In the vaults of the Greenpeace archives in Amsterdam lie over a thousand silver cans of 16mm film, many unopened since the 1970s, which hold the record of a unique attempt to effect global change.
In Vancouver, amidst the cultural ferment of the late 1960s, a small group of friends set out to shift the way people think about the place of humans in nature. Today’s Greenpeace, with its 41 national offices around the globe and 2.7 million members, had its origins in the activities of a handful of ‘mystics and mechanics’ in one small city forty years ago.
What drew me to the story of the Greenpeace founders is that it is the story of all nascent groups. The men and women who came together in those early years were an eclectic gang whose different skills contributed to a group that combined scientific rigour and engineering savvy with beliefs in the I-ching and Native American prophecies. Some were in it for the politics, some for the science, some just for the adventure. But like a band with an unexpected hit song that catapults them to global fame, the media success of their first anti-whaling campaign forced them into a maelstrom, which at times threatened to destroy everything they had accomplished.
Greenpeace’s founders didn’t set out to create an international organisation, but they found one building up around them. The group of once like-minded friends gradually found themselves pulled in different directions by power struggles and interpersonal conflicts that turned colleagues into rivals ‘How can we save the planet’, wrote Bob Hunter, their reluctant leader, ‘if we cannot save ourselves?’ Success started to depend not only on what they did – but on how they worked with each other.
The group had a prescient understanding of the power of media, knowing that capturing the perfect image was the most powerful weapon of all. But their footage richly evokes not only the dramatic actions they undertook, but their friendships and conflicts, dilemmas and decisions - a sometimes crazy mix of psychedelia and politics, science and theatre. In Bob Hunter they found the perfect chronicler of their adventures – a novelist, comic book artist and gonzo journalist equipped with a comic eye and a searing honesty about his own and his group’s failings. Bob’s writings are the backbone of How To Change The World – giving a personal, intimate portrait of events and people.
The Greenpeace founders’ reflections on their own past speak to us about dilemmas, not only of environmentalism, but of all movements for change, and also of the dilemmas of growing up and growing older: the tension between youthful idealism, ego and courage on the one hand, and maturity, pragmatism and political manoeuvring on the other.
At a time when we need urgently need to engage on environmental and wider political problems on a global scale, hopefully this story of one small group of people can get us thinking not only about how we act individually but in partnership with each other.
How to Change the World is nominated for Best Documentary on a Contempory Theme - International at The Grierson Awards 2016.
Jerry Rothwell for Met Film Production, Insight Productions Ltd, Daniel Films; first shown: Sky Atlantic
