Feb 28
Mine Your Own Business
Mine Your Own Business: The Dark Side of Enviromentalism
This film is a fascinating examination of the motivation and end result of extreme environmentalist paranoia about the mining industry. In it we see how carrying & sharing environmentalists feel the need to tell people in the poorest parts of the world that they do not deserve good modern jobs and should go back to subsistence farming whether or not it was ever possible to do this in the area they live.
The host of this documentary is Phelum Mcaleer a former journalist for the Financial Times in the UK who grew up in Northern Ireland. Over of the course of the documentary he becomes more and more delusioned with the environmentalists he interviews regarding the various mining projects covered in the film. The ironic thing that not one of the environmentalists interviewed actually lives in the area they are pontificating about, one has never actually set foot there, this is only overshadowed by some of untruths these people spew. The contrast between the actual inhabitants and patronizing mentality of the environmentalists can not be underestimated.
In an interesting twist, a denizen of the Romanian town first covered, tags along with the host to both Madagascar and Chile the other two proposed mine locations. The film of his chatting to the anti-mine types makes for quite compelling television. Its not all doom and gloom however as their are some amusing shots of George hanging out on the beach in Madagascar as his new colleague heads off to Britain, which he cannot get a visa for. He did not seem to be too perturbed to be honest.
There is a good subtitling through out, although some of the Spanish is slightly mis-translated, losing some of its impact. One small quibble is that the host’s Northern Ireland accent can be a bit heavy at times and could use a bit of subtitling itself for those a wee bit hard of hearing or not used to the accent.
This is well worth viewing and is an excellent piece of documentary filmmaking.
