The existential crisis of climate chaos offers two paths we can take. We can make dramatic changes that meaningfully reduce carbon emissions. Or we can accept the fossil fuel industry’s self-serving climate solutions—renewable diesel, hydrogen, renewable natural gas, biofuels, carbon capture and storage and carbon offsets. Chasing Chimeras: The Lure of Deceptive Climate Solutions tells stories of people living in the crosshairs of these proposals, working to expose the dangers that these projects pose to their lives, homes, communities and the planet. In contrast to fossil fuel industry solutions, the documentary examines the need to implement verified and trusted renewable energy sources (wind, solar and geothermal), energy conservation and nature-based carbon capture and storage solutions that take advantage of natural carbon sinks such as old growth forests and wetlands.
Chasing Chimeras focuses on environmental justice and climate impacts these so-called green energy projects are having on the communities neighboring these ventures. We start in Portland, Oregon, where the community nearly shut down Houston-based Zenith Energy’s massive oil-by-rail operation along the Willamette River. But when Zenith promised to switch to shipping so-called renewable diesel in five years, the city granted a permit that it had previously denied. Moving on to San Francisco Bay’s Refinery Corridor, we see two massive oil refineries converting to renewable diesel. Back in Oregon, we tell the story of another Houston-based company, NXT Clean Fuels’ plan to industrialize prime farmland along the Columbia River Estuary, by building a massive renewable diesel refinery. These explorations show how city, state and federal governments and regulatory agencies are swayed by the fossil fuel industry’s self-promotion as purveyors of clean, low-carbon energy. Chasing Chimeras scrutinizes how state and federal programs promote and fund renewable diesel, biogas and hydrogen development, while disincentivizing the adoption of proven climate solutions.
CHASING CHIMERAS Premiered at Cinema 21 in Portland on Sunday, April 27
Upcoming Screenings:
Cinema 21
616 NW 21st Avenue, Portland
September 24 at 7 pm
St. Johns Twin Cinemas
8704 N Lombard St, Portland
Wednesday, October 15 at 7 PM
Both screenings will be followed by a panel discussion with the filmmaker and people featured in the film.
Berkeley, California
Chasing Chimeras Film Screening
Ashby Art Space, 2035 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley
Thursday, October 2nd, 5:30-7:30 PM
Sponsored by Food & Water Watch
RSVP Page
Listen to/download the radio documentary
CHASING CHIMERAS premieres on KBOO-FM 90.7 Monday, January 27 at 10 am Pacific time.
Funding for this program was provided by the Regional Arts & Culture Council, the Fund for Investigative Journalism, Mt. Hood Cable Regulatory Commission Community Grants, Steven and Jan Marx, June Sekera and Diane Dick.
Artwork by Kandace Manning
Producer Barbara Bernstein is a musician, composer, performance artist and radio producer. Besides her recent documentary Once a Braided River, her award-winning radio documentaries, internationally broadcast on public radio stations, include two pieces about the struggle to stop the Pacific Northwest from becoming a fossil fuel export hub: Holding the Thin Green Line and Sacrifice Zones; Fighting Goliath (the turbulent growth of tar sands development); Sculpted By Fire (the role of fire in shaping western forests and sustaining healthy forest ecosystems); Salmonlands (the cultural significance of diminishing salmon runs in the Northwest) and Rivers That Were (the industrialization of the Colorado and Columbia Rivers). You can hear more of her work here.