How to Blow Up a Pipeline
Synopsis: Climate change activists head out to Texas to blow up a pipeline. (Streaming on Amazon Prime as of July 2023)
We do need to do something about climate change. Everywhere there is either a drought or flooding or forest fires. Burning fossil fuels (coal, oil & gas) to generate power for heat, electricity and manufacturing goods accounts for over seventy five percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly ninety percent of carbon dioxide emissions. This forms a toasty, roasty dome that traps the suns’ rays.
We need solutions fast. Freon pumped into the air to cool things down. Drinking water from melting glaciers to parched Californians. Forest fires smothered with giant fiberglass blankets.
Tragically, governments worldwide are not acting quickly enough to save our planet. And fossil fuel companies are using all of their muscle to stay in business. What’s a global citizen to do?
Some climate activists are tossing soup on great works of art to bring attention to the matter. I doubt that the chief of Exxon is moved by the sight of soup rolling down a canvas to change his ways: Shut it down! All of it! And can you see the leaders of the biggest fuel guzzling countries crying at their desks over Greta Tunberg shaming them at the United Nations? Actually, I could see Joe Biden doing so, but not Xi Jinping.
In fact, the soup-tossing probably inspires anger at the tossers rather than any actual activism. Think of the damage a minestrone could do to a delicate canvas. But hurling soup against great cultural artefacts won’t likely bring Chevron to its knees. Although stopping the fuel from moving? That could do something. For example, actors Shailene Woodley and Mark Ruffalo were at onsite protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
There are also plenty of unfamous people who have answered Mother Earth’s clarion call. Members of Britain-based environmental protection group Just Stop Oil (who threw soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers) blocked the M25 motorway and blockaded oil refinery outlets by gluing themselves to roadways (ouch!). Their goal is to use civil disobedience, glue and soup until the UK halts new licenses for fossil fuel projects.
People worldwide are marching to demand change. Citizen protesters in democracies may be subjected to police manhandling and arrests of the catch and release variety, but at least they have the right to assemble & protest. Although I have noticed hilly terrains deterring protests; I won’t be marching up San Francisco’s hills for anything but coffee.
Is civil disobedience enough in the face of an imminent existential threat? University ecology lecturer Andreas Malm argues in How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire that civil disobedience is ineffective on its own and sabotage can be morally legitimate. Filmmakers wisely dropped half of the long title and dramatized the manifesto, creating eight characters who, you guessed it, decide to blow up a pipeline. And now How to Blow Up a Pipeline the movie is getting the word out.
The movie plays a bit like a lesson for a high school class, wherein the teens watch the movie then discuss the ethics of sabotage. The kids even have lightly sketched characters from which to choose for a “Who Do You Feel Had the Best Personal Reason for Blowing Up a Pipeline?”
I will dispense with the actors & characters names and create names that best fit the eight respective caricatures. 1) Chew is a rural familyman, pushed to the edge when the feds use eminent domain to procure land that’s been in his family for, like, a hundred years. He wears trucker caps and smacks chewing tobacco in a manful fashion. 2) Pixie was once a college student who had long hair. She ditched school and her long hair once she committed herself to extralegal activism. 3) Junior was a classmate of Pixie’s. He is played by the actor who was the oldest son on Blackish. If this was that show, Junior’s dad would upbraid his son over his willingness to throw away his promising future. 4) Dreads is economically disadvantaged. She works a service sector job and has cultivated impressive dreadlocks. 5) Dreads’ GF is Dreads’ girlfriend. She volunteers at a soup kitchen and advocates constructive activism. 6) Boom is a Native American man who is depressed over colonialism and the attempted historical genocide of his people. He is an autodidact of bombmaking. His mother is played by Irene Bedard, who was the voice actor for the title character in Disney’s Pocohantas. Like the historical figure and cartoon character, she believes in living peaceably. 7) Stoner BF is the young trustafarian boyfriend of Stoner GF. He has blond hair and speaks like one of the Saturday Night Live Californian players. 8) Stoner GF is the young poor girlfriend of Stoner BF. She wears a lot of handmade jewelry that seems to have political significance.
In flashback we see how each person became a saboteur and how they all met. As for Junior and Pixie, they were in some sort of college eco consciousness raising group. Junior was a little reluctant at first, but then acknowledged that current measures were too incremental to work in time to save millions from the ravages of climate change. The thinking is that disrupting the flow of fuel will drive up prices, making fossil fuel too expensive versus greener energy production.
All eight characters meet up at an appointed place in West Texas where they can build a bomb and blow up a nearby pipeline. The derelict house they live at while they execute their plan takes on the atmosphere of the hippie dorm at your university. No one bothers with bourgeois tasks like laundry or clearing away the dishes. At first it seems like the only competent group members are Boom who is busy building the explosives and Chew who has to step in when the city kids don’t know how to use a shovel for excavating some pipe. But everybody at least seems smart enough to contribute to planning the mission. Except for the stoner couple. Honestly, they are either getting high or f***ing when everyone else is practicing their sabotage parts down to the second.
I have to say that it was more involving watching characters pull off a crime for the public good than blow through some vault to steal the Crown Jewels or some such heist. And tension is ratcheted up with wrenches thrown into the action: someone could get injured, potential witnesses could show up, a narc could be among them, they could go crazy being away from their cellphones, etcetera.
You’ll have to decide for yourself if these eco-activists are terrorists. In any event, while stepping in to stop ecological destruction in real life, people will get prosecuted for trespassing and property destruction. Meanwhile, the seemingly sacred right to make money keeps the destruction of our environment nice and legal. I guess our planet was nice while it lasted, right?
P.S. The actors: Ariela Barar as Xochitl/Pixie, Sasha Lane as Theo/Dreads, Forrest Goodluck as Michael/Boom, Marcus Scribner as Shawn/Junior, Jake Weary as Dwayne/Chew, Jayme Lawson as Alisha/ Dread’s Gf, Lukas Gage as Stoner Bf and Kristine Froseth as Rowan/ Stoner Gf.
P.P.S.S. Starry activists who have been arrested in the U.S. for trespassing on private property or blocking traffic while protesting for measures against climate change include Jane Fonda and Joaquin Phoenix (steps of the Supreme Court, which, like the Spanish Steps in Rome are to be kept clear), and Shailene Woodley (at the Dakota Pipeline Access). While actor Mark Rylance and celeb-model Daisy Lowe have participated in London protests calling for government action on climate change. And the appropriately named Lucy Lawless of My Life is Murder was arrested for boarding a Shell-owned ship in New Zealand.
P.P.S Other issues that impact our planet are unfettered human population growth which increases energy use, depletes water and takes necessary land from wildlife, driving extinction. Although, I would never endorse a Thanos Snappening. Food production for billions of people drives ocean species to extinction through over-fishing, while livestock keeping for meat, egg and dairy inefficiently uses land and water. As well, lands that could be returned to wildlife (eg., buffalo and wolves) are instead used for cattle grazing. Hmm, now I feel like watching a National Geographic documentary.
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/climate/
https://thehumaneleague.org/article/environmental-benefits-of-veganism