Stop the Flows is a media project in progress to document resistance movements around the world that are working towards stopping the flows of oil and gas, minerals and other natural 'resource' extraction from within their communities, territories and landbases; as well as stopping the flow of the tremendous amounts of wealth generated from these destructive activities. This series aims to support and capture the many forms of organising, direct-action, protest and resistance movements throughout the world working to end mining, the oil economy, nuclear power and more...
58:12Is the world heading for a population crisis? Since 1950, the human population has more than doubled. What is the effect of this rapid growth on the environment? While much of the projected growth in human population is likely to come from the so-called "developing world," it is the lifestyle enjoyed by the West that has the most impact--in the UK consumers use as much as two and a half times their fair share of Earth's resources. This film examines whether it is the duty of individuals to commit not only to smaller families, but to change the way they live for the sake of humanity and planet Earth.
1:35:09The Last Mountain follows the fight for the last great mountain in North America's Appalachian heartland where mining giants that want to deforest and explode it to extract the coal inside are faced with a community fighting to preserve the mountain. The film considers the health consequences and environmental impacts of mining, burning coal for electricity, also looking at the wider context and history of environmental laws in the United States.
1:33:56On 20th April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the Gulf of Mexico in the United States, killing eleven workers, and spewing millions of barrels of oil into the ocean for weeks. Dirty Energy brings to light the personal stories of the Louisiana fishermen and local residents directly impacted by one of the worst environmental disasters in recent history, as they struggle to rebuild their lives and contend with emerging health crises related to the toxic dispersants used to clean up the explosion.
1:18:32Every day, the world over, large amounts of high-level radioactive waste is placed in interim storages which are vulnerable to natural disasters, human-caused disasters, and societal changes. In Finland, the world's first 'permanent' repository is being hewn out of solid rock--a huge system of underground tunnels that must last hundreds of thousands of years. Once the waste has been dumped and the ground is full of this waste, the land is to be sealed off with concrete and "never be opened again." Or so the builders of this dump can hope. But can they ensure that? How is it possible to warn future generations of the deadly waste that's left behind by this culture? How do we prevent future generations from thinking they have found the 'pyramids' of our time, mystical burial grounds, or hidden treasures? Into Eternity is a film about the insanity of nuclear power and the consequences that have impacts for hundreds of thousands of years.
23:28With the United Nations laying out a deadline for 2013 on claims to the Arctic seabed to be exploited for oil, minerals and gas; countries such as Canada, the United States, Russia, Norway and Greenland are all attempting to stake a claim. As the beginning battle for territory intensifies, the rapid disappearance of the Polar ice caps opens up potential shipping routes, which further fuels the blood lust by those in power to exploit the region. The Battle For The Arctic heads to the Far North to see first-hand who and what is threatened, and exactly what is at stake with these final grabs for energy, territory, and power.
1:17:29The Crisis of Civilization draws on archive footage and essentially monologue by author Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed to detail how global problems like environmental collapse, financial crisis, peak energy, terrorism and food shortages are all symptoms of a single, failed global system...
42:15Canada's tar sands are the largest industrial project ever undertaken--spanning the size of England. Extracting the oil and bitumen from underneath unspoiled wilderness requires a massive industrialised effort with far-reaching impacts on the land, air, water, and climate. It's an extraordinary industrial spectacle, the true scope of which can only be understood from an aerial view. Shot primarily from a helicopter, Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands offers an unparalleled view of the world's largest ever industrial project...
21:30From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. This is by design. The Story of Stuff serves as an introduction to the underside of the current world of mass production and consumption, exposing the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues -- shedding the light on the hidden processes behind our modern world. How can we create a more sustainable and just economy?
49:04In 1986, a catastrophic nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere, which spread over much of Western USSR and Europe. Life After Chernobyl uses this event to show how wild nature reacts and survives when the world is suddenly rid of the impacts of industrialisation. Travelling to the site of Chernobyl, animals return, forests regrow, buildings disintegrate into grass -- perhaps saying in a rather horrific way that a nuclear accident is better for the natural world than industrial civilisation...
1:14:24Burned: Are Trees the New Coal? investigates the latest method of providing so-called "green" electricity, as espoused by the renewable energy movement. It's called biomass, which is a euphemism for clear-cutting and burning forests. It is claimed that this is first a sustainable method of electricity creation, but secondly, and more slanderous, is claimed to be carbon-neutral and environmentally friendly. So how did this become the purported saviour for the power-generation industry, and by extension, the modern environmental movement? Burned provides a visceral account of these questions, while documenting the accelerating destruction of forests to fuel this destructive culture.
2:03:17What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire covers the current situation facing humanity globally. It discusses issues such as peak oil, climate change, population overshoot and species extinction, as well as how this situation has developed...
23:33Fracking In America takes a look at the continuing instances of water contamination and environmental damage occurring throughout the United States as a result of hydraulic fracturing--an industrial process used to fracture rock in the search to exploit natural gas deposits. As the frantic effort to extract gas accelerates, the impact of fracking expands also, with increasing pressures on fresh water supplies, continuing threats to health and wider ecosystems...
28:40The Niger Delta is still an environmental disaster after more than fifty years of oil exploitation. One and a half million tons of crude oil has been spilled into the creeks, farms and forests so far. Natural gas contained in the crude oil is burnt off in gas flares which spread toxins, acid rain and destroy crops. Poison Fire documents the life of the locals in impoverished communities, creeks full of crude oil, devastated mangrove forests, wellheads leaking gas, all working to fight against oil giant Shell to at least stop the toxic gas flares...
47:33The small town of Fort Chipewyan in northern Alberta, Canada, is facing up for the fight against The Alberta oil sands, which is arguably now the world's largest construction project. Its expansion will have an estimated $1.7 trillion impact on the Canadian economy over the coming decades. An area of boreal forest the size of Greece will be affected by industrial activity. Once again the issue is water, but this time it is not just the flow of the river, but the chemicals the current may be carrying downstream from the strip mines and bitumen upgraders. In recent years, Fort Chipewyan has experienced an unusually high rate of cancer. Local fishermen are finding growing numbers of deformed fish in their nets. Residents and the community doctor, worry there could be a connection to the oil sands...
Pandora's Box -- A fable from the age of science, is a six part series examining the consequences of political and technocratic rationalism, tying together communism in the Soviet Union, systems analysis and game theory during the Cold War, economy in the United Kingdom during the 1970s, the insecticide DDT, Kwame Nkrumah's leadership in Ghana during the 1950s and 1960s and the history of nuclear power.
26:58Spreading beneath Southlake in Texas, and a chain of other areas throughout, is an oil and gas rich Eldorado called the Barnett Shale field. Mining and energy companies are literally stampeding for a piece of the action with gas drilling and wells sweeping across the United States. Meet The Frackers travels through North America's suburban heartland to show the impact of a process called fracking, which is taking place on a panoramic scale. The parallels apply to Australia and elsewhere, where fracking is also spreading rapaciously with the drive to exploit sources such as coal seam gas. There's many warnings to be heeded from the ecological impact that's already been catastrophic throughout the United States, as one can see...
1:39:26The central thesis of Planet of the Humans is that various people and organisations in the United States claiming to promote 'green energy' are actually promoting biomass energy--largely a euphemism for cutting down and burning forests--a practice which is not carbon neutral nor renewable nor sustainable. The film reveals the destruction of environments first-hand, and also explores how wind power and solar power don't fare much better than fossil fuels in terms of impacts once all the inputs for construction and maintenance are considered and compared. In most cases, the additional demands for resources and construction simply invoke more environmental degradation and pollution. The film examines this push for more industry through key figures in the modern environmental movement that are funded by entities connected to fossil fuels, or have established profit motives, revealing how the environmental movement has been essentially co-opted into a de-facto lobbying arm of 'green' industries. The film also posits that regardless of energy systems, overpopulation is a central problem of industrial civilisation, and that this current way of life is unsustainable no matter how it is powered or 're-imagined' by technology.
56:24Taken for a Ride details the conspiracy led by General Motors to buy up and dismantle public transport lines throughout the United States in the 1930s. Across the nation, tram and train tracks were torn up--sometimes overnight--and diesel buses placed on city streets. The highway lobby then pushed out a vast network of urban freeways that fuelled suburban development, increased auto dependence and elicited passionate opposition...
25:03Away from its busy capital city and famous canal, Panama is one of the world's most ecologically diverse nations. Yet huge new hydroelectric dam projects now underway are seeing pristine rivers damned and virgin rainforest flooded. The government says it is vital for 'economic growth', with international corporate interests rushing into the country, and even the United Nations awarding 'carbon credits' on the basis that the resultant energy will be "sustainably produced". But for the indigenous Ngabe people--whose homes are vanishing under water--it is a catastrophe, and they are fighting back...