The Oil Machine
review

As protests against the fossil fuel industry continue to go viral in the news media, Emma Davie’s documentary makes for a valuable resource on the historical background as well as the environmental ramifications of oil drilling in the North Sea. Featuring interviews with those from both sides of the issue, who include environmental experts, executives of oil corporations as well as student activists, the film captures how the black gold permeates every aspect of our daily life.

The expert voices here describe how Britain’s dependence on the oil industry is a relatively new phenomenon, escalated in the 1970s by the discovery of oil reserves in the Forties field off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland. Following the mass privatisation of these assets under Margaret Thatcher’s government, this natural resource became the lifeblood behind the functioning of Britain as a nation, providing employment, enabling the production of consumer goods, and much more. The film moves on to discuss the bigger picture: how the environmental changes resulting from this ceaseless, industrial extraction of oil lead to increased flooding and natural disasters in countries such as Bangladesh and Vietnam. As millions of barrels of oil are produced every day, individual While the doomed picture painted by the documentary is harrowing, The Oil Machine succeeds in demonstrating how the global reliance on oil has not always been the norm. Considering the wealth of information, it is a shame that the film’s visual style is rather conventional and the use of music awkward and distracting. As an educational tool, however, this is a timely reminder for viewers to not only recognise the omnipresence of oil-based products but toresponsibility is simply not enough to make a difference. There can be no more hiding, and no more denying. Global heating is supercharging extreme weather at an astonishing speed.

 

Guardian analysis recently revealed how human-caused climate breakdown is accelerating the toll of extreme weather across the planet. People across the world are losing their lives and livelihoods due to more deadly and more frequent heatwaves, floods, wildfires and droughts triggered by the climate crisis.

At the Guardian, we will not stop giving this life-altering issue the urgency and attention it demands. We have a huge global team of climate writers around the world and have recently appointed an extreme weather correspondent.

Our editorial independence means we are free to write and publish journalism which prioritises the crisis. We can highlight the climate policy successes and failings of those who lead us in these challenging times. We have no shareholders and no billionaire owner, just the determination and passion to deliver high-impact global reporting, free from commercial or political influence.

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protests against the fossil fuel industry continue to go viral in the news media, Emma Davie’s documentary makes for a valuable resource on the historical background as well as the environmental ramifications of

oil drilling in the North Sea. Featuring interviews with those from both sides of the issue, who include environmental experts,

executives of oil corporations as well as student activists, the film captures how the black gold permeates every aspect of our daily life.

The expert voices here describe how Britain’s dependence on the oil industry is a relatively new phenomenon, escalated in the 1970s by the discovery of oil reserves in the Forties field off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland. Following the mass privatisation of these assets under Margaret Thatcher’s government, this natural resource became the lifeblood behind the functioning of Britain as a nation, providing employment, enabling the production of consumer goods, and much more. The film moves on to discuss the bigger picture: how the environmental changes resulting from this ceaseless, industrial extraction of oil lead to increased flooding and natural disasters in countries such as Bangladesh and Vietnam. As millions of barrels of oil are produced every day, individual responsibility is simply not enough to make a difference.

NEW Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been warned that urgent support is needed to help North Sea oil and gas workers transition to renewable industries. 

 

The warning has been given by prominent environmental lawyer Tessa Khan who features in a documentary about the industry which receives its Scottish premiere this week. 

The Oil Machine by Edinburgh-based filmmaker Emma Davie explores the conflicting imperatives around North Sea fossil fuels and asks how the industry can be dismantled or repurposed. 

“We either put off thinking about it and it collapses or we manage it now,” Khan told the Sunday National. “The Government has to stop expanding oil and gas production in the UK, stop digging the hole deeper, and give the workforce the certainty it needs about the inevitable transition away from oil and gas.” 

She said it was “incumbent” on the Government and industry executives to make sure workers had the training and skills support they needed to transition into a “potentially massive” and “world-leading” offshore wind industry in Scotland. 

“There are surveys of the workforce that show the vast majority would consider leaving if they had support because they know it is not an industry that has a future and of course they are worrying about climate change as well,” Khan added. 

She spoke as a report from the International Energy Agency acknowledged that the global energy crisis will hasten the end of the fossil fuel industry. For the first time in the agency’s history, it reported that global demand for fossil fuels was exhibiting “a peak or plateau”. 

The analysis follows its statement last year that lower demand and a rise in low-emission fuels make new oil and gas fields unnecessary – yet the UK Government, under Liz Truss’s short-lived premiership, issued 100 new licences for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea. 

Now Sunak has indicated he wants a moratorium on onshore windfarms in England and Wales to follow the ban on new solar farms, even though a UN report last week said that current global policies are putting the world on track for catastrophic global warming of 2.8C. 

“This new [UK] government is hugely worrying as they seem to be going in exactly the wrong direction on every count,” said Khan. 

“Wind and solar are nine times cheaper than gas but we have the highest energy bills of any country in western Europe because we are so dependent on gas. We could be going so much further in displacing gas from our energy supply yet the Government is ideologically opposed to it. It just doesn’t make sense.” 

She said it was clear from reports from organisations like the authoritative IPCC that even existing coal, oil and gas fields will result in temperature rises exceeding the 1.5C legally binding target agreed in Paris in 2015. 

“Even at 1.1C degrees of warming, which is where we are now, we are in pretty deep trouble so the idea of exceeding 1.5C is one that we have to avoid at all costs,” said Khan. 

Asked why she thought the Tory government was so opposed to transitioning from fossil fuels, she pointed out that the industry was a “powerful political actor in the UK”. 

“That is why we have this incredibly generous tax regime that makes the UK the most profitable country in the world for big oil and gas projects, even though the North Sea is geologically challenging for exploration,” Khan pointed out. 

Just last week, oil and gas giant Shell posted profits of $9.5bn (£8.2bn) between 

July and September, more than double the amount it made during the same period a year earlier. 

It now intends to increase its share dividends by around 15%, taking the total payout to Shell shareholders to $26bn (£22.4bn) so far this year. 

The news has triggered growing pressure for a greater windfall tax on energy firms to pay for the UK’s energy price freeze, brought in by Truss. 

The new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has ruled that the £2500 average dual fuel energy price cap will be reduced from the original two-year period to just six months and there is no indication the Sunak Government will break from Truss’s insistence that the cap will not be funded by a windfall tax on energy firms. 

Government is taking decisions that are totally irrational and not in the interests of the UK public.” 

'The Oil Machine' Review: The argument for Just Stop Oil

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The tactics of those taking part in Just Stop Oil protests across Europe and the world have been called into question for many months, and whilst they can be debated week-on-week, the fact remains that the cause they are fighting for grows evermore concerning. Concerns about the environment, animal agriculture, and continued oil usage need to be addressed sooner rather than later, and Emma Davie’s new documentary The Oil Machine helps to explain these issues with a comprehensive yet concise study. 

 

Certainly feeling like the context that the Just Stop Oil cause has been dearly craving for so long, Davie’s solemn documentary is a far cry from the repetitive style of Netflix’s flashy contemporary documentaries, offering little more than the brutal facts of climate change’s steady destruction. That’s not to say Davie’s film lacks flair; it merely prefers the view of graphs and talking heads rather than the slow panning shots of oil refineries that it sparingly uses to great effect. Instead, Davie’s film is a comprehensive document as detailed and as daunting as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, laying out the realities of the climate crisis with little room for flashy editing and cinematic glitz.

 

Coming in at a humble 82 minutes, Davie’s film is as consumable as any excellent TV documentary, with the extra 20 minutes adding some hefty weight that underlines the true severity of the global situation. Thanks to its sheer pertinence, The Oil Machine is essential viewing for everyone from young students to governmental policymakers. It makes for bleak viewing, but it’s mesmerising in its delivery, making you rigid with worry and then alert with proactivity. 

 

Whilst it is a riveting breakdown of how the influence of the black goo has seeped into every corner of contemporary British (and global) capitalism, it would benefit from providing a spectrum of voices from across the industry. Sure, it goes one step further than other chastising environmental documentaries by providing a counter-argument from industry experts. Still, it could have done with some diversity to be fair, balanced and truly compelling. 

 

Still, it’s hard for a documentary of this kind to be truly balanced when the action it’s calling for is being so intentionally ignored by governments who treat the issue like an inconvenient truth. Indeed, the rhetoric against Just Stop Oil and similar campaigns is either overwhelmingly negative or deliberately disregarded, so it doesn’t feel like too much wrongdoing is being done by finally shining a light on the importance of the provocative protest movements. 

 

This is especially true for The Oil Machine too, which nicely avoids the pitfalls of similar environmental documentaries like Seaspiracy, fact-checking their sources whilst refusing to force any hidden agenda. As it is, Emma Davie’s film is a call for drastic action regarding climate change, demanding that the government do more than merely use reusable cups, as suggested recently by the Secretary of State for Environment, Thérèse Coffey. 

 

It might make for a tough watch, but it’s undeniable that The Oil Machine makes for mandatory viewing.