Dust Bowl

Documenting interesting TV I watched in the past couple weeks pertaining to man-made environmental collapse.

The above is a compilation of 60 Minute pieces on People preparing for doomsday scenarios but more importantly they focused on the areas of concerns driving the concerns to take so much extreme personal precautions in advance of of the onset of the many all enveloping destruction caused by man-made climate change.

On the flip side of the coin, I watched BBC’s On Thin Ice, an in depth documentary about the Artic 30 action that eventually ended in their capture and imprisonment. Courageous individuals taking on a bold action in one of the most dangerous locations one can find oneself in the most extreme example of direct action to hold accountable all entities causing man-made climate change. There is an excellent two part interview on Distraction Pieces Podcast (Part I and Part II)

“In a thriving democracy we should welcome civil disobedience.” So says Greenpeace campaigner Dima Litvinov. But in planning a bold mission to occupy an offshore Gazprom-owned Arctic oil rig in September 2013, Litvinov and his team of activists seemed to overlook the fact that Russia is not a functioning democracy, let alone a thriving one. Welcome Greenpeace Putin did not.

On Thin Ice: Putin v Greenpeace, a new BBC documentary series, revisits the extraordinary diplomatic incident in which an unarmed protest ship was seized by Russian forces and its crew held on specious piracy and terrorism charges. Over six punchily edited episodes, the show draws on first-hand accounts of those on board and footage of the raid — daringly filmed and later smuggled off the boat — as well as the insights and analysis of expert commentators. At once a queasy thriller and a revealing survey of Putin’s intensified aggression, it strikes a fine balance between entertainment and illumination. This is engrossing storytelling with a serious, professional tone.

We begin by meeting some of the so-called “Arctic 30”: an improbable, international line-up of characters. Among them are Litvinov (who hails from a family of anti-Soviet and anti-tsarist activists), “the general” Frank Hewetson, the intrepid Finnish campaigner Sini Saarela and communications officer Alex Hazel Harris, whose first direct action with Greenpeace this was. – Financial Times

Laks

July 2024

Dorchester , MA