
My new film, The Great Invisible, documents the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and its aftermath. Why would I choose to take on the challenge of telling the story of the largest oil disaster in U.S. history, an event that killed 11 people, devastated wildlife, coated coastlines, sickened clean-up workers and brought local economies to a halt?
When I was fourteen, my mom drove my friend Tara and me to a Pixies/U2 concert in Baton Rouge. We'd waited months for this sold-out concert. I remember roaming the halls to gawk at all the other countercultural southerners … and finding a booth to sign up for Greenpeace and Amnesty International. At that age, I had no idea what “being political” meant, but helping political prisoners and the environment sounded exciting, so I signed up for both. So you could say art brought me to politics in both conscious and unconscious ways, and the two have been connected for me since.
Inevitably, after I screen The Great Invisible for an audience, someone fervently raises their hand and asks what they can do—what can anyone do—in the face of all this? To see the connection between filling up your car and offshore drilling is overwhelming.
Perhaps it's because oil has such a tight grip on us that we simply try not to think about it. It's easier to grab a plastic water bottle when we're thirsty, to book a flight when we want to see someone and to buy a car based on comfort rather than fuel economy. Hell, I do it too. So what do I say to that person who's just watched my film and wants to know what they should do?
Here's what I tell them:
- About 70 percent of the oil we use in this country is for transportation, so let’s start there: Walk, bike or take public transit whenever possible. Carpool to work or telecommute if you can. Right now I’m typing this from a bed—this could be you!
- If you drive and can afford it, consider an electric vehicle. Even when you factor in the emissions from the electricity used to charge them, plug-in cars are much cleaner than conventional cars. If you aren't ready for an electric, you can still choose your next vehicle with fuel economy in mind. I just bought a VW diesel wagon when my Volvo from college became less dependable for film shoots. In addition to being perfect for hauling my camera and equipment around, it gets great mileage.
- What we can accomplish collectively is just as important. Get involved—organize, march, write to your legislators, donate time and money to community action groups, divest from fossil fuel companies, pressure Congress to work on behalf of the people. We need a rethink! The recent People's Climate March in New York City was the most visible manifestation yet of a growing populist movement for climate action and clean energy—two things that inevitably will end Big Oil's monopoly on our transportation system.
- Demand the same legal protections to offshore oil platform workers that onshore workers have. It's unacceptable that workers on the Deepwater Horizon rig knew it was unsafe but were afraid to speak up for fear of losing their jobs. Congress needs to overhaul an industry whose “get er done” mindset gets in the way of safety.
- Make connections and ask questions. Why were we drilling offshore in deep water and without proper safety measures in the first place? What does this say about our culture of immediacy and consumption? Why are we turning to more dangerous and destructive types of oil extraction such as tar sands in Canada, fracking with undisclosed chemicals, deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the Arctic and elsewhere?
As an artist, I want people to respond to my film as a film, and not a political screed. But I also hope my film will inspire viewers the way I was once inspired and spur conversations about our oil consumption, extreme oil extraction methods and their impacts on our planet, public health and our democracy.
Find The Great Invisible at a theater near you here.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Fracking Approved in Largest National Forest in Eastern U.S.
Activist/Author Generates $300,000+ in Fight Against TransCanada’s Energy East Pipeline
A tornado tore through a city north of Birmingham, Alabama, Monday night, killing one person and injuring at least 30.
- Tornadoes and Climate Change: What Does the Science Say ... ›
- Tornadoes Hit Unusually Wide Swaths of U.S., Alarming Climate ... ›
- 23 Dead as Tornado Pummels Lee County, AL in Further Sign ... ›
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
By David Konisky
On his first day in office President Joe Biden started signing executive orders to reverse Trump administration policies. One sweeping directive calls for stronger action to protect public health and the environment and hold polluters accountable, including those who "disproportionately harm communities of color and low-income communities."
Michael S. Regan, President Biden's nominee to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, grew up near a coal-burning power plant in North Carolina and has pledged to "enact an environmental justice framework that empowers people in all communities." NCDEQ
Trending
By Katherine Kornei
Clear-cutting a forest is relatively easy—just pick a tree and start chopping. But there are benefits to more sophisticated forest management. One technique—which involves repeatedly harvesting smaller trees every 30 or so years but leaving an upper story of larger trees for longer periods (60, 90, or 120 years)—ensures a steady supply of both firewood and construction timber.
A Pattern in the Rings
<p>The <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/coppice-standards-0" target="_blank">coppice-with-standards</a> management practice produces a two-story forest, said <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bernhard_Muigg" target="_blank">Bernhard Muigg</a>, a dendrochronologist at the University of Freiburg in Germany. "You have an upper story of single trees that are allowed to grow for several understory generations."</p><p>That arrangement imprints a characteristic tree ring pattern in a forest's upper story trees (the "standards"): thick rings indicative of heavy growth, which show up at regular intervals as the surrounding smaller trees are cut down. "The trees are growing faster," said Muigg. "You can really see it with your naked eye."</p><p>Muigg and his collaborators characterized that <a href="https://ltrr.arizona.edu/about/treerings" target="_blank">dendrochronological pattern</a> in 161 oak trees growing in central Germany, one of the few remaining sites in Europe with actively managed coppice-with-standards forests. They found up to nine cycles of heavy growth in the trees, the oldest of which was planted in 1761. The researchers then turned to a historical data set — more than 2,000 oak <a href="https://eos.org/articles/podcast-discovering-europes-history-through-its-timbers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">timbers from buildings and archaeological sites</a> in Germany and France dating from between 300 and 2015 — to look for a similar pattern.</p>A Gap of 500 Years
<p>The team found wood with the characteristic coppice-with-standards tree ring pattern dating to as early as the 6th century. That was a surprise, Muigg and his colleagues concluded, because the first mention of this forest management practice in historical documents occurred only roughly 500 years later, in the 13th century.</p><p>It's probable that forest management practices were not well documented prior to the High Middle Ages (1000–1250), the researchers suggested. "Forests are mainly mentioned in the context of royal hunting interests or donations," said Muigg. Dendrochronological studies are particularly important because they can reveal information not captured by a sparse historical record, he added.</p><p>These results were <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-78933-8" target="_blank">published in December in <em>Scientific Reports</em></a>.</p><p>"It's nice to see the longevity and the history of coppice-with-standards," said <a href="https://www.teagasc.ie/contact/staff-directory/s/ian-short/" target="_blank">Ian Short</a>, a forestry researcher at Teagasc, the Agriculture and Food Development Authority in Ireland, not involved in the research. This technique is valuable because it promotes conservation and habitat biodiversity, Short said. "In the next 10 or 20 years, I think we'll see more coppice-with-standards coming back into production."</p><p>In the future, Muigg and his collaborators hope to analyze a larger sample of historic timbers to trace how the coppice-with-standards practice spread throughout Europe. It will be interesting to understand where this technique originated and how it propagated, said Muigg, and there are plenty of old pieces of wood waiting to be analyzed. "There [are] tons of dendrochronological data."</p><p><em><a href="mailto:katherine.kornei@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Katherine Kornei</a> is a freelance science journalist covering Earth and space science. Her bylines frequently appear in Eos, Science, and The New York Times. Katherine holds a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of California, Los Angeles.</em></p><p><em>This story originally appeared in <a href="https://eos.org/articles/tree-rings-reveal-how-ancient-forests-were-managed" target="_blank">Eos</a></em> <em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>Earth's ice is melting 57 percent faster than in the 1990s and the world has lost more than 28 trillion tons of ice since 1994, research published Monday in The Cryosphere shows.
By Jewel Fraser
Noreen Nunez lives in a middle-class neighborhood that rises up a hillside in Trinidad's Tunapuna-Piarco region.