From Windsor Square

I rather like the conclusion of this documentary with the punk tune, “Bastards and Swine” intermixed with the closing credits. I suppose the documentary was eventually headed towards this conclusion although the conclusion was drawn before the movie was produced by Daryl Hannah.

This very American film, “Greedy Lying Bastards”, documents the power of big U.S. energy giants fighting global warming theorists through a heavily funded web of AstroTurf grass root “community organizations” such as Citizens United, Heartland America and Americans for Prosperity. They are AstroTurf because there is no real grass involved and are heavily funded by the energy giant Koch brothers and Exxon Corporation. The strategy of big energy is global warming denial through hired guns without much scientific backing. Interesting, if not compelling, analogies are made to the denialists and big tobacco who denied for years that cigarettes were harmful to health. In retrospect and with the scientific evidence available at the time of big tobacco’s denials big tobacco looks very much like greedy lying bastards. This film attempts to put big energy on the same level as big tobacco both of which deny irrefutable truths

We witness a parade of scientists expressing their documented concerns about global warming which emerged as far back as the 1950’s and gained strength in the late 1980’s. The message is stark. Global warming is affecting weather patterns putting people’s lives, livelihoods and health in jeopardy. The facts are that temperatures are increasing, icecaps are melting submerging and destroying coastlines. Ecosystems are no longer where they were. Food costs are escalating due to drought. These are the good guy scientists concerned about global warming while the denialists are portrayed as ignorant stoolies funded by big energy. The facts presented in the film substantiate the heavy funding big energy is providing to deny global warming as did big tobacco in years past. Perhaps most interesting amongst all the conspiratorial shrillness of the film is a Democratic Congressman, Henry Waxman, who does his best in a calm demeanour to warn of the dangers of global warming.

Lest the film sink into an overtly polemic work it makes an effort to deal (perhaps to an excessive degree) with the citizens of Waldo Canyon, Colorado who lost their homes in a wildfire exacerbated by drought. Farmers present a bleak picture of reduced crops due to lack of precipitation and Fiji Tuvalu islanders see their island being slowly submerged by rising water levels. A U.N. spokesman states clearly that the community of nations must work in concert to solve the problem of global warming but that too many countries are worried about how that would hamper their economic development.

The film documents a compelling picture of big energy fighting a losing battle as did big tobacco. Evil is clearly portrayed. The good guys are the credible scientists although I wonder who is funding global warming activism. Is it big environmentalists? The film is silent on this point.

From SF Weekly

One thing Craig Scott Rosebraugh’s documentary Greedy Lying Bastards cannot be accused of is hiding its point of view; it’s right there in the title. Though the connection between energy companies and climate change is established early on through interviews, infographics, and (particularly) videos of natural disasters and the impact of rising sea levels on people in the Arctic Circle and on Polynesian islands, Greedy Lying Bastardsis more concerned with exposing the efforts made by energy company shills such as Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and the faux-Lord Christopher Monckton to discredit scientists and convince the public that the notion of humans having an impact on the climate is nonsense. Unsurprisingly, the talking points are echoed repeatedly on Fox News, and the buffoonish Monckton — who describes climate computer modelers as “typically zitty teenagers sitting in dark rooms with a can of Coca-Cola and too many doughnuts and playing on their Xbox 360s,” because that’s just good discourse — could be the subject of a separate movie altogether, or at least a wasted afternoon on YouTube. At least, he would be entertaining if Greedy Lying Bastards didn’t successfully convey that sinking feeling that we’re in very real danger, and liars like him are only making it worse.