Big Oil's Last Lifeline
A 3-part docuseries sounding the alarm on environmental racism and the petrochemical industry.
BIG OIL WANTS US TO SACRIFICE OUR HEALTH AND PLANET FOR PETROCHEMICALS.
Everyday, the oil, gas and petrochemical industry writes off Black, brown and Indigenous communities as ‘sacrifice zones’. The industry violates laws with impunity and rationalizes the unconscionable – they dump cancer-causing pollution into communities of color and try to cover it up.
Big Oil’s Last Lifeline takes us to the frontlines of the U.S.’s epicenters for petrochemical production: West Virginia, Houston, and along the Mississippi River in Louisiana.
Community and grassroots leaders on the frontlines and fence lines have been challenging the petrochemical industry for decades. While battling their own health crises as a result of the industry, community leaders face down multinational corporations that have unlimited resources, massive legal teams, and zero scruples. And while the road is long, often lonely, and requires tremendous courage, we sometimes get to see the power of organized people winning against the industry in this three-part docuseries.
Building petrochemical plants on top of Indigenous burial grounds and former plantations, co-opting residential and commercially zoned land for their heavy industry and shutting down elementary schools and relocating post offices and community centers…these are just some of the ways the industry attempts to treat working class and poor communities of color as paths of least resistance.
From plastics, to cosmetics, fashion, fertilizer, and more, petrochemicals are everywhere in our daily lives, seeping into our air, water, soil, food, and bloodstreams.
The oil and gas industries are aiming to increase petrochemical production and our dependence on plastics for their financial lifeline to the future, in the face of dwindling fuel use as the world transitions to clean energy. Currently, petrochemical production is responsible for up to 15% of the U.S.’s climate pollution, and per their plans, they only want to pollute more.
The people and communities in this docuseries have been fighting these goliaths with little outside support. But now, following their experience and know-how, together we can build people-powered movements big enough to stop this industry once and for all.