How to Change the World

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

In the early 1970s, a group of activists, lead by the enigmatic Bob Hunter, got together and formed the Greenpeace movement, initially in response to President Nixon's testing of nuclear weapons on the island of Amchitka, but then interspersed with the opposition to whale poaching in the ocean, followed by the news of baby seal clubbing. The group formulated into a much larger organization, and conversely gained more discontent from the authorities, before internal fallout lead to each of them drifting their separate ways.

When you think of Greenpeace these days, it feels amalgamated with a bunch of other charities, of the type that those in town centres spring out and try to strong-arm you into signing up for. Being an environmentally themed charity, it lay the foundation for the term 'tree hugger' (which is even mentioned in the film!), used in a generally derogatory manner these days. But, in a time when it felt more rewarding to be in a group and try and do good for others rather than the self, this absorbing documentary highlights how these guys went about their endeavour.

Whatever your politics, you can't help but admire their tenacity, setting out as a group in their rickety little boat, risking life and limb to highlight the plight of those further down the food chain. They were a group of men (and women) sure of their convictions, with the idea, as the title implies, of changing the world, something that seems to have evaporated into apathy in this day and age.

Jerry Rothwell has tapped into a part of history that those with an interest in ecological matters and the environment could take some great things away from. ****

My dad was pals with Bob Hunter and he had given us a pic of himself and co-founder Patrick Moore at the very first Greenpeace action. Greenpeace has gone global and exhibits today a lot of the problems of any large organizations where the mission of the organization tends to become growing itself, limiting transparency, taking positions not all its supporters might support, and preserving its own internal bureaucracy. But that doesn't change what Moore, Watson and Hunter did was astounding.