Opinion: Should You Blow Up a Pipeline?
How to Blow Up A Pipeline is a great movie. Is it great politics?
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On Feb. 24, I was lucky enough to see the new film How to Blow Up a Pipeline, part of Eckerd’s Environmental Film Festival. Based on Andreas Malm’s book of the same name, the film explores the theme of how far one must be willing to go to combat the fossil fuel industry that makes a profit while the world is burning. Director Daniel Goldhaber was present to introduce the film and lead a discussion afterward.
I must confess that I am not an expert on the craft of cinema, but it was an extraordinarily well-made movie and one of the best films I have seen in a while. I was especially impressed with the cinematography. Goldhaber’s screenplay is also adapted from a nonfiction manifesto, which could not have been an easy feat.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a heist flick when you strip away the political theory, and viewers familiar with the genre will recognize the tropes. A small unlikely crew each with their own unique set of skills team up for a job. They enact an elaborate plan that shows their ingenuity and abilities. Some things do not go according to plan and the team must improvise.
There are some last-minute twists revealed through flashbacks. But these elements are used excellently, making for a very thrilling movie. The flashbacks that reveal how each member of the crew was radicalized and recruited are even more engaging because they flesh out what could have been one-note characters into realistic figures whose motivations exist in the real world.
Even though I enjoyed the movie and came to sympathize with each character, I still definitely disagree with the film's political message. So from here on out, there will be spoilers for How to Blow Up a Pipeline.
The Big Bad Empire
In the discussion section after the screening, Goldhaber spoke about how there are limits to how effective allegory in cinema can be. For example, George Lucas created the original Star Wars trilogy as an allegory of Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War. But nobody has ever been inspired by those movies to attack the military-industrial complex.
Still, the movie uses some clever techniques to make it clear that the oil industry is an empire of its own. One scene shows a character looking at dozens of pumpjacks occupying what once was his land. In another scene, one of the protagonists, Michael (who is an indigenous American of the Dakota Nation in North Dakota), punches an oil worker in the face telling him to “go back to where you came from.” As far as the film is concerned, the worker might as well be a stormtrooper, a nameless foot soldier for evil.
Is this the most sympathetic way to view people who are simply searching for economic opportunity? No, as Michael’s mother later points out. But the film is not afraid to show the messiness when it comes to fighting an empire. Except in this case, we all are participants in imperial exploitation.
The debate on how far one should go to fight oppression is the central question of the film although it was somewhat disappointing that in the debates between characters on whether blowing up a pipeline is a smart strategy, the script always answered yes.
In one scene, the crew debates whether they should be considered terrorists or not. They came to the consensus of yes, but justify it under the claim that every revolutionary figure was considered a terrorist. They name-drop Jesus and Martin Luther King Jr. as examples of radical figures who were killed for their vision and then had their views sanitized by the same regime once their vision became mainstream.
This is true but equating these figures as terrorists is a serious malpractice of their beliefs. The idea that either the man who led millions to have civil liberties in the United States or the man worshiped by billions of people as the Prince of Peace sought to achieve their goals through violence or terror is ridiculous.
Putting aside terrorism for a second, explosions are not how you change public policy.
The message feels weirdly dated to a Trump-era feeling of desperation toward politics as usual when it was believed that merely protesting and voting would not be enough to advance progressive goals against a regressive administration.
That’s not the world we live in anymore. A pro-climate President was elected. Europe is phasing out fossil fuels faster than ever. The largest climate change legislation in our country’s history was negotiated by a former coal baron Joe Manchin. Conservative Texas, where the film takes place, is installing more renewable energy than anywhere else in the country.
How did this happen? Some of it was due to peaceful “radical” activists such as Greta Thunberg or the indigenous protests of the Keystone XL pipeline in 2017. Some of it was also due to the political organizers, business executives, and scientific communicators whose methods this film directly accuses of not working.
Now, none of the above politicians has a perfect record on environmental issues. The Biden Administration has recently approved several new oil projects since last year's gasoline shock. But its also true that mainstream environmentalism’s fear of infrastructure projects has seriously hurt our country’s efforts to decarbonize our economy
A recent report from the New York Times found that thousands of renewable energy projects across the country that have been funded by the Inflation Reduction Act are at risk of being canceled, and thousands more are stuck in limbo. The reason is largely due to excessive environmental review, fewer than 1/5 of projects make it through the review phase. This is a major problem for the climate change movement because it risks wasting billions of dollars and putting the Biden Administration’s decarbonization targets in doubt.
Yet a reform to the permitting process suggested by Joe Manchin was rejected by Progressive Democrats and environmental activists because it would also make it easier to approve oil projects. The Environmental movement has not adapted to the reality that environmental review and local opposition is now the greatest threat to renewable energy not the fossil fuel industry.
But the film’s outdated view on environmental issues is not nearly as problematic as its endorsement of political violence.
The slippery slope of political violence
Protesting is democratic. It forces those in power to listen to the concerns of the people. It shifts public opinion. It organizes a community around a common cause. Terrorism or “property sabotage” is not. It is meant to enact your goals through force without engaging with the community. It causes chaos so that no one listens. It tears down institutions that can build lasting change. It alienates those that need to be persuaded.
Do the film's characters avoid the most egregious choices? Yes. Nearly every character has a personal vendetta against the oil and gas industry that makes their cause sympathetic. They draw a line at committing murder (though that is a subject of debate at times in the film). They make sure to turn off the pipeline before blowing it up and select a site for the bombing that would result in minimal environmental impact.
But a movement that deliberately uses fear and violence to further its goals cannot control itself. And usually, there is a violent response, or did we forget so soon that the January 6th, 2021 attacks were the culmination of a long year of vitriol and chaos?
The movie implies that blowing up the pipeline is just the start of a larger movement. I wonder what that sequel would look like. Would a follow-up bombing accidentally kill an innocent bystander? Would there be a responding attack on wind turbines orchestrated by oil and gas workers who were put out of a job? Would the entire climate movement be slandered by the media for the attacks and would that lead to moderates and independents electing pro-fossil fuel politicians in a landslide?
March
I recently read civil rights leader John Lewis’s graphic memoir March. (I definitely recommend it.) In it, he writes how he had to deal with older civil rights leaders who were willing to make concessions to segregationist regimes and younger jaded activists who believed that non-violent protests were naive.
John Lewis didn’t compromise between being a pushover or physically fighting back. His commitment to peace and his struggle against oppression came from the same place. When the time came and a police officer told him that he would not be allowed to vote, he didn’t turn around and he didn’t fight back even when he was being beaten near death. But he marched. And he won.
Director Daniel Glodhaber stated that the purpose of the film is to consider carefully what must be done to prevent climate change. I agree that the question should be considered very carefully. Because you can never turn back from blowing up a pipeline.
How To Blow Up a Pipeline will be released in select theaters on April 7th. If you liked this piece, consider subscribing and sharing. If you have thoughts on this piece, leave your comments below.
Well said, Mikkel! I will suggest that you evaluate this statement more: "The Environmental movement has not adapted to the reality that environmental review and local opposition is now the greatest threat to renewable energy not the fossil fuel industry." This is not accurate. I think you were maybe going for hyperbole? That said, I think the topic of improving the environmental review process is a really important one! I encourage you to dig deeper on that.
Keep up the good work!