Speed.
Progress is speed.
Oil = progress,
therefore oil must be produced faster.
Wait.
Speed is progress?
Whether you’re a tortoise or a hare,
moving from here to there,
progress is simply progress,
don’t get caught in the mess.
And oil is anything but speedy
It moves as slow as molasses.
Progress really means: stop being greedy.
So consume less oil and natural gases,
and we’ll all be more happy and tweedy.
If there was a main message driven home by the films shown at the Re-Frame film festival it was to consume less, slow down, listen, and love each other. Take the film “On the Line” for example. I cannot count how many conversations I have had with people across this country about the insanely rapid push for Oil Sands expansion. I have shown my friends on maps the planned routes for pipelines. I have had intense discussions about land, consultation processes, risks, the economy, China, whales, and the list goes on. Sometimes person-to-person conversations just do not get anywhere. But when a film like “On the Line” comes out—mixing adventure travelling, normal conversations, humour, breathtaking scenery and stark facts—sometimes this medium is far more effective than talking.
I can write articles until my finger joints no longer work properly and I will never be able to convince everyone that pipelines are dangerous and not worth the risk in areas of high vulnerability. However, this failure by my words can be remedied with a movie, a documentary. So I am encouraging everyone this year to listen more and to watch more documentaries. Learning is not isolated to a classroom or a textbook.
