"Dirty Oil" Movie Review...

Where do you think the United States gets their oil from? This was the opening question of the movie “Dirty Oil” that I got a chance to see at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Many people think we get it from the Middle East or Saudi Arabia or somewhere very far from here. Wouldn’t you be surprised to know we get it from Canada? Yes right from our neighboring country. About 75 percent of our oil comes from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada. Every day they move huge amounts of sand and use heated water to separate the oil from the sand. There is a lot of manpower required and more and more people are headed there to join this oil rush. You can see the traffic lined up on the two lane highway, known as Hell’s Highway, which starts about 100 miles north of Edmonton and ends at Fort McMurray. The locals came up with the name Hell's Highway because every day at least one person dies along this road due to recklessness of the drivers who can drive up to speeds of 140 miles per hour.
The boreal forest which is the size of Florida, is having its lakes and wildlife sacrificed by becoming full of toxic waste and having clouds of greenhouse gases emitted into the air all for black gold. Trees that are being knocked down give danger to the songbirds and woodland caribou. Contaminated water that the wildlife are drinking cause problems like tumors that have been seen on fish. The Mikisew Cree have always lived off of the land and now they are being directly affected by the tar sands. Water has always been a natural resource for them and now they have to buy bottled water. They have hunted fish and duck to feed their families and now when they have eaten fish or duck that has ingested the water that’s toxic, they in turn have experienced illnesses like leukemia, lymphomas, auto-immune disorders and very rare cancers. These illnesses have been documented and even more permanent, the bodies that they have had to bury leave a hole in the families and the community. I sat there in my chair watching so many of the people in this community talk about the affect that the tar sands have had on their families. I watched their faces and I listened to what they had to say. I saw the animals with problems, like the fish that had a tumor on it, and thought who would eat that? I saw the burial markers of the graves of people who had died from the cause and effect of the tar sands. As I watched and listened to these people, it sunk into my head that they are human beings just like you and me. Yet the government and the big companies that are being funded to get this oil say there is nothing wrong with the water, nothing wrong with the animals, nothing wrong with anything. They can care less how their operations are affecting this community. In fact they had even sent some representatives there to listen to the concerns of the people and as one woman spoke her truth of what was happening and the fact that they are burying so many people, the camera panned to the representatives that had facial expressions that seemed to show their time was being wasted listening to this.

It’s mind boggling to me how they could stand there in a room with people who are upset, who are crying and who are pleading their case and not be affected. I live in the United States not Canada, my family is not being affected by the tar sands so why should I care what happens to these people who are in another country? I should care and do care because we are talking about human lives at stake with serious conditions that no one is doing anything about. What if that was their child or their sibling or their spouse that died from those conditions? I suppose that since it’s not, it doesn’t have an impact on them. I was so disgusted by their behavior and reactions that I honestly didn’t even feel like driving home in my car that uses oil that comes from the same place that is not taking care of people and just letting them die. I don’t understand how someone who is standing in the same room as these people could feel nothing. I sat in the movie theater watching this and became so overwhelmed with emotion, that tears started to roll down my face.
This world has become so selfish and so self serving and the almighty dollar rules over everything. When we are putting gas in cars, we don’t think of where it comes from. That has changed for me since seeing this movie. I am still in disbelief at how these people are being treated and no less by another HUMAN BEING. You could sit there reading this feeling that you don’t care because it’s not in your country. Well, I have news for you, it is.
There was a part in the movie that talked about the company BP Amoco getting permission to dump over 1,500 pounds of ammonia and roughly 5,000 pounds of suspended solids into the Great Lakes from their Whiting Refinery in Indiana. All I could think was that I loved the irony of a supposed “green” company that advertises "Beyond Petroleum" saying they are a global leader in producing the cleanest burning fossil fuel, does the exact opposite of what it promotes. I think in the future when BP Amoco advertises how green they are, they should show how green the lakes are from them dumping all their toxins in it and hey, while they’re at it, change the green in their logo so that it glows! This had so many people outraged and one of the people who was loudly against this was Eddie Vedder of the group Pearl Jam. During their concert at Lollapalooza, Eddie informed the fans that he had just been told by “a couple of reliable sources” around town that the oil companies were “sitting on 40 million acres” of land that they planned on drilling for oil and that these lands are federal lands so they can keep the supplies low and the prices and profits high. The crowd’s reaction was clear that they stood against this with Eddie and the rest of the band. I was floored when I saw this because I couldn’t think of a better venue than a concert where you already have everyone’s attention and they’re already hanging on your every word. Way to go Eddie! Now as if that wasn’t enough, the band started playing an impromptu song “Don’t Go To BP Amoco”.

Here's what Eddie said and a video clip you can watch of this amazing moment.
“And with all of you here, I think you should hear it. They’ve been passing out information that uh, and it seems to be factual that they’re leading us to believe that there’s this company, and they’re called BP Amoco. ….But it’s apparently financially beneficial to them to dump their waste into your beautiful Lake Michigan”. The crowd boos at this injustice.
“So I would just suggest…that we all have choices as a consumer, that if you drove right by an Amoco and went somewhere else to get your gas...so don’t show BP Amoco any kind of love until they clean up their act”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bUAD7OPwjg


The tar sands project uses significantly more energy in their process than the energy that is used to produce regular crude oil and in fact, the tar sands project has been called “the most destructive project on Earth” by the Natural Resources Defense Council. I stated previously that it seems as though the Canadian government isn’t really doing anything about this and I posed the question of why should we care here in the United States. Well we should care because the problems in Alberta actually extends to southern Illinois, from Lake Michigan as I told you regarding the BP Amoco company and then into the sky. So now it’s here and do you think we’re going to sit back and just accept this? No we’re not because we have a President who gets involved. In fact, President Obama took a trip to Canada in February of this year to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada. Obama is in favor of using clean energy which affects not only our economy and people but the planet as a whole.
Both countries agree on technological development and research, however, expanding the tar sands oil production has no place in this clean energy plan and it also poses an unacceptable risk to the climate as pointed out by President Obama. This is one of the things that I love about Obama is that he makes people accountable. If you remember early on when the car companies were pleading their cases that they needed to be bailed out, President Obama didn’t have a problem with this, but the car companies needed to show him what they were going to do with the money. He was making them accountable. When the staff said they couldn’t figure out ways to save money, he said yes you can. He told them to sit there and figure out. He is not letting anyone be lazy anymore and he is not putting up with anymore excuses. The same goes here with this situation. I’ve heard and read so many things that people have said against the President of how come things haven’t changed yet in some areas or they don’t like the changes that he is proposing. Here’s the thing people, things do not change overnight. It takes time to get all your ducks in a row and many meetings to get through it all. I caught Obama on Letterman awhile ago and he talked about how things do get presented but then get turned down so they go back to the drawing board and find another way. He is definitely not one to give up the first time he gets a “no”. He just goes back and finds another way to get the “yes”. Here is a quote from our President on this situation:
“We are very grateful for the relationship that we have with Canada, and Canada being our largest energy supplier, but I think that increasingly we have to take into account that the issue of climate change and greenhouse gases is something that’s going to have an impact on all of us and as two relatively wealthy countries, it’s important for us to show leadership.”
Before Obama got into the leadership role he has today, he was pushing for a safe environment and I wonder how many people really know this? He was the co-sponsor of the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act while he was still in the Senate. This act would reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by 80% by 2050 and even though he was ahead of his game, Congress still has to vote on this bill. Then there’s the Clean Air Act in Illinois that required 10% of electricity in the state would come from renewable sources such as wind and solar power by 2012. Obama was preventing Bush from rolling back this act while he was a Senator by introducing a bill that required more pollution controls at coal plants. Obama is committed to protecting the Great Lakes because they make up 1/5 of the world’s surface water and he doesn’t want to disrupt the balance of the lake’s ecosystem. So he ensured that Illinois would get adequate federal funding to operate a barrier that will prevent Asian carp from entering Lake Michigan.
These are things that Obama was already working on so for him to make the trip to Canada was no surprise. We are a country that I feel looks after one another and we have our finger on the pulse of humanity in this country. If the tar sands were located in this country, I believe the voices of the people that it was affecting would be heard.
This movie is a must see whether or not you're into documentaries. I wasn't sure what to expect from the movie. I thought it was going to be something on oil that wasn't too exciting or that I would be bored with. The way the movie opens has you wanting to know where it's going so you pay attention. As the movie continues it's almost like layers are being peeled off until you get to the core. Each time another layer got peeled off, I kept thinking this problem is getting bigger and bigger and the domino affect kept spreading out further and further. Academy Award Nominee Director Leslie Iwerks really did quite a job on keeping your interest and at the same time bringing you into this other world that you never knew of.
I don't want to spoil too much but you'll also see a portion of the movie where a doctor comes in to help these people that are getting sick and dying and when he realizes what it's really from, he is harassed to keep quiet. He does everything to get the attention from the right people but the media slams him and makes him seem not credible in what he's saying. I was very proud of this man for not giving into being quiet and really trying to go to bat for these people and the environment.
You really must see this movie because now that I have seen it, I really want everyone here in the United States to go see it to understand my passion of how wrong this is and how it is affecting us here in our country and we don't even know it. We need to take a stand for our environment and for our own lives. I don't want us ordering fish with a side of tumor and I certainly don't want to attend a funeral daily.
One last thing I might add is that ironically Director Leslie Iwerks was born on the original Earth Day when it was founded and I find it interesting that this is her second project regarding environmental issues. Do you think someone bigger than us is trying to tell us something? I don't know but what I do know is that this is something Leslie is very passionate about and after seeing this movie I feel the same way. I guarantee you will too. You can log onto www.leslieiwerks.com or www.babelgum.com/dirtyoil for more info and the trailer on this movie. This is Babelgum's first feature film and they had approached Ms. Iwerks on directing this film. I give two thumbs up to both Babelgum and Leslie Iwerks for this incredible movie.