have to keep going.
You can't quit.
I can't even tell you
how I felt yesterday
driving away from there,
being denied by a moniyaw...
"you can't come in here.
You have to ask this one
up there for permission
to go inside there."
[ Speaking cree ]
-Mm-hmm.
-You have to keep going.
[ Both speak cree ]
No matter what.
[ Men chanting ]
-When I spent time with crystal
and saw what was happening
to the land here, I
remembered a phrase
debated by the U.S.
government in the 1970s.
It was suggested
that some places
may have to be sacrifice areas.
If we're going to keep
digging up fossil fuels,
those places will
just be destroyed.
What they didn't
say is that the people
who live on those
lands get sacrificed, too.
But a strange thing happened
as the fossil fuel economy
spread over the world.
The sacrifice zone
got bigger and bigger.
It started with the
places considered
the middle of nowhere.
And then one day, I
watched it come to the place
that sees itself as the
center of everywhere.
-This was the moment
when Sandy struck.
90-mile-an-hour winds slicing
through New York streets.
3/4 of a million people have
been forced to evacuate.
-All those years we imagined
that we had freed ourselves
from nature's bonds,
that we were the boss,
there was a part of the
story we couldn't yet see.
Our machines were
filling the atmosphere
with greenhouse gases.
[ Siren chirps ]
Could it be that we're
not the masters after all,
that we are just guests here,
and that we can get
evicted for bad behavior?
-Fuck.
-When the weather hit,
it was a wake-up call.
It was really like, "wow!"
You know, people
holding on dear for life,
holding onto the
Poles, the gates.
You know, the water
pushing them out they houses.
The wall cave in.
It is really, really crazy.
-I put everything
in the first floor.
Nobody ever told me
that the flood insurance go
from the second floor up.
The whole first floor
went, everything.
I don't have even one
penny in my pocket.
[ Sniffles, sobs ]
-We are doing everything
that we can, and it's not enough
because the size of
this problem is too huge.
We're not supposed to be here.
I'm not supposed to be
trying to rescue people
that are stuck in
apartment buildings,
dying because of
lack of medication.
-Areas that are the hardest
hit are the most marginalized,
are the poorest communities,
some of the poorest communities
in New York City, right?
There is like hundreds
and hundreds of people
that are trapped up
in these buildings.
And there's no
attention for them.
There's no clinics.
There's no care.
-We have a disaster
where we're supposed
to have agencies tasked
with addressing these needs.
Just like Katrina, it's
not woefully inadequate.
It's a travesty.
Fema... useless.
Red cross... useless.
And they said there's
no apartment numbers,
so how am I supposed to
know where these people are?
-Well, listen, the only
thing we can do is...
There's an address with no name.
- I know,
but he has an open
wound, so let's get to him.
-I know, but how about
we talk to the surveyor?
- Is this the same person?
- So call the surveyor.
You shouldn't be doing
this. You're a doctor.
Get someone who
can call these people.
Call Aaron. That's what I need.
I need someone
who can call Aaron.
-Once we get a
contact, I will go there
or we'll get them in.
-It's okay for her to take it.
-In the wreckage of
Sandy, I realized something.
We're slowly
seeing that the story
we've been telling ourselves
about our dominion
over nature...
It isn't quite right.
Nature canhit back.
But this realization is coming
at the worst possible time.
A crisis like this cries
out for collective action,
for people coming
together to change course,
for governments
to have our backs.
But for the last three decades,
that idea has really
taken a beating.
-There seems to be an
increasing awareness
of something we Americans
have known for some time...
That the 10 most dangerous
words in the English language are,
"hi, I'm from the government,
and I'm here to help."
-Since the 1980s, we've
been told that the state
just needs to get
out of the way,
that the market should
be allowed to let rip.
For climate change, this is
an epic case of bad timing
because the government
wasn't just missing in action
during Sandy.
It's missing in action
during the crisis
that will create a
lot more sandys.
-Why is it that governments,
when they know what's happening,
why don't they do
something about it?
You have to ask... well, they're
not doing something about it
because there's some
countervailing forces there.
And those governments
are acting in those interests,
so who are these
countervailing forces?
Who's lobbying them
to have weak targets?
Who's lobbying them to make sure
that there is no
global agreements?
And more importantly,
if the government isn't gonna
stand up to them, who will?
-This is my family's farm.
My parents bought
it in the late '70s,
and this is where
I've lived my whole life
besides going off to college.
It is a really special place...
Right on the yellowstone river.
Basically, what we're doing
with it now is we raise meat goats.
Mike and I did some research,
and we found that goats were
the perfect solution
for weed control.
-Come on, girls.
[ Goats bleating ]
-I feel like Montana
is one of those places
that doesn't get much
attention paid to it.
And yet, it's the epicenter of a
lot of our energy development.
-There are those people
that come to places like this
and say, "well, it doesn't
look like many people live here,
so that means we can do
whatever we want here."
I feel like they've just
put a bull's-eye on us.
I feel like they want to get
every single last ounce
of it out of the ground.
And they're desperate.
[ Horse snorts ]
-When Mike and Alexis showed
me around their part of the world,
I just couldn't believe how
many fronts they were fighting on.
They were trying to stop a
pipeline from the tar sands
and a vast new project
to unlock billions of
barrels of shale oil.
They were also working with the
nearby northern Cheyenne tribe
to block a cluster of
massive new coal mines
and a railroad to
carry the coal out.
There was only one thing I
could think of to call all this...
A fossil fuel frenzy.
-If everything that's proposed
right now in Montana
goes through,
we're gonna be a
commodity colony...
- Mm.
- For the rest of the country
and the world.
-Hey, Naomi, it's Alexis.
You're not gonna
fucking believe this.
I woke up this morning
and came down to do chores
and let the goats out.
And I walked down,
and the river's flooded.
And there's oil everywhere.
-Crushing news arrived
over the weekend
from a beautiful part of
this country in Montana
near yellowstone national park.
An oil spill that we
now know may be larger
than first feared.
-One theory is the flood eroded
the soil covering the pipeline,
allowing debris to strike it,
causing the pipeline to rupture.
-So they're saying
right now that 750
to 1000 barrels
of oil were leaked.
-I never ever thought
that this was a possibility.
-It got the Gulf.
It's getting us now.
And eventually, it
will get everybody.
-This is just... I
mean, the fact
that we're still finding
jars like this back here
on day eight, you
know, kills me.
-We were gonna live
here for the rest of our lives.
Try to make the farm something
that we could do full time.
And we were careful
to protect the land.
We were careful to protect
it so that it could support us.
Everything just changed.
-Under my administration,
america is producing
more oil today than at any
time in the last eight years.
Over... [ Cheers and applause ]
That's important to know.
Over the last three years,
I've directed my administration
to open up millions of acres
for gas and oil exploration
across 23 different states.
We're opening up more than 75%
of our potential oil
resources offshore.
We've quadrupled the
number of operating rigs
to a record high.
We've added enough
new oil and gas pipeline
to encircle the
earth and then some.
So, we are drilling all
over the place right now.
-That's not only a problem
if you happen to own
a goat ranch by a river.
Pictures help.
Almost every world leader
agrees that if we're going
to avoid truly catastrophic
climate change,
there's red line
we cannot cross.
We need to restrict warming to
no more than 2 degrees celsius.
Beyond that, the earth's
systems start to unravel.
Think of it like a budget.
If you want to stop the
climate from going crazy,
you can burn a certain
amount of fossil fuel and that's it.
Here's the big problem.
If you look at how much
oil and coal and gas
companies already have
in their proven reserves,
you'll notice one thing.
It's up to five times as much
as the entire carbon budget
for the earth.
If we let them dig it all up,
we're cooked.
If it stays in the ground,
we have a chance.
[ Bell ringing ]
[ Ringing continues ]
[ Man vocalizing ]
-Some people when
they touch the ground,
all they feel is dirt.
But those of you and
those of us who know
when you put your
hand on that earth,
you should feel
something pushing back.
-They tell us these
destructive plans are part
of the march of progress.
The next wave is
the coordinated plan
to transform our
ancestral lands into a hub
for the global
exportation of coal.
I just wanted to say
that yakama nation
supports your efforts,
and we will stand behind
you and beside you
and support you in
any way that we can.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
-Basically, this whole thing
is gonna be strip-mined.
Then, they're just gonna
pull off the overburden,
which is what they call
the dirt, and haul it away.
-Look at it.
Look at how
beautiful it is here.
Bottom line... greed.
-It's a movement that isn't
just what's native American.
It's not.
It's for people who
care about the land,
who care about where
our country's going,
where the world is going.
And we need to be heard.
Hey, that way is not working.
We have to deal with it.
I'm a firefighter. I am
not some rich person.
I am not some
government official.
And I have to deal with this.
I have to deal with what
you're doing to the world,
to what you're
doing to the climate.
[ Speaking Cheyenne ]
My name is Vanessa braided hair.
I requested this
informal conference
on behalf of the northern
Cheyenne homesteaders.
Last night, over 200
cheyennes, three affiliated tribes,
the oglala lakota
nation, yakama nation,
gathered in lame deer to
oppose any development
of the otter creek and
tongue river valley.
-When Vanessa requested
an informal conference
under an extremely
complicated mining law,
I think the state of
Montana shit a brick.
-I want you to know that
many people don't see
any difference between
your agency and arch coal,
and that is the truth.
-All of a sudden,
a bunch of people in the
northern Cheyenne reservation
are learning very quickly
how to navigate these laws,
this bureaucracy.
And it scares the
shit out of them
because the minute people
understand how to do that,
they lose.
-You don't want cheyennes
to take over public meetings,
then listen to us.
If you don't want
anger, then hear us.
[ Applause ]
-Thank you very
much, miss braided hair.
-We're only all just
here momentarily.
We're gonna make
our journey some day,
but we would like
to leave some tracks
for other people to follow.
Come on in, welcome. Hey.
Henry.
- Vanessa.
-Vanessa, nice to meet you.
Come on in.
My hope, my dream,
my vision is seeing
first nation communities
becoming energy independent
before mainstream america.
Today's gonna be awesome.
Spirit of the sun is out there
giving warmth, bringing
everything back to life.
And we're just part of that.
We're part of bringing
our nation back to life.
-[ Speaking indistinctly ]
-Solar power was always
part of being a native's way life.
Everything followed
the [ Speaking lakota ]
The life-giving
force of the sun.
It ties in with our culture,
our ceremonies, our language,
our songs.
So we understand it.
Oh, it just...
You can see their eyes light up.
You can see their inner spirit.
I can almost tell
what they're thinking.
Everybody's healthy and
humming with good energy.
-For a relatively brief
period in human history,
fossil fuels let us believe that
we could break free from nature
and enslave it.
As I watched the Cheyenne
at work, I wondered,
what if renewable energy is
more than just a technology?
What if it's the rebirth
of that other story?
One that all humans
used to know.
Renewables tell us that we
can't escape or control nature.
We have to work with it.
We have to pay attention
to where the wind blows
and when the sun shines.
-Okay, thanks.
- Ready?
- One, two, three.
[ Electricity hums ]
Whoo!
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Nice.
-You know, I'm
just lost for words.
You guys could
probably tell that,
but you've all done
really good this week.
So impressed.
I'm so happy for you guys.
And our boys will offer
you an honoring song.
[ Men vocalizing, chanting ]
-You don't take and
take and take and take.
And you don't consume
and consume and consume.
You take what you need, and
then you put back into the land.
I believe it in my heart
this has to happen.
-What in the end will save
this place is not the hatred
of the coal companies or anger,
but love will save this place.
-For me, it's basically an
ethical problem we have.
Take as much as possible
and don't care about the
consequences and go away.
And leave a desert behind.
You see all the dimensions
of the problem here...
How the environment is treated,
how the citizens are treated.
We have to realize
what is the core problem,
then we can fight it.
-What is the core problem?
-Do you want me to
state in on camera?
-Yeah.
-Yeah, I would say it's
the economic system.
Capitalism, I guess.
-You're not sure if you
should say that on camera?
-No.
[ Laughs ]
I don't know if it
helps the struggle.
-In Greece we have made
for some guinness
book records lately.
The sharpest austerity ever...
More than 25% of our gdp
and deficit-cutting
measures in three years.
And hundreds of
fractional changes
decided and implemented...
-We are under a very
heavy economic crisis
in Greece right now.
This is not a
Greek crisis either.
Just one instance of a
global economic crisis
that started in 2008.
And the worst thing is that the
remedy for the economic crisis
we have right now
is a model of growth
that will be even more
destructive for the environment.
-What is being advertised
as the way out of this is
exploit whatever
you have right now.
Sell off whatever
you have right now,
whether this be
natural resources.
We will not sell the
acropolis, but this is it.
We stop there.
So Greece is open to anything.
Gold mining and oil
drilling in the aegean sea
and all over.
It's the same in Spain.
It's the same in Italy.
-In the name of the crisis,
we have no alternative
but giving away our land,
our forests, our water,
polluting our seas in
order to create wealth.
So you have a
definition of wealth
as something that you
can take out of the earth,
not as something that
is created by the people.
-As I watched the struggle
over a gold mind in Greece,
I saw that familiar pattern...
Nature as machine,
man at the levers.
But I also realized
something else.
In this story,
the economy is supposed
to be a machine, too.
Under the right
conditions, we're told,
it will created wealth, lift
all boats, drive progress.
But this machine
needs perpetual growth.
If it slows down, you
have to feed it more.
Use anything and
everything as fuel.
Cut loose whatever it's carrying
so it can drive on ever-faster,
ever-leaner.
I began to wonder if
austerity isn't just a rebranding
of that old story of domination,
a way to keep this
sputtering machine going...
Squeeze the earth,
squeeze the people.
[ People chanting in Greek ]
-In the past five years, the
Greek people have risen up
a lot of times
against this policies.
The coal miners
overthrow the governments
that opposed these programs.
They didn't want us to
overthrow the polices.
[ Chanting continues
] So people feel
that they're living
defeat after defeat.
Even one victory
could make a huge impact
on the psychology of people.
And that's why the other side
doesn't want to allow
even a single victory
because this could
be the turning point.
[ Gunfire ]
[ Explosion ]
[ Explosion in distance ]
[ People chanting in Greek ]
-And what's going on inside?
What's happening
inside with your friend?
[ Indistinct conversations ]
[ Applause ]
[ People chanting in Greek ]
-Ultimately, this
movement is not fighting
to just stop the specific mine.
This is a no that has
to be said before a yes.
And this yes is
something much bigger.
The local communities,
the people who have a
constant relationship with the land,
they want their children
to live on this land.
So how do we
protect the commons?
We create local institutions
that make the rules,
that can set the limits.
It's about communities
taking back the power
on important decisions.
-They kill.
These factories, these
coal-fired factories kill.
-The average person
in sompeta has realized,
has made the connection
between the struggle
to save their wetland
and this larger devastation
that this country is
rapidly, rapidly heading for.
This mindless pursuit
of double-digit growth,
it requires infrastructure,
raw materials, land,
forest, water, the coast,
coal on a grand scale.
-India, a nation in overdrive.
The world's fastest growing
free-market democracy.
This surge in growth and
developments taking place
across the economy has
thrown up new opportunities.
Invest in India's
infrastructure.
-Growth... it's the closest
thing we have to a global deity.
When this story was
first written centuries ago,
frontiers were
opening up all around.
Nature seemed infinite.
Now we know better, and
yet our global economy is
still based on
growth without limits.
When I visit some of the
poorest parts of the world,
it's obvious that
people have a right
to far more than they have now.
But the only plan on the table
seems to be the
western model of growth,
a throw-away
culture that sucks up
and sacrifices more and
more of the natural world.
Is this really the fastest
way to end poverty?
And if it is, why
are so many people
on the front lines so skeptical?
-If you look at the
environmentalism of the poor,
there is urgency there.
There are such million
pollution mutinies
that are happening
across the length
and breadth of this country.
These are essentially people
who are fighting for their survival.
Their well-being comes out
of land, comes out of water,
comes out of the resources
that they get out of nature.
And they know that
this modern development
that has been promised
to them essentially
is a model of growth,
which is of intensive use
of the same resources,
but it is very, very
poor in providing jobs.
They understand
that this development
that is coming will
actually make them poorer.
[ People shouting indistinctly ]
[ People screaming ]
[ Gunshot ]
[ Gunfire ]
[ Man shouting in
native language ]
[ People chanting
in native language ]
It is that battle in sompeta,
which to my mind is a
battle which challenges
every environmental
movement of the world.
It is not a local movement.
It is the core of the
new environmentalism
that we need to grow.
It is the environmentalism
of the poor.
[ Chanting continues ]
The current growth model
will create wealth for some
and poverty for the others.
It will create unemployment.
It will create climate change.
So you need a
different growth system.
-When I ask people why they
feel hopeless about climate change,
I often get one-word
answer... China.
But here's the thing...
When I first went to China,
I saw that the fastest
growing economy in the world
is literally choking
on that growth.
The story is failing them, too.
-There's always this
image of China as first,
this emerging economic power,
and they're the biggest
emitter today of carbon dioxide,
and they're consuming
more and more resources
and eating more meat.
So it's this sort
of image of China
as this gorging machine.
-It's so easy for officials
or experts to say,"
China needs to grow,
China needs to grow,
China needs to be stronger."
Previously, the environment
issues are just peanuts.
We can deal with them
when we become rich enough.
And then we had
this historical moment
of smog disaster.
It totally changed the landscape
of environment
discussion in China.
-[ Speaking Chinese ]
-You know, when you
wake up in the morning,
and you cannot
walk out in the street,
cannot walk out, because
you can't breathe...
People are saying,
"no, this cannot be.
This cannot be the way
society in the world is
supposed to be about."
-Air pollution has really
become a very big topic
in China and with the rising
middle class people in China.
You know, after their living
standards in many ways
have improved a lot,
now start to ask, "when
can we buy clean air?"
[ People chanting in Chinese ]
-Thousands surrounded the
party headquarters in ningbo...
[ Chanting continues ]
Protesting against
government plans
to build a new
multi-billion chemical plant.
-You have a very vibrant
environmental movement
at a grassroots level in China.
[ Chanting continues ]
There are so many
demonstrations in relation
to environmental pollution
right at the local level.
There are many pressures
on the government,
to take more environmentally
friendly policies.
Not because of some
ideological change,
but because of
pressure from the ground
and because of
pressure from nature itself.
[ Chanting continues ]
-[ Speaking Chinese ]
[ Car alarm blaring ]
-If China wants to do something,
it has the
organizational capacity.
10 years ago, it hardly
produced solar panels.
Today, it is the biggest solar
panel producer in the world.
-In a very short time,
solar panels
became so affordable.
And the exported solar
panels in the country
have made the
access to solar energy
much more meaningful
for many, many countries.
-90% of buildings in solar
valley are installed with solar.
95% of hot water is from solar.
In China, 20 years ago,
when my colleagues
and I traveled city to city
to promote solar,
at that time, our Chinese
people don't have hot water.
When we gave them solar,
it's new life, new choice.
It's maybe the only choice.
-So, is China a model when
it comes to climate change?
Clearly not.
More like a battlefield.
On one side, solar panels.
On the other side, smog.
We're told that the growth
machine is self-correcting.
There's a brutal phase
when the earth and
people are poisoned,
but then it naturally gives way
to clean skies an
a better life for all.
But it turns out we didn't
move beyond pollution.
We just moved the pollution.
This smog, much of it is
from factories making goods
for my home and yours,
and now there's
so much pollution,
it isn't just a threat to China.
It's a threat to life on earth.
So maybe it's not
east versus west.
Maybe it's all of us against
the logic of domination
and growth at any cost.
Capitalism versus the climate.
[ Indistinct conversations ]
-Good morning, everyone.
All right.
I hope breakfast is good.
It's a beautiful day
in Washington, D.C.
My name is Joe bast.
I'm the president of
the heartland institute.
It's my pleasure to welcome you
to the sixth international
conference on climate change.
-We began addressing
climate change
because we observed
that the science on the issue
was being selectively reported
and, we thought, misrepresented
in order to advance a
liberal political agenda.
-Gallup poll, 111
countries, April of this year.
The majority of the human race
does not see global
warming as a serious threat.
Celebrate. [ Applause ]
Celebrate.
Climate legislation is dead
for the foreseeable
future in the United States.
So what happened?
How did it die?
Scientific crap. [ Laughter ]
And I actually got this
off Anthony watts' website,
this photo.
Scientific crap.
No, you don't need to go
into phd dissertations
on what happened.
There it is.
Life was nasty,
brutish, and short
when we were in
Harmony with nature.
Most of mankind pretty
much was that way
until the carbon-based
energy revolution.
Long live coal. God bless coal.
It's one of the most
moral energy choices
the world has ever seen.
-The heartland institute
is the leading group in
the world casting doubt
on the overwhelming scientific
evidence for climate change.
They've been addressed
by heads of state
and U.S. senators and
have been bankrolled
by some of the
richest people on earth.
[ Laughter ]
Heartland was founded as just
another free-market think tank.
And then, they
found their niche.
-Sustainability is
a marxist concept.
It has nothing to do
with living the simple life
and not wasting stuff.
It's everything do to with
redistribution of wealth,
of a power grab,
of unelected bureaucrats
deciding your life.
-And my question is this...
To what extent is
this entire movement
simply a green trojan horse
whose belly is full with red
marxist socio-economic doctrine?
-100%.
-If you want more trees,
use more wood because
using more wood sends a single
to the marketplace
that trees have value.
If you want more elephants,
market they're ivory.
-So, here's the truly
weird thing about heartland.
I actually think they're right.
Not about the elephants,
not about the science denial,
but about something more basic.
The think tanks
behind this conference
have spent 40 years pushing
a model of extreme capitalism.
You've seen it all around you.
You're soaking in it.
Corporations are deregulated,
set free to scour the earth
for the cheapest workers
and the most pollutable air.
Governments wither,
the middle class dissolves,
and profits soar.
What the heartlanders
understand is that if climate change
is taken seriously, it
changes everything.
-If human activity is
causing climate change,
then almost anything
could be justified
in terms of a
government response.
[ Bell tolls ]
-At least one country
seems to agree.
Only it isn't a tiny
marxist holdout,
and they're not
living in mud huts.
It's the largest
economy in Europe.
[ Lamb bleats ]
In Germany, the government
intervened big time.
They spent billions to get
people to build huge numbers
of wind farms and solar
arrays all across the country.
The result is one of the
most rapid energy transitions
anywhere in the world.
Today, 30% of the
entire country's electricity
comes from renewables.
Emissions are coming down,
and employment is going up.
400,000 jobs have been created.
But this didn't happen
because the government
just saw the light.
In fact, the German
government still pushes austerity
and polluting policies both
at home and elsewhere.
This shift had a very
different cause... the people.
They didn't wait for a leader.
They did it on their own.
First, they fought
against nuclear energy.
When they turned the tide,
they fought for alternatives.
And in the process, they
sparked a true power shift.
Hundreds of cities and towns
have taken the electricity grid
back from private corporation
and now run it themselves, often
through Democratic cooperatives.
Looking at this, I
kept asking myself...
What does this mean
for the rest of the world?
How can we all bring this
energy revolution home?
I've spent six years
wandering through the wreckage
caused by that
400-year-old fantasy
that we could treat
nature as our machine.
But now I see another
story taking root,
starting from a
whole other premise.
And it's emerging even in
the most unlikely of places.
-The environmental
impacts of the development
in the oil sands is
absolutely barbaric.
Put 2 and 2 together,
and you feel physically,
directly responsible
for affecting
somebody else's
health downstream.
I do not support shutting down
the tar sands
tomorrow... By any means.
I have way too many friends
whose families rely
on that resource.
What I support... and I know
the majority of my friends
up there do support...
Is a transition
over to a renewable
energy source.
Now, the exciting
thing about that is
that the
renewable-energy industry
would employ exactly
the same workers
that the oil sands does...
Pipefitters,
boilermakers, electricians.
Using some of the money
that is made up there,
we can build wind,
we can have solar
powering our country
where it makes sense.
There's absolutely no reason
to not make the transition.
We need to take serious
action very quickly as a society,
and we don't have
time to be silent.
-As I listen to lliam, I
felt the old battle lines...
Jobs versus the environment,
economy versus the planet...
Melting away.
But just like in Germany,
governments
won't make this shift
without huge
pressure from below.
-Thank you, guys!
We have completely
encircled the white house.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-All around the
world, people aren't
just writing to
their politicians
politely asking them
to do the right thing.
They're taking direct
action... Demanding it.
On the front lines,
they call it blockading.
The idea behind it is simple.
We're in a hole, and before
anything new can grow,
we have to stop digging.
As the drilling
rigs and pipelines
crisscross the earth,
so does blockadia, connecting
communities along the way...
The metal pathways of
dirty energy confronted
by this new web of resistance.
-It's the first night
being here in this pipe.
[ Police radio chatter ]
-[ Speaking native language ]
-And I've noticed
something else.
At the forefront are the
people from the sacrifice zones,
the very ones who
have been written off
for hundreds of years, the
keepers of that other story.
-If this pipeline goes through,
your government
will further assist
in the raping and pillaging
of the lands of my ancestors.
[ Cheering ]
Then, they'll promise to give
us back what was never theirs
in the first place.
[ Cheering ]
Don't be fooled
by their ideology
of what reclamation is.
Reclamation is me
standing here with the 99%.
We're here today to say
we never went anywhere,
and nor do we plan to.
[ Cheering ]
-When you see communities
who are thrown into the front line
because an
environmental or political
or economic issue
is imposed on them,
you see the incredible
transformation that happens.
[ People chanting indistinctly ]
They become
stronger. They stand up.
And you're like,
"isn't this incredible?
Isn't this the society we want?"
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Okay, one last confession...
I've been to more climate
rallies than I can count.
But the polar bears...
Mm, they still
don't do it for me.
I wish them well,
but if there's one
thing I've learned,
it's that stopping climate
change isn't really about them.
It's about us,
the us we've been told we are...
Selfish, greedy,
short-sighted...
And the us we could be...
Able to take care of the earth
and take care of each
other long into the future.
-People are starting to realize
that this is no longer
an Indian problem.
And that's the good thing
because they're
starting to realize
that if you drink water
and you breath air,
this is about you.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-We are all...
[ Crowd chanting, "we
are all! We are all!" ]
- part of this movement!
[ People chant "part
of this movement! ]
-There is a challenge
of climate change
which we cannot solve by
tinkering in band-aid solutions.
There are limits.
Let's celebrate the limits.
Let's enjoy the limits
because we can
reinvent a different future.
[ People chanting indistinctly ]
-That's what I see
fighting to be born.
It's a movement
connecting the dots
between the carbon in the
air and the economic system
that put it there.
And it's proving
that the bold shifts
that will lower our emissions
can also, at the same time,
raise our quality of life
with more meaningful
work, greater equality,
and no more sacrifice zones.
It's telling us to stop
pretending we can control nature
and start acting
like we arenature.
To me, that doesn't
sound like a loss.
It sounds like a homecoming.
So, here's the big question.
What if global warming
isn't only a crisis?
What if it's the best chance
we're ever gonna get
to build a better world?
-Henry red cloud told me once
that sometimes you
have to take little steps,
and sometimes you
have to run like a buffalo.
And I think the
earth is telling us
we have run like
a buffalo right now.
It isn't nice to
block the doorway
it isn't nice to go to jail
there are nicer
ways to do it
but the nice
ways always fail
it isn't nice, it isn't nice
you told us once,
you told us twice
but if that's
freedom's price
- we don't mind
- we don't mind
- whoa
- we don't mind
- we don't mind, we don't mind
- whoa
we don't mind
- we don't mind
we don't mind
we don't mind, we don't mind
- oh, no, no, no
we don't mind
- ooh-ooh
ooh-ooh
-it isn't nice to
block the doorway
it isn't nice to go to jail
there are nicer
ways to do it
but the nice
ways always fail
it isn't nice, it isn't nice
you told us once,
you told us twice
but thank you,
buddy, for your advice
but if that's
freedom's price
- we don't mind
- we don't mind
- ooh-oh-oh
- we don't mind
we don't mind, we don't mind
- ooh, we don't mind
-we don't mind we don't mind
we don't mind, we don't mind
- whoa, no
- we don't mind
- we don't mind
- ohh
[ Woman rapping
in foreign language ]
[ Mid-tempo beat plays ]
[ Mid-tempo beat fades out ]
[ Wind whistling ]
-Can I be honest with you?
I've always kind of hated
films about climate change.
What is it about those
vanishing glaciers
and desperate polar bears
that makes me
want to click away?
Is it really possible to be
bored by the end of the world?
It's not that I don't care
what happens to polar bears.
It's just that we're told that
the cause isn't out there.
It's in us.
It's human nature.
We're innately greedy
and short-sighted.
And if that's true,
there is no hope.
But when I finally
stopped looking away,
traveled into the
heart of the crisis,
met people on the front lines,
I discovered so much of what
I thought I knew was wrong.
And I began to wonder,
what if human nature
isn't the problem?
What if even greenhouse
gases aren't the problem?
What if the real
problem is a story,
one we've been telling
ourselves for 400 years?
This first struck me
in the craziest place.
I was in a stately home
in the English countryside
that looked an awful
like downton Abbey.
[ Laughter ]
It was an invitation-only
meeting hosted
by the world's oldest
scientific organization...
The royal society.
Instead of ordering
around the servants,
the people here were trying
to order around the sun.
I mean the sun... in the sky.
- carbon emissions and so on.
-They were discussing a plan
to spray chemicals
into the stratosphere
to turn down the
temperature for planet earth.
-What you need to do is put
a small number of particles
up into the upper
part of the atmosphere.
And those particles will
deflect just a tiny bit of light.
One garden hose to the sky
could eliminate global warming
for the entire
northern hemisphere.
-In other words,
let's solve the problem of
pollution with more pollution.
-So, people are terrified
about talking about this
'cause they're scared
that it will prevent us
cutting emissions.
- Right, and also
that it's sulfuric
acid. [ Laughter ]
- It is.
- You're burying the lede.
Is there any possible
way this could come back
to bite us in the ass,
blanketing the
earth in sulfuric acid?
'Cause I'm all for it.
-Here's the thing...
This idea may be crazy,
but it's also totally
logical within the story
that the royal society
pioneered in the 17th century.
Here's how it goes.
The earth is not, as most
people thought back then,
a mother to be
feared and revered.
No.
Science had granted
men godlike powers.
The earth is a machine,
and we are its
engineers, it's masters.
We can sculpt it
like a country garden.
We can extract from
it whatever we want.
These scientists helped turn
the mother into the mother lode.
This story is where the long
road to global warming began.
When I realized that,
I stopped tuning out
those sad polar bears
because unlike human nature,
stories are something
we can change.
-In the shadow
of the arctic circle
lies alberta, Canada's
massive forest.
An expansive virgin timberland
the size of New York state
undisturbed for 10,000 years...
Until now.
It's oil... up to three times
what the Saudis have
in their backyard.
No drill can tap it.
It's a sticky, tar-like
oil called bitumen.
And getting the black gold
out of this useless goop
is imperative.
-I find it hard to look
at the alberta tar sands,
this vast hole at the
center of my country,
which is strange because
it's pretty hard to miss.
It's the largest industrial
project on earth.
When I do make myself look,
I feel like I'm seeing that old
story reaching its crescendo.
For centuries, we've
been treating nature
as a beast we have to break
and then force
to do our bidding.
And this is what it's come to.
But that story doesn't
just shape the earth.
It shapes people...
What they see and
what they can't see.
-The land up here...
Lots of muskeg,
lots of bog, very,
very few inhabitants.
We've got a few native
bands that are up here,
been here for years I imagine.
I wouldn't say it's a wasteland,
but certainly if the oil
sands wasn't here, nobody
would even know where this
land was on the big scale of things
because there would be
nothing to come here for.
What they would of first is
they would log off all the timber.
They bring dozers in,
and they strip the
overburden, is what it's called.
So, they will strip all
the sub-soil, the top soil,
and the Clay off of this.
-Canada has the third
largest oil reserves in the world.
The vast majority of
which are in the oil sands.
We're investing
about $20 billion a year
in development of this resource.
That's expected to continue
for the foreseeable future.
In terms of the capital
that's projected to be invest
in the oil sands development,
something in the range of
$150 billion to $200 billion
over the next decade or two.
If you look at the fact
that oil's gonna produced
and used in any event,
we believe we've got
a value proposition
that's very attractive.
-I guess I'd describe the
sheer scale of the work
that's going on
and what the mining companies
are doing, it is fantastic.
I look at it this way.
We're cleaning up one of
the largest oil spills on earth.
We take the oil out, we
put back fresh new sand.
You give it 20 years
after it's complete.
It comes up trees.
-The fact is the tailing
ponds are being cleaned up,
and you'll to be able
to drink from them.
You're gonna be
able to fish from them.
The land will be brought
back to its original state.
[ Crow caws ]
-When those British
scientists first said
the earth is a machine
and we are its masters,
it was really just a theory.
Humans still had to
listen to nature's rhythms
and live within them.
Ships could only sail
when the wind blew.
Factories could only run
where there was rushing
water to power them.
But then something changed.
Engineers figured out
how to take fossil fuels
from beneath the earth
and burn them on
an industrial scale.
It was the merger of an ideology
with a breakthrough technology,
and it changed the world.
Suddenly, we were
calling all the shots.
Ships sailed in any weather.
Factories could
be built anywhere
and run around the clock.
The ultimate one-way
relationship with nature itself.
But that kind of
relationship takes its toll.
I've spent time
in fort mcmurray,
the town at the heart
of the tar sands boom.
It's a place that seems
to run on anything
with the power to numb,
especially the most
intoxicating drug of them all.
-We make about 4 grand a week,
and that's too much
money, man... too much.
-I work half the year and
make about $150,000.
-Grossness.
[ Cheering ]
-It's the money that
brings everybody here.
In the long run,
it's not because
I think everybody
loves what they do.
-I'm not for fort mcmurray
or against fort mcmurray.
I could give a shit really about
what happens to fort mcmurray.
I could go get a
job somewhere else.
Doesn't make a difference to me.
-They're losing a lot.
You look at the rate of
divorce or separations
when people move out
here to work, it's huge.
You see it in people's faces
because they're leaving
their families behind.
But they're doing
it for their family.
-A lot of people judge it,
and they call it fort mcmoney.
Now, I wouldn't want
to judge that, but...
Sorry, I just got
to blow my nose.
-[ Laughs ]
-They're making
astronomical amounts of money
that they can actually
have $500,000 in the bank
five years later.
And they can go home with
that and start a normal life
in their hometown
where they're from.
-Yes, there's ups,
there's downs,
but, hell, we're
having a good time.
Like, I don't even
know who this guy is,
and he's hugging me.
- We don't even know him.
-Well, there's one
story of a foreman
who on the exact day
that he hit his five years,
he'd left a note in his camp
room just, "see you later.
I'm done. I'm never coming back.
I have $1 million in the bank,
and I'll never see
you guys again."
-If you plan on staying
in a place forever
and your entire culture
and history are here,
how does that change
you world view?
I found some answers
just a few hours away.
A different story about the
land and our relationship to it.
This story doesn't have
government and
industry on its side.
But it does have
some other tools.
-Okay, crystal.
-When I was a kid
up in the athabasca,
there was no industry up there.
All you saw was trees,
and it was beautiful up there.
-We'll pick some sage.
-It's drastically changed
in our territories.
That used to be all
pristine boreal forest,
and it's cleared now,
and all you see is,
you know, husky
signs, shell signs.
When these people came over,
they wanted to own the land.
We don't believe that.
That's why in this treaty,
there's no talk about ownership.
We believe that
the land owns us.
We're here just as
visitors on this land,
so we can share it with you.
We can't give it to you, though.
-To alberta now, where
there's a growing concern
over a toxic spill.
Distilled petroleum is still
seeping out of the ground
after leaks at a site were
discovered months ago.
Now, the spill his located
north of bonnyville, alberta,
near the edge of a
restricted military training site.
-Just in the past little
while, like a month,
there's just been like
one spill after the other.
You know, when I
heard about the spill,
I was really hurt.
You know, and then I started
getting information about...
Further information
about the spill itself
and that it was a lot worse
than what was being reported
and that it's actually a
lake that's been affected.
-Hi.
-My name is crystal lameman,
and I'm a member of the
beaver lake cree nation.
I got a report that
there was a spill
out on the primrose site.
My understanding is that
the water was affected.
-And it's not up to
me, but if you go over
to that building over there,
they'll talk to you for sure.
- Hi, guys.
- Hi.
- You guys can't film in here.
- Okay.
-You can't, okay?
-So, you've heard
about cnrl oil spill.
-The spill.
-I understand you
want to go and access.
We can do that, but
there's a process.
- Okay.
- I can't give you access.
-This is the beaver
lake cree nation
traditional hunting territory,
and it's my
constitutional right...
-I respect it. I can't
give you access.
- to be able to go onto
my traditional territory.
-I'm trying to tell you how
we're going to get this done.
What we want to do is we want
to try and facilitate this for you.
- Okay.
- But you need to get ahold
of Mr. Dick Brinkley...
Number one.
He's the range
activities officer
and the first
nations liaison officer
for the Canadian forces
at 4 wing cold lake.
-Okay, so both of these
people are at 4 wing.
- Just one person.
- Dick Brinkley.
-I'm sorry. Did I
miss something?
I'm sorry. Did I confuse you?
- No, you didn't confuse me.
- Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm throwing out a
lot of names and stuff.
-I know that you know
that I have the right
to access our territory.
-I wish I had better news
for you, but that's the process.
-No, eventually,
we'll get in there.
- Oh, you will.
- [ Laughs ]
- "Did I confuse you?" That's
how he was talking to me.
Like I was just
some dumb Indian.
-She did it right back.
-And they don't
even know what it is.
It's not a pipeline leak,
and there's black
spots all over the ground
just oozing out of the ground.
Our ancestors from
beaver lake here
are buried in the
southwest part of that lake,
and the spill happened in
the southern part of that lake.
So...
-The environment...
It's suffering.
-My uncle al lameman... He
was chief for about 35 years.
He started to notice decline
in the woodland caribou,
which is one of the
animals that we subsist on.
And it was directly
linked to industry.
As long as the grass grows,
the rivers flow,
and the sun shines,
we will always have an
inherent right to the land.
We will always be able
to hunt, fish, and forage
the same as we did yesterday,
the day before that,
and the day before that,
and we'll be able
to do that tomorrow,
the day after that,
and the day after that.
What makes our lawsuit
different than other lawsuits
is that we're not taking
on one oil company.
We're taking on the
Canadian government.
[ Telephone beeps ]
[ Telephone rings]
-[ Clears throat ]
It's dick Brinkley.
-Hi, dick. This is
crystal lameman calling.
Hello?
- Who's this again?
-My name is crystal lameman,
and I'm a member of the
beaver lake cree nation.
- Uh-huh.
- I'm also sitting here
with one of the leaders of
the beaver lake cree nation.
We would greatly appreciate
the opportunity to just go out
and be able to put
our minds at ease
over what is happening
out there currently.
-Well, [clears throat] Ma'am,
you don't have access agreement.
And in fact, your band
is in litigation right now
regarding access as
well as compensation.
So in reality, there's
nothing I can do for you
from that point of view.
-How do we go about
getting an access agreement?
-That's what the litigation is
supposed to settle, ma'am.
I would direct you to
speak to Albert environment.
A. E. R.
- I know who a. E. R. Is.
-Right.
- Okay, very good.
- Okay.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
[ Telephone beeps ]
-So that's our answer.
If we lose this litigation,
we will never have access.
-What can one person do?
I see pictures on
video or on TV,
and all this land is just no
trees, no plants, nothing.
It's just like barren waste.
You know, my great-grandchildren
have to live with that.
-That why what you're
doing is so, so important
[ voice breaking ] And
why you have to keep going.
You can't quit.
I can't even tell you
how I felt yesterday
driving away from there,
being denied by a moniyaw...
"you can't come in here.
You have to ask this one
up there for permission
to go inside there."
[ Speaking cree ]
-Mm-hmm.
-You have to keep going.
[ Both speak cree ]
No matter what.
[ Men chanting ]
-When I spent time with crystal
and saw what was happening
to the land here, I
remembered a phrase
debated by the U.S.
government in the 1970s.
It was suggested
that some places
may have to be sacrifice areas.
If we're going to keep
digging up fossil fuels,
those places will
just be destroyed.
What they didn't
say is that the people
who live on those
lands get sacrificed, too.
But a strange thing happened
as the fossil fuel economy
spread over the world.
The sacrifice zone
got bigger and bigger.
It started with the
places considered
the middle of nowhere.
And then one day, I
watched it come to the place
that sees itself as the
center of everywhere.
-This was the moment
when Sandy struck.
90-mile-an-hour winds slicing
through New York streets.
3/4 of a million people have
been forced to evacuate.
-All those years we imagined
that we had freed ourselves
from nature's bonds,
that we were the boss,
there was a part of the
story we couldn't yet see.
Our machines were
filling the atmosphere
with greenhouse gases.
[ Siren chirps ]
Could it be that we're
not the masters after all,
that we are just guests here,
and that we can get
evicted for bad behavior?
-Fuck.
-When the weather hit,
it was a wake-up call.
It was really like, "wow!"
You know, people
holding on dear for life,
holding onto the
Poles, the gates.
You know, the water
pushing them out they houses.
The wall cave in.
It is really, really crazy.
-I put everything
in the first floor.
Nobody ever told me
that the flood insurance go
from the second floor up.
The whole first floor
went, everything.
I don't have even one
penny in my pocket.
[ Sniffles, sobs ]
-We are doing everything
that we can, and it's not enough
because the size of
this problem is too huge.
We're not supposed to be here.
I'm not supposed to be
trying to rescue people
that are stuck in
apartment buildings,
dying because of
lack of medication.
-Areas that are the hardest
hit are the most marginalized,
are the poorest communities,
some of the poorest communities
in New York City, right?
There is like hundreds
and hundreds of people
that are trapped up
in these buildings.
And there's no
attention for them.
There's no clinics.
There's no care.
-We have a disaster
where we're supposed
to have agencies tasked
with addressing these needs.
Just like Katrina, it's
not woefully inadequate.
It's a travesty.
Fema... useless.
Red cross... useless.
And they said there's
no apartment numbers,
so how am I supposed to
know where these people are?
-Well, listen, the only
thing we can do is...
There's an address with no name.
- I know,
but he has an open
wound, so let's get to him.
-I know, but how about
we talk to the surveyor?
- Is this the same person?
- So call the surveyor.
You shouldn't be doing
this. You're a doctor.
Get someone who
can call these people.
Call Aaron. That's what I need.
I need someone
who can call Aaron.
-Once we get a
contact, I will go there
or we'll get them in.
-It's okay for her to take it.
-In the wreckage of
Sandy, I realized something.
We're slowly
seeing that the story
we've been telling ourselves
about our dominion
over nature...
It isn't quite right.
Nature canhit back.
But this realization is coming
at the worst possible time.
A crisis like this cries
out for collective action,
for people coming
together to change course,
for governments
to have our backs.
But for the last three decades,
that idea has really
taken a beating.
-There seems to be an
increasing awareness
of something we Americans
have known for some time...
That the 10 most dangerous
words in the English language are,
"hi, I'm from the government,
and I'm here to help."
-Since the 1980s, we've
been told that the state
just needs to get
out of the way,
that the market should
be allowed to let rip.
For climate change, this is
an epic case of bad timing
because the government
wasn't just missing in action
during Sandy.
It's missing in action
during the crisis
that will create a
lot more sandys.
-Why is it that governments,
when they know what's happening,
why don't they do
something about it?
You have to ask... well, they're
not doing something about it
because there's some
countervailing forces there.
And those governments
are acting in those interests,
so who are these
countervailing forces?
Who's lobbying them
to have weak targets?
Who's lobbying them to make sure
that there is no
global agreements?
And more importantly,
if the government isn't gonna
stand up to them, who will?
-This is my family's farm.
My parents bought
it in the late '70s,
and this is where
I've lived my whole life
besides going off to college.
It is a really special place...
Right on the yellowstone river.
Basically, what we're doing
with it now is we raise meat goats.
Mike and I did some research,
and we found that goats were
the perfect solution
for weed control.
-Come on, girls.
[ Goats bleating ]
-I feel like Montana
is one of those places
that doesn't get much
attention paid to it.
And yet, it's the epicenter of a
lot of our energy development.
-There are those people
that come to places like this
and say, "well, it doesn't
look like many people live here,
so that means we can do
whatever we want here."
I feel like they've just
put a bull's-eye on us.
I feel like they want to get
every single last ounce
of it out of the ground.
And they're desperate.
[ Horse snorts ]
-When Mike and Alexis showed
me around their part of the world,
I just couldn't believe how
many fronts they were fighting on.
They were trying to stop a
pipeline from the tar sands
and a vast new project
to unlock billions of
barrels of shale oil.
They were also working with the
nearby northern Cheyenne tribe
to block a cluster of
massive new coal mines
and a railroad to
carry the coal out.
There was only one thing I
could think of to call all this...
A fossil fuel frenzy.
-If everything that's proposed
right now in Montana
goes through,
we're gonna be a
commodity colony...
- Mm.
- For the rest of the country
and the world.
-Hey, Naomi, it's Alexis.
You're not gonna
fucking believe this.
I woke up this morning
and came down to do chores
and let the goats out.
And I walked down,
and the river's flooded.
And there's oil everywhere.
-Crushing news arrived
over the weekend
from a beautiful part of
this country in Montana
near yellowstone national park.
An oil spill that we
now know may be larger
than first feared.
-One theory is the flood eroded
the soil covering the pipeline,
allowing debris to strike it,
causing the pipeline to rupture.
-So they're saying
right now that 750
to 1000 barrels
of oil were leaked.
-I never ever thought
that this was a possibility.
-It got the Gulf.
It's getting us now.
And eventually, it
will get everybody.
-This is just... I
mean, the fact
that we're still finding
jars like this back here
on day eight, you
know, kills me.
-We were gonna live
here for the rest of our lives.
Try to make the farm something
that we could do full time.
And we were careful
to protect the land.
We were careful to protect
it so that it could support us.
Everything just changed.
-Under my administration,
america is producing
more oil today than at any
time in the last eight years.
Over... [ Cheers and applause ]
That's important to know.
Over the last three years,
I've directed my administration
to open up millions of acres
for gas and oil exploration
across 23 different states.
We're opening up more than 75%
of our potential oil
resources offshore.
We've quadrupled the
number of operating rigs
to a record high.
We've added enough
new oil and gas pipeline
to encircle the
earth and then some.
So, we are drilling all
over the place right now.
-That's not only a problem
if you happen to own
a goat ranch by a river.
Pictures help.
Almost every world leader
agrees that if we're going
to avoid truly catastrophic
climate change,
there's red line
we cannot cross.
We need to restrict warming to
no more than 2 degrees celsius.
Beyond that, the earth's
systems start to unravel.
Think of it like a budget.
If you want to stop the
climate from going crazy,
you can burn a certain
amount of fossil fuel and that's it.
Here's the big problem.
If you look at how much
oil and coal and gas
companies already have
in their proven reserves,
you'll notice one thing.
It's up to five times as much
as the entire carbon budget
for the earth.
If we let them dig it all up,
we're cooked.
If it stays in the ground,
we have a chance.
[ Bell ringing ]
[ Ringing continues ]
[ Man vocalizing ]
-Some people when
they touch the ground,
all they feel is dirt.
But those of you and
those of us who know
when you put your
hand on that earth,
you should feel
something pushing back.
-They tell us these
destructive plans are part
of the march of progress.
The next wave is
the coordinated plan
to transform our
ancestral lands into a hub
for the global
exportation of coal.
I just wanted to say
that yakama nation
supports your efforts,
and we will stand behind
you and beside you
and support you in
any way that we can.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
-Basically, this whole thing
is gonna be strip-mined.
Then, they're just gonna
pull off the overburden,
which is what they call
the dirt, and haul it away.
-Look at it.
Look at how
beautiful it is here.
Bottom line... greed.
-It's a movement that isn't
just what's native American.
It's not.
It's for people who
care about the land,
who care about where
our country's going,
where the world is going.
And we need to be heard.
Hey, that way is not working.
We have to deal with it.
I'm a firefighter. I am
not some rich person.
I am not some
government official.
And I have to deal with this.
I have to deal with what
you're doing to the world,
to what you're
doing to the climate.
[ Speaking Cheyenne ]
My name is Vanessa braided hair.
I requested this
informal conference
on behalf of the northern
Cheyenne homesteaders.
Last night, over 200
cheyennes, three affiliated tribes,
the oglala lakota
nation, yakama nation,
gathered in lame deer to
oppose any development
of the otter creek and
tongue river valley.
-When Vanessa requested
an informal conference
under an extremely
complicated mining law,
I think the state of
Montana shit a brick.
-I want you to know that
many people don't see
any difference between
your agency and arch coal,
and that is the truth.
-All of a sudden,
a bunch of people in the
northern Cheyenne reservation
are learning very quickly
how to navigate these laws,
this bureaucracy.
And it scares the
shit out of them
because the minute people
understand how to do that,
they lose.
-You don't want cheyennes
to take over public meetings,
then listen to us.
If you don't want
anger, then hear us.
[ Applause ]
-Thank you very
much, miss braided hair.
-We're only all just
here momentarily.
We're gonna make
our journey some day,
but we would like
to leave some tracks
for other people to follow.
Come on in, welcome. Hey.
Henry.
- Vanessa.
-Vanessa, nice to meet you.
Come on in.
My hope, my dream,
my vision is seeing
first nation communities
becoming energy independent
before mainstream america.
Today's gonna be awesome.
Spirit of the sun is out there
giving warmth, bringing
everything back to life.
And we're just part of that.
We're part of bringing
our nation back to life.
-[ Speaking indistinctly ]
-Solar power was always
part of being a native's way life.
Everything followed
the [ Speaking lakota ]
The life-giving
force of the sun.
It ties in with our culture,
our ceremonies, our language,
our songs.
So we understand it.
Oh, it just...
You can see their eyes light up.
You can see their inner spirit.
I can almost tell
what they're thinking.
Everybody's healthy and
humming with good energy.
-For a relatively brief
period in human history,
fossil fuels let us believe that
we could break free from nature
and enslave it.
As I watched the Cheyenne
at work, I wondered,
what if renewable energy is
more than just a technology?
What if it's the rebirth
of that other story?
One that all humans
used to know.
Renewables tell us that we
can't escape or control nature.
We have to work with it.
We have to pay attention
to where the wind blows
and when the sun shines.
-Okay, thanks.
- Ready?
- One, two, three.
[ Electricity hums ]
Whoo!
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Nice.
-You know, I'm
just lost for words.
You guys could
probably tell that,
but you've all done
really good this week.
So impressed.
I'm so happy for you guys.
And our boys will offer
you an honoring song.
[ Men vocalizing, chanting ]
-You don't take and
take and take and take.
And you don't consume
and consume and consume.
You take what you need, and
then you put back into the land.
I believe it in my heart
this has to happen.
-What in the end will save
this place is not the hatred
of the coal companies or anger,
but love will save this place.
-For me, it's basically an
ethical problem we have.
Take as much as possible
and don't care about the
consequences and go away.
And leave a desert behind.
You see all the dimensions
of the problem here...
How the environment is treated,
how the citizens are treated.
We have to realize
what is the core problem,
then we can fight it.
-What is the core problem?
-Do you want me to
state in on camera?
-Yeah.
-Yeah, I would say it's
the economic system.
Capitalism, I guess.
-You're not sure if you
should say that on camera?
-No.
[ Laughs ]
I don't know if it
helps the struggle.
-In Greece we have made
for some guinness
book records lately.
The sharpest austerity ever...
More than 25% of our gdp
and deficit-cutting
measures in three years.
And hundreds of
fractional changes
decided and implemented...
-We are under a very
heavy economic crisis
in Greece right now.
This is not a
Greek crisis either.
Just one instance of a
global economic crisis
that started in 2008.
And the worst thing is that the
remedy for the economic crisis
we have right now
is a model of growth
that will be even more
destructive for the environment.
-What is being advertised
as the way out of this is
exploit whatever
you have right now.
Sell off whatever
you have right now,
whether this be
natural resources.
We will not sell the
acropolis, but this is it.
We stop there.
So Greece is open to anything.
Gold mining and oil
drilling in the aegean sea
and all over.
It's the same in Spain.
It's the same in Italy.
-In the name of the crisis,
we have no alternative
but giving away our land,
our forests, our water,
polluting our seas in
order to create wealth.
So you have a
definition of wealth
as something that you
can take out of the earth,
not as something that
is created by the people.
-As I watched the struggle
over a gold mind in Greece,
I saw that familiar pattern...
Nature as machine,
man at the levers.
But I also realized
something else.
In this story,
the economy is supposed
to be a machine, too.
Under the right
conditions, we're told,
it will created wealth, lift
all boats, drive progress.
But this machine
needs perpetual growth.
If it slows down, you
have to feed it more.
Use anything and
everything as fuel.
Cut loose whatever it's carrying
so it can drive on ever-faster,
ever-leaner.
I began to wonder if
austerity isn't just a rebranding
of that old story of domination,
a way to keep this
sputtering machine going...
Squeeze the earth,
squeeze the people.
[ People chanting in Greek ]
-In the past five years, the
Greek people have risen up
a lot of times
against this policies.
The coal miners
overthrow the governments
that opposed these programs.
They didn't want us to
overthrow the polices.
[ Chanting continues
] So people feel
that they're living
defeat after defeat.
Even one victory
could make a huge impact
on the psychology of people.
And that's why the other side
doesn't want to allow
even a single victory
because this could
be the turning point.
[ Gunfire ]
[ Explosion ]
[ Explosion in distance ]
[ People chanting in Greek ]
-And what's going on inside?
What's happening
inside with your friend?
[ Indistinct conversations ]
[ Applause ]
[ People chanting in Greek ]
-Ultimately, this
movement is not fighting
to just stop the specific mine.
This is a no that has
to be said before a yes.
And this yes is
something much bigger.
The local communities,
the people who have a
constant relationship with the land,
they want their children
to live on this land.
So how do we
protect the commons?
We create local institutions
that make the rules,
that can set the limits.
It's about communities
taking back the power
on important decisions.
-They kill.
These factories, these
coal-fired factories kill.
-The average person
in sompeta has realized,
has made the connection
between the struggle
to save their wetland
and this larger devastation
that this country is
rapidly, rapidly heading for.
This mindless pursuit
of double-digit growth,
it requires infrastructure,
raw materials, land,
forest, water, the coast,
coal on a grand scale.
-India, a nation in overdrive.
The world's fastest growing
free-market democracy.
This surge in growth and
developments taking place
across the economy has
thrown up new opportunities.
Invest in India's
infrastructure.
-Growth... it's the closest
thing we have to a global deity.
When this story was
first written centuries ago,
frontiers were
opening up all around.
Nature seemed infinite.
Now we know better, and
yet our global economy is
still based on
growth without limits.
When I visit some of the
poorest parts of the world,
it's obvious that
people have a right
to far more than they have now.
But the only plan on the table
seems to be the
western model of growth,
a throw-away
culture that sucks up
and sacrifices more and
more of the natural world.
Is this really the fastest
way to end poverty?
And if it is, why
are so many people
on the front lines so skeptical?
-If you look at the
environmentalism of the poor,
there is urgency there.
There are such million
pollution mutinies
that are happening
across the length
and breadth of this country.
These are essentially people
who are fighting for their survival.
Their well-being comes out
of land, comes out of water,
comes out of the resources
that they get out of nature.
And they know that
this modern development
that has been promised
to them essentially
is a model of growth,
which is of intensive use
of the same resources,
but it is very, very
poor in providing jobs.
They understand
that this development
that is coming will
actually make them poorer.
[ People shouting indistinctly ]
[ People screaming ]
[ Gunshot ]
[ Gunfire ]
[ Man shouting in
native language ]
[ People chanting
in native language ]
It is that battle in sompeta,
which to my mind is a
battle which challenges
every environmental
movement of the world.
It is not a local movement.
It is the core of the
new environmentalism
that we need to grow.
It is the environmentalism
of the poor.
[ Chanting continues ]
The current growth model
will create wealth for some
and poverty for the others.
It will create unemployment.
It will create climate change.
So you need a
different growth system.
-When I ask people why they
feel hopeless about climate change,
I often get one-word
answer... China.
But here's the thing...
When I first went to China,
I saw that the fastest
growing economy in the world
is literally choking
on that growth.
The story is failing them, too.
-There's always this
image of China as first,
this emerging economic power,
and they're the biggest
emitter today of carbon dioxide,
and they're consuming
more and more resources
and eating more meat.
So it's this sort
of image of China
as this gorging machine.
-It's so easy for officials
or experts to say,"
China needs to grow,
China needs to grow,
China needs to be stronger."
Previously, the environment
issues are just peanuts.
We can deal with them
when we become rich enough.
And then we had
this historical moment
of smog disaster.
It totally changed the landscape
of environment
discussion in China.
-[ Speaking Chinese ]
-You know, when you
wake up in the morning,
and you cannot
walk out in the street,
cannot walk out, because
you can't breathe...
People are saying,
"no, this cannot be.
This cannot be the way
society in the world is
supposed to be about."
-Air pollution has really
become a very big topic
in China and with the rising
middle class people in China.
You know, after their living
standards in many ways
have improved a lot,
now start to ask, "when
can we buy clean air?"
[ People chanting in Chinese ]
-Thousands surrounded the
party headquarters in ningbo...
[ Chanting continues ]
Protesting against
government plans
to build a new
multi-billion chemical plant.
-You have a very vibrant
environmental movement
at a grassroots level in China.
[ Chanting continues ]
There are so many
demonstrations in relation
to environmental pollution
right at the local level.
There are many pressures
on the government,
to take more environmentally
friendly policies.
Not because of some
ideological change,
but because of
pressure from the ground
and because of
pressure from nature itself.
[ Chanting continues ]
-[ Speaking Chinese ]
[ Car alarm blaring ]
-If China wants to do something,
it has the
organizational capacity.
10 years ago, it hardly
produced solar panels.
Today, it is the biggest solar
panel producer in the world.
-In a very short time,
solar panels
became so affordable.
And the exported solar
panels in the country
have made the
access to solar energy
much more meaningful
for many, many countries.
-90% of buildings in solar
valley are installed with solar.
95% of hot water is from solar.
In China, 20 years ago,
when my colleagues
and I traveled city to city
to promote solar,
at that time, our Chinese
people don't have hot water.
When we gave them solar,
it's new life, new choice.
It's maybe the only choice.
-So, is China a model when
it comes to climate change?
Clearly not.
More like a battlefield.
On one side, solar panels.
On the other side, smog.
We're told that the growth
machine is self-correcting.
There's a brutal phase
when the earth and
people are poisoned,
but then it naturally gives way
to clean skies an
a better life for all.
But it turns out we didn't
move beyond pollution.
We just moved the pollution.
This smog, much of it is
from factories making goods
for my home and yours,
and now there's
so much pollution,
it isn't just a threat to China.
It's a threat to life on earth.
So maybe it's not
east versus west.
Maybe it's all of us against
the logic of domination
and growth at any cost.
Capitalism versus the climate.
[ Indistinct conversations ]
-Good morning, everyone.
All right.
I hope breakfast is good.
It's a beautiful day
in Washington, D.C.
My name is Joe bast.
I'm the president of
the heartland institute.
It's my pleasure to welcome you
to the sixth international
conference on climate change.
-We began addressing
climate change
because we observed
that the science on the issue
was being selectively reported
and, we thought, misrepresented
in order to advance a
liberal political agenda.
-Gallup poll, 111
countries, April of this year.
The majority of the human race
does not see global
warming as a serious threat.
Celebrate. [ Applause ]
Celebrate.
Climate legislation is dead
for the foreseeable
future in the United States.
So what happened?
How did it die?
Scientific crap. [ Laughter ]
And I actually got this
off Anthony watts' website,
this photo.
Scientific crap.
No, you don't need to go
into phd dissertations
on what happened.
There it is.
Life was nasty,
brutish, and short
when we were in
Harmony with nature.
Most of mankind pretty
much was that way
until the carbon-based
energy revolution.
Long live coal. God bless coal.
It's one of the most
moral energy choices
the world has ever seen.
-The heartland institute
is the leading group in
the world casting doubt
on the overwhelming scientific
evidence for climate change.
They've been addressed
by heads of state
and U.S. senators and
have been bankrolled
by some of the
richest people on earth.
[ Laughter ]
Heartland was founded as just
another free-market think tank.
And then, they
found their niche.
-Sustainability is
a marxist concept.
It has nothing to do
with living the simple life
and not wasting stuff.
It's everything do to with
redistribution of wealth,
of a power grab,
of unelected bureaucrats
deciding your life.
-And my question is this...
To what extent is
this entire movement
simply a green trojan horse
whose belly is full with red
marxist socio-economic doctrine?
-100%.
-If you want more trees,
use more wood because
using more wood sends a single
to the marketplace
that trees have value.
If you want more elephants,
market they're ivory.
-So, here's the truly
weird thing about heartland.
I actually think they're right.
Not about the elephants,
not about the science denial,
but about something more basic.
The think tanks
behind this conference
have spent 40 years pushing
a model of extreme capitalism.
You've seen it all around you.
You're soaking in it.
Corporations are deregulated,
set free to scour the earth
for the cheapest workers
and the most pollutable air.
Governments wither,
the middle class dissolves,
and profits soar.
What the heartlanders
understand is that if climate change
is taken seriously, it
changes everything.
-If human activity is
causing climate change,
then almost anything
could be justified
in terms of a
government response.
[ Bell tolls ]
-At least one country
seems to agree.
Only it isn't a tiny
marxist holdout,
and they're not
living in mud huts.
It's the largest
economy in Europe.
[ Lamb bleats ]
In Germany, the government
intervened big time.
They spent billions to get
people to build huge numbers
of wind farms and solar
arrays all across the country.
The result is one of the
most rapid energy transitions
anywhere in the world.
Today, 30% of the
entire country's electricity
comes from renewables.
Emissions are coming down,
and employment is going up.
400,000 jobs have been created.
But this didn't happen
because the government
just saw the light.
In fact, the German
government still pushes austerity
and polluting policies both
at home and elsewhere.
This shift had a very
different cause... the people.
They didn't wait for a leader.
They did it on their own.
First, they fought
against nuclear energy.
When they turned the tide,
they fought for alternatives.
And in the process, they
sparked a true power shift.
Hundreds of cities and towns
have taken the electricity grid
back from private corporation
and now run it themselves, often
through Democratic cooperatives.
Looking at this, I
kept asking myself...
What does this mean
for the rest of the world?
How can we all bring this
energy revolution home?
I've spent six years
wandering through the wreckage
caused by that
400-year-old fantasy
that we could treat
nature as our machine.
But now I see another
story taking root,
starting from a
whole other premise.
And it's emerging even in
the most unlikely of places.
-The environmental
impacts of the development
in the oil sands is
absolutely barbaric.
Put 2 and 2 together,
and you feel physically,
directly responsible
for affecting
somebody else's
health downstream.
I do not support shutting down
the tar sands
tomorrow... By any means.
I have way too many friends
whose families rely
on that resource.
What I support... and I know
the majority of my friends
up there do support...
Is a transition
over to a renewable
energy source.
Now, the exciting
thing about that is
that the
renewable-energy industry
would employ exactly
the same workers
that the oil sands does...
Pipefitters,
boilermakers, electricians.
Using some of the money
that is made up there,
we can build wind,
we can have solar
powering our country
where it makes sense.
There's absolutely no reason
to not make the transition.
We need to take serious
action very quickly as a society,
and we don't have
time to be silent.
-As I listen to lliam, I
felt the old battle lines...
Jobs versus the environment,
economy versus the planet...
Melting away.
But just like in Germany,
governments
won't make this shift
without huge
pressure from below.
-Thank you, guys!
We have completely
encircled the white house.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-All around the
world, people aren't
just writing to
their politicians
politely asking them
to do the right thing.
They're taking direct
action... Demanding it.
On the front lines,
they call it blockading.
The idea behind it is simple.
We're in a hole, and before
anything new can grow,
we have to stop digging.
As the drilling
rigs and pipelines
crisscross the earth,
so does blockadia, connecting
communities along the way...
The metal pathways of
dirty energy confronted
by this new web of resistance.
-It's the first night
being here in this pipe.
[ Police radio chatter ]
-[ Speaking native language ]
-And I've noticed
something else.
At the forefront are the
people from the sacrifice zones,
the very ones who
have been written off
for hundreds of years, the
keepers of that other story.
-If this pipeline goes through,
your government
will further assist
in the raping and pillaging
of the lands of my ancestors.
[ Cheering ]
Then, they'll promise to give
us back what was never theirs
in the first place.
[ Cheering ]
Don't be fooled
by their ideology
of what reclamation is.
Reclamation is me
standing here with the 99%.
We're here today to say
we never went anywhere,
and nor do we plan to.
[ Cheering ]
-When you see communities
who are thrown into the front line
because an
environmental or political
or economic issue
is imposed on them,
you see the incredible
transformation that happens.
[ People chanting indistinctly ]
They become
stronger. They stand up.
And you're like,
"isn't this incredible?
Isn't this the society we want?"
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Okay, one last confession...
I've been to more climate
rallies than I can count.
But the polar bears...
Mm, they still
don't do it for me.
I wish them well,
but if there's one
thing I've learned,
it's that stopping climate
change isn't really about them.
It's about us,
the us we've been told we are...
Selfish, greedy,
short-sighted...
And the us we could be...
Able to take care of the earth
and take care of each
other long into the future.
-People are starting to realize
that this is no longer
an Indian problem.
And that's the good thing
because they're
starting to realize
that if you drink water
and you breath air,
this is about you.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-We are all...
[ Crowd chanting, "we
are all! We are all!" ]
- part of this movement!
[ People chant "part
of this movement! ]
-There is a challenge
of climate change
which we cannot solve by
tinkering in band-aid solutions.
There are limits.
Let's celebrate the limits.
Let's enjoy the limits
because we can
reinvent a different future.
[ People chanting indistinctly ]
-That's what I see
fighting to be born.
It's a movement
connecting the dots
between the carbon in the
air and the economic system
that put it there.
And it's proving
that the bold shifts
that will lower our emissions
can also, at the same time,
raise our quality of life
with more meaningful
work, greater equality,
and no more sacrifice zones.
It's telling us to stop
pretending we can control nature
and start acting
like we arenature.
To me, that doesn't
sound like a loss.
It sounds like a homecoming.
So, here's the big question.
What if global warming
isn't only a crisis?
What if it's the best chance
we're ever gonna get
to build a better world?
-Henry red cloud told me once
that sometimes you
have to take little steps,
and sometimes you
have to run like a buffalo.
And I think the
earth is telling us
we have run like
a buffalo right now.
It isn't nice to
block the doorway
it isn't nice to go to jail
there are nicer
ways to do it
but the nice
ways always fail
it isn't nice, it isn't nice
you told us once,
you told us twice
but if that's
freedom's price
- we don't mind
- we don't mind
- whoa
- we don't mind
- we don't mind, we don't mind
- whoa
we don't mind
- we don't mind
we don't mind
we don't mind, we don't mind
- oh, no, no, no
we don't mind
- ooh-ooh
ooh-ooh
-it isn't nice to
block the doorway
it isn't nice to go to jail
there are nicer
ways to do it
but the nice
ways always fail
it isn't nice, it isn't nice
you told us once,
you told us twice
but thank you,
buddy, for your advice
but if that's
freedom's price
- we don't mind
- we don't mind
- ooh-oh-oh
- we don't mind
we don't mind, we don't mind
- ooh, we don't mind
-we don't mind we don't mind
we don't mind, we don't mind
- whoa, no
- we don't mind
- we don't mind
- ohh
[ Woman rapping
in foreign language ]
[ Mid-tempo beat plays ]
[ Mid-tempo beat fades out ]