The Age of Stupid: Franny Armstrong: Review

If climate change sceptics were not behind the hacking and distribution of the emails then they were certainly quick to use the material to throw doubt on the claim that current global warming is caused by humans pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, something the IPCC acknowledges as “90% certain”.

Saudi Arabia’s lead climate negotiator Mohammad Al-Sabban said: “It appears from the details of the scandal that there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change.”

The emails were not helpful but they do not refute a massive body of scientific research pointing in one direction; namely that unless action is taken over the next ten years to keep global temperatures to a 2°C rise, we will witness runaway climate change with incalculable social and economic consequences – all of them bad.

The Age of Stupid, on cinema release since March but now out on DVD, is the perfect antidote to this organised scepticism. The 90 minute film does not focus on the science of climate change but rather it ongoing effects, as well as the politics and economics of fossil fuel capitalism.

The film opens in 2055 with actor Pete Postlethwaite playing a man in charge of an international media archive. He scans video footage from around 2008 which reveals the deepening effect of global warming: Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the rapid melting of Alpine glaciers in France. He also looks back at reports of how Shell ruined the Nigerian deltas with oil spillages and at the same time failed to fulfil their promises of using oil wealth to invest in homes, jobs and services for the local communities. The film pulls no punches about the culpability of Shell and other oil multinationals in turning a blind eye – at the very least – to the murderous repression of Nigerian communities that dared to protest against the government and oil companies activities.

And he follows the frustrating and ultimately fruitless attempts of a Cornish green entrepreneur to establish a wind farm against the objections of middle class nimby local residents.

The first half of the film is very good at making the links between the oil industry and global warming, as well as showing how the invasion and occupation of Iraq was a war to control valuable sources of oil in the middle east. It avoids hectoring but rather subtlety raises several important issues that do not have easy answers.

By following the documentary character Jeh Wadia, who is preparing to launch India’s version of Easyjet, we are forced to confront the morality of preventing millions of Indians from being able to travel around their sub-continent, quickly, safely and reasonably cheaply.

Also we meet an oil industry paleontologist, Alvin Duvernay who remains a supporter of his employer (Shell) despite losing all he possessed when his home was trashed by Hurricane Katrina; he acknowledges Katrina was a function of global warming caused by carbon emissions, but retains belief that oil still has a part to play and backs the industry’s record in investing in renewables.

The Age of Stupid is weakest when it comes to setting out answers. There is no real sense of what agency can force through change, although the film is clearly not optimistic that government leaders have the will or capacity to set the right course. There is no mention of nuclear power and whether this has a role in a green emergency renewable energy plan. There is no sense of the urgency and timescale we have between 2008 and 2055 before we cross an irreversible tipping point.

In fact the politics are left to the accompanying extra DVD and the website that promotes the film. These seek to sign people up to the 10:10 campaign launched over the summer – to get every one to agree to cut their carbon footprint by 10% in 2010. It is a pity that more of the campaigning message did not find its way into the film itself.

Still, a good film to see and to show, in schools, trade unions, community groups and get the debate moving along.

Mon 08, March 2010 @ 17:03