Greedy Lying Bastards

Greedy Lying Bastards

Ever since the release of An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, climate change has become one of the most heavily debated subjects in world today.  Of course, the subject of global warming has been an issue for decades.  However, at the same time, the debate has now turned into a he said/she said game between the scientists making the claims and the oil company lobbyists, who deny that climate change even exists. Greedy Lying Bastards opens by showing us the examples how climate change is affecting us right now.  We are told heart wrenching stories of how homes were burned down in wild fires, the land is getting too dry to grow crops, and that rising water is eroding away coasts.   However, despite all these examples and the scientific proof that pollution is causing changes to the world’s climate, the political right, supported by the oil companies that fund them, adamantly deny that anything is wrong with the world.  They spit out half truths and out-dated statistics to try and influence public opinion on the subject. A fair description of Greedy Lying Bastards is that it is left wing propaganda about right wing propaganda.  The goal of this film is to expose the truths among all the blatant lies told by lobbyists, who are only concerned with preserving the profits of oil companies.  This is very much a documentary meant more for activism than objective information, even though it does present its facts in a somewhat entertaining manner. Even though the film gets you thinking, I was not the happiest about how Greedy Lying Bastards is presented.  The film is presented with a “take a stand” tone and encourages you to boycott the output of the oil companies that deny global warming.  Even though I’m a left-leaning centrist and do believe that the fight against climate change is a noble one, I’m not really a fan of extreme activism like this, which I don’t believe does much in the long run.  Also, I did not really like the way that director Craig Scott Rosebraugh presented himself in his narration and the few times he appeared on camera.  In some ways, I think he is no better than the right wing lobbyists he is exposing (except on the opposite end of the political spectrum). The sad truth is that the debate on climate change is not going to end any time soon and, while Greedy Lying Bastards succeeds at making people angry at the right wing’s attempts to debunk climate change, I wish that it took a more objective approach that did not really try to push any political agenda on us (whether from the left or right).  Though, I guess that wouldn’t have made as entertaining a film. 7 | FAIR