Gas (produced in Canada, consumed in Canada & elsewhere)
Tablet videogame (2013): a documentary about laying gas pipelines across Canada is made for TV. To compliment it, a computer game is commissioned. It's based on the documentary's research and the Pipe Mania game that came free with every copy of Windows 3.1. Your task? To lay a pipe from one side of the screen to the other. Keep you boss & local farmers happy. Make money. Get bombed by 'ecoterrorists'. Training eco-terrorists was sick. Critics said. But had they played the game? Click for more...
Oil (produced in Caspian Sea, consumed in Europe)
Popular book (2012): authors James Marriott and Mika Minio-Paluello travel the length of the 'oil road' taking crude oil from the Caspian Sea to refineries in Europe and, from there, into the region's cars, buses, & other oil-burning machines. This is not a dry account of the region's 'energy security' and oil geopolitics. It's a vivid piece of industrial travel writing. They find this oil's human stories, secret places and complex connections, and companies and governments that don't want them to be revealed. Click for more...
Oil (produced in Nigeria, consumed worldwide)
Coffee table book (2008): photojournalist Ed Kashi visits the oilfields of the Niger Delta to document the consequences of 50 years of oil extraction on people and environment. His photographs are published in a book edited by geographer Michael Watts containing essays by prominent Nigerian journalists and human rights activists, and Watts himself. It looks and feels like a coffee table book: hardback, large glossy photos, and text. It's a thing of beauty, but its subject matter is very far from 'beautiful'. Click for more...
Oil (produced in Ecuador, consumed worldwide)
Documentary film (2009): 30,000 people living in Ecuador's remote Amazon rainforest are taking oil producer Chevron to court in the US over the dumping of toxic waste that has (allegedly) ruined their environment, livelihoods and health. Filmmaker Joe Berlinger follows the case, as it grows 'from a little known legal story into an international cause célèbre'. Click for more...