by Leo Hickman in a Guardian cross post
Here’s a new documentary that I suspect we’re going to hear lots more about in the coming months.
An Albuquerque-based filmmaker called Mark Mathis has produced a film called Spoiled, which promises to expose the “outright lies” being spread about oil by “the media, politicians and environmental activists”. Mathis says it’s now time to “fill up on the truth”.
The film is just starting to be shown outside his hometown – it premiered at the Albuquerque Film Festival in August – but there are scheduled screenings in California later this year.
In an interview with the Farmington Daily Times, Mathis sets out why he made the film:
There has been a string of films that have tried to portray oil and gas and other energy sources as bad. This is the first film that questions the premise…I would describe it as first, a pro-truth film. The truth is that fossil fuels are wonderful…. We’re not addicted[ to oil]; we’re spoiled. We’re spoiled by these resources like oil and natural gas that have given us this incredibly high quality of life.
Mathis says he is expecting and prepared for a hostile reaction from environmentalists:
They’re very committed to their delusions. As the awareness of the film grows, we fully expect that people who are not fans of fossil fuels will line up to criticize the film.
The only clue to the film’s deeper content and arguments is the trailer that is currently posted on the film’s website. The viewer is introduced to half a dozen or so (unlabelled) talking heads, including Senator James Inhofe, all of which help to feed into the film’s central premise of why we need “an open and honest discussion about energy”. (The film’s co-writer Kevin Miller also talks about the film on an Atlanta-based Christian TV station.)
The Farmington Daily Times put the obvious question to Mathis: who is funding the documentary?
Mathis acknowledges that some of the film’s funding came from individuals with interests in the oil and gas industry.
But he said he maintained the film’s independence. “I told these investors they would have no input in the content of the film,” he said. “Some of the content they would like, some they might not”…
Mathis interviews several prominent supporters of oil and gas development, including Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma. Inhofe has been a vocal opponent of measures to combat global warming.
He also interviews Michael Economides, an energy analyst and petroleum engineering professor at the University of Houston, who spoke in August at the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico‘s annual conference.
Mathis said the film is not necessarily pro-industry…
Some of the funding for “Spoiled” came from a Farmington investor whom Mathis declined to name. Mathis said the film cost “several hundred thousand dollars” but declined to be more specific.
Of course, it doesn’t automatically undermine the film’s argument if it is, say, being funded in part by “Big Oil”. But if you are seeking an “open and honest discussion”, as the film claims, then it seems sensible to be entirely transparent about any possible links with vested interests. Having not seen the film, one can only assume that Mathis makes all this clear within the documentary.
What Mathis has done is write “The Story of Spoiled” on the film’s website. He explains:
Frustration is what drove me to make spOILed. I began learning about oil/gas and energy in general after I was tapped by a small oil and gas organization to help them with their media needs in 2002. What I learned blew me away. After years of study and analysis I became alarmed at the deception taking place in the US and around the world. Much of the deception was/is intentional and systematic. Varied groups, all pursing their own individual interests, have misled us. The end result is that most people are completely unaware of the biggest problem ever faced by humanity—a problem that will become obvious to all sometime soon. Instead of giving people the truth and paving the way toward real solutions, politicians have actually made the problem worse.
With few people willing to take a realistic, sobering look at our oil use, I knew I had to accept this mission. The idea of spOILed was born. Now I needed some money. I knew no major oil company would touch this project, but just to be sure I asked a few executives from “Big Oil” if they would consider an investment of this kind. They suppressed their laughter (mostly) and politely declined. I ultimately found the investment I needed from a small group of independent investors. Yes, some of them have oil/gas interests. However, I told these investors they would have no input in the content of the film. Some of the content they would like, some they might not (such as the considerable amount of time devoted to the BP Gulf Oil Spill of 2010 and the Santa Barbara Spill of 1969, and even the issue of Peak Oil).
I know there are those who will attack spOILed because the investment used to make the film did not come from some mythical, disinterested entity. Here’s a shocker—no other documentary filmmaker has managed to find such a benevolent, neutral investor. We welcome criticism from others, so long as they have the integrity to attack our data and analysis, which we believe is sound and true.
Mathis defends his film – and its funding – with passion, but he doesn’t appear to tell the whole story (unless, as I said before, it is explained in the film). He gives the impression that, as an independent documentary maker, he is an even-handed neutral in this debate, with or without funding from vested interests. However, his background suggests this film is far being from neutral.
The website describes Mathis, thus:
“spOILed” is the latest venture for Mark Mathis, who has spent most of his adult life challenging conventional thinking. Mathis’s resume includes a 10-year career as a TV news reporter/anchor, two stints as a talk radio host, owner of a media training business, founder of an energy-education non-profit (CARE), author (“Feeding the Media Beast “), speaker, actor (“The Astronaut Farmer”) and documentary film producer (“Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”).
By CARE, he refers to the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy, a non-profit advocacy group dedicated to “abundant, affordable energy” from which he has drawn a salary in recent years. You really need to take a tour of its website to get a sense of where it is coming from, but, to give a flavour, it includes sections called “smash the watermelons” and statements such as “fossil fuel use in total is estimated to be responsible for less than 1% of the emissions deemed to contribute to global warming” and “scientists cannot even agree whether there IS a global warming trend at this time, much less agree to its cause”.
Mathis, as he admits, used to provide media consultancy to a “small oil and gas organization”. He is referring to the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico, which states on its website that “we educate the public about the enormous positive impact our industry has on New Mexico’s economy, and we challenge anti-industry attack groups who seek to intentionally deceive the public.”
And then there is the reference to him producing a documentary called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. What he doesn’t appear to have time to explain is that this pro intelligent design documentary was mired in controversy which was best summarised by the American Association for the Advancement of Science when it took the extraordinary step of condemning the film’s “profound dishonesty” ( a point also made by Richard Dawkins):
The movie includes interviews with scientists who report that they were deceived into appearing as part of such a production, and advance segments [of the film] broadly depict those who accept evolution as racist and sympathetic to Nazis. Such generalized insults are untrue and grossly unfair to millions of scientists in the United States and worldwide who are working to cure disease, solve hunger, improve national security, and otherwise advance science to improve the quality of human life.
Mathis may well have made a very persuasive documentary in Spoiled, but for him to imply that he is a neutral, independent voice in this debate seems to be asking an awful lot of his audience.
– Leo Hickman in a Guardian cross post
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Sounds like a strawman argument. I think a lot of environmentalists would agree that fossil fuels support our high (& wasteful) standard of living.
Thank goodness there’s finally an outlet for the views of people like Jim Inhofe. You know, aside from The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, NPR, Rush Limbaugh …
I knew I had heard of Mark Mathis before. He happens to be the Media Mangler who ran foul of Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers with that dreadful Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.
Also, as Wiki mentions: In March 2006 Mathis was a co-signatory on a letter, initiated by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in support of an expansion of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Who needs the exposure now Mathis? Certainly not the media for spreading lies about oil.
Spoiled is self-serving propaganda no question, that is what needs exposure.
From a broader historical perspective, the energy properties of petroleum are really indistinguishable from magic. We go 75 MPH on the ground, we fly, we live in inhospitable climes, we’ve been to the moon.
It is not surprising to find ardent defenders of the magical (temporary) world we have constructed.
It is no surprise that a disingenuous clown who claims that “scientists cannot even agree whether there IS a global warming trend at this time, much less agree to its cause” also produced the travesty that was Expelled…. That disgusting film winds up by blaming Darwin for the Holocaust. That’s right, Darwin, for whom the film makers quoted not a single antisemitic utterance, was singled out by Ben Stein (the odious narrator) as the father of the Holocaust. (Martin Luther, erstwhile German cultural icon, hero of the “reformation”, and the author of the vile tract On the Jews and Their Lies was conveniently not mentioned by Stein.)
“The end result is that most people are completely unaware of the biggest problem ever faced by humanity—a problem that will become obvious to all sometime soon. Instead of giving people the truth and paving the way toward real solutions, politicians have actually made the problem worse.”
Is he talking in deliberately vague terms about Peak Oil here????
“with the doves” – indeed! The less we have available the less wasteful we will be – that’s why I’m involved with the Transition Movement, among other things :)
Cheers – John
Just wanna point out that two of the people in the trailer (Robert Hirsch and Matthew Simmons) have BOTH pointed out in either report, books, or interviews the fact that oil production globally is peaking and will begin to decline and that we need a crash program to begin to get off oil RIGHT NOW! I’m almost sure they will use none of that commentary considering the oil industry has spent a lot of money saying peak oil, like global warming, is just a ‘theory’.
I agree with other commentors but I would suggest that people not fall for his bait. Don’t attend the film. Don’t protest the film. Don’t respond at all.Don’t draw attention to it. Other than quitely challenging any mistruths if others do mention it. Very likely it will go the way of Lomborg’s movie.
As Lily Tomlin once said, “I grow more cynical every day, but it’s still hard to keep up.”
It is truly astonishing how good we are at feeding each other BS, and how easy it is for someone like Mathis to wrap a message a non-trivial portion of the public wants to hear in just enough spin and half truths and outright lies to make it look presentable.
As I’ve said before, the people running fossil fuel companies and their supporters are literally selling the health of everyone on the planet today as well as the health and well being of future generations for nothing more than mere money. What they’re doing is no different than forcing every person on the planet, including infants, to each smoke a pack of cigarettes every day of their (shortened) lives, while Mathis and his friends become wealthy by selling the cigarettes.
Fifty to a hundred years from now, when we’re overcome by the immense costs of adaptation and caring for climate refugees, people will look back on these years as the last great opportunity we had to avoid hell and high water, and instead we bought iPads and SUVs and ridiculed those trying to avoid catastrophe. They will spit on our graves, and we will deserve it.
“If evolution was worth its salt, it should’ve evolved something better than ‘survival of the fittest.’ I think a better idea would be ‘survival of the wittiest.’ At least, that way, creatures that didn’t survive could’ve died laughing.”
-Lily Tomlin
While looking over the CARE website http://responsiblenergy.org/about.asp I found this pro-energy comment:
“Let’s get real! Let’s look at the energy reality. Do you prefer the necessities of life? Do you like your car, your microwave, your health and your house? …don’t let the environmental groups take away energy. Most of them have unattainable goals or goals that do not factor in the complete picture. They fight to stop a perceived evil without looking at what else will be impacted. Which portions of your lifestyle–or your children’s or grandchildren’s lifestyle–do you want to give up in the name of saving the world from this or that speculative environmental cataclysm?”
I suspect the belief that environmentalists want to “take away energy” is very common and frequently held by climate change deniers. This is what needs to be countered more than anything else. You can’t take away the TV, the microwave oven and the car and expect to be applauded for your environmental concern.
This is something that we should look into. Do people really believe that in stopping climate change we will eventually be sitting in the dark, shivering under a blanket while wishing we had a TV to watch and some hot food to eat? If so, how many?
I’m not sure that people are too smart to believe this.
Yes, many people really do believe the right wing meme that fighting climate change means either a diminished standard of living or greatly increase energy prices.
That is what they are told over and over and over by many, many different sources all with almost exactly the same message. That message is very, very rarely countered, so it is quite understandable that people would believe it to be true.
(See Joe R’s many complaints about the lack of messaging on our side.)
Margaret Hefferman’s book Willful Blindness< is a recommended read for those, like me, who are often baffled by how so many take the likes of these snake oil salesmen seriously.
“Mathis acknowledges that some of the film’s funding came from individuals with interests in the oil and gas industry.”
In other words with tax payers money.
I’d say that the central point Mark Mathis makes is actually quite correct, if you ignore the one minor little detail that fossil fuel use is rapidly making this planet uninhabitable…
Fossil fuels are incredibly good fuels as far as energy density goes. Gasoline, for example, packs an absolutely incredible amount of energy per kilogram, which is why a single tank of gas is enough to propel a 3300 lb car several hundred miles down the road. And it is this very high energy density of liquid fossil fuels that made possible first cars, and then planes. Our best batteries are still one to two orders of magnitude worse than gasoline when it comes to energy density.
It would be a lot easier to give up fossil fuels if they weren’t so damn good from the energy density point of view. We still have no replacement fuel that can adequately power, say, a jumbo jet. But if we don’t stop using them, we destroy our liveable environment. It’s a classic Faustian bargain.
-Gnobuddy
Mark Mathis produced Expelled? I’m tempted to say that tears his story about this latest film apart. But spOILed should be judged on its own merits.
Let me just say this: When Mathis touts his current film as showing that “fossil fuels are wonderful,” I don’t expect its content to be an example of the false balance that plagues many media stories today. His own words tip us to this possible bias: “Some of the content they would like, some they might not…” I take that to mean that whatever there is in the film that his oil- and gas-industry funders dislike will probably be just a token.