Out of Balance: ExxonMobil’s Impact on Climate Change
Written, directed and narrated by Tom Jackson
I put off watching this film because I guessed (correctly) that it would outrage and depress me further regarding Big Oil’s sway over the planet. I was pleased, however, to see that despite the gloomy, alarming cover artwork, the documentary is calm and clear, presenting its information rationally, without stooping very much (as far as I could tell) to the rhetoric or histrionics of propaganda.
The film’s primary focus is in disclosing ExxonMobil’s steady campaign to confuse the public, keep us from understanding that the current changes in global climate are unnatural and are definitely a solvable problem. For of course, as the world’s largest corporation and largest oil company, if public and governmental opinion were to go against it, that would cut into its enormous profits. The corporation is so pervasively powerful and wealthy that it has pretty much gotten away with doing exactly as it pleases, without having to bother about the ecological problem it has contributed to, says Jackson.
I’m suspect of claims that any one person or entity is all to blame for anything, but Jackson doesn’t make that assertion. He acknowledges that we are all, to one degree or another, contributors to the current state of affairs. He chose EM as a focus because it is the largest of the oil companies. I would have liked to hear about some of the others in the industry, whether they have behaved in a similar manner in order to sustain profits. Talking about only one of the oil giants could seem to imply that it’s the only “bad guy” instead of merely being Big Oil’s top dog.
Still, hearing of EM’s refusal to acknowledge responsibility and its ability to avoid significant consequences has re-ignited my indignation. I remember when the Exxon Valdese spilled its devastating cargo in 1989. The film touches on how the company did more harm than good while trying to appear that it was cleaning up the spill and asserting that the effects were not as detrimental as claimed. At the time, I chose to never again buy anything from Exxon, but over the years lazily slid out of such determined protest. I’ve decided to go back to boycotting EM, and will look into which political candidates have accepted money from them (or any other oil companies, for that matter). It won’t make a huge difference, of course, but it’s the principle of the thing.
I’d like to see films like this and An Inconvenient Truth shown in science and economics classes. Not as gospels or tools of anti-global warming indoctrination but as starting points for raising questions and concerns.