SHellNo! in the Movie: The Race to Save the World

In the movie the Race to Save the World, the story of sHellNo! is mainly told by focusing on Backbone director Bill Moyer (no not the one who does newsreporting).  The movie does not mention that the sHellNo campaign was a coalition of Backbone, 350Seattle.org, BAYAN (an Asian American group) and local native efforts - with GreenPeace swooping in at the last minute and trying to call a lot of shots in Seattle and also wrongfully claiming a lot of credit for the kayaktivist phenomena that Bill had already developed for previous actions.  The movie is already two hours long - but honestly there could have been at least an hour-long movie on this campaign alone.

Not entirely clear in the movie, there were many parts of this campaign.  There was a family-friendly paddle with no blockading, but where many pictures got taken.  There was an attempt to block workers from entering the Shell plant on land (which Shell handled by ignoring it and not calling the police for arrests), and the day the rig left at 5 am in the morning there was an attempt to block the rig.  Also, in a separate action (shown in the movie) in Portland when Shell sent its icebreaker rig down to get repaired. This icebreaker was blocked both by kayaktivists in the river, as well as the 9 GreenPeace activists who had rappelled off the bridge and were also blocking the rig from proceeding.  Not shown in the movie were the literally hundreds of people who participated in planning, moving equipment around, and/or who went in kayaks and risked arrest, not to mention the hours Bill Moyer spent getting permits and the huge  payments for insurance etc.   These are the true and less glamourous parts of a movement.

Overall, the sHellNo campaign was a David vs Goliath action, and this time David won!   At the time of the campaign, the ice was only open in the Artic for a very short window in the summer (sadly no longer true). That was when Shell had to do exploratory drilling to assess the feasibility of a long term oil extraction process in the pristine waters of the artic.  Between the negative attention they got for the campaign, and the two day delay in Portland due to protestors, they lost enough time and did not get the data they needed.  Their board voted to quit the operation!   Bill explained that in the TCAT panel after the movie showing.   While the family-friendly event was not a blockade, it produced those colorful pictures that went round the world in media.  A few days later, while an acquaintance of Bill's was at the White House for another reason, the paper with this headline picture was thrown down, and the question asked "and what are we going to do about this?"  The Obama administration considered it an embarrassment, and so they found a little-enforced walrus rule that s ships had to stay a certain distance apart for walrus breeding. They enforced it, making it even harder for Shell.  But I always like to say that ultimately, Earth herself intervened on our side because the ice reached up and ripped the ice ripper ship so it had to go back to Portland for repair causing the crucial delay.  Because you see....the earth is on our side!