{"id":2431,"date":"2014-11-24T09:25:35","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T16:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/?p=2431"},"modified":"2014-11-24T23:42:43","modified_gmt":"2014-11-25T06:42:43","slug":"i-love-lego-but-i-hate-this-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/2014\/11\/i-love-lego-but-i-hate-this-video\/","title":{"rendered":"I love LEGO, but this video ticks me off"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>Right now I\u2019m in the very early stages of\u00a0a new documentary about the rhetoric surrounding\u00a0fossil fuels, both pro and con. My resume already includes one <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spoiledthemovie.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">documentary<\/a> on this subject, but nearly four\u00a0years have passed since it came out, and director\/producer Mark Mathis and I\u00a0think it\u2019s time for a sequel. So right now, my spidey-sense is particularly attuned to any and all\u00a0rhetorical ploys designed to sway the masses in one direction or the other.<\/p>\n<p>It should come as no surprise then that the following\u00a0video nearly did to my spidey-senses what <a href=\"http:\/\/www.glamourmagazine.co.uk\/news\/celebrity\/2014\/11\/12\/kim-kardashian-naked-for-papermag-break-the-internet\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Kim Kardashian\u2019s bare behind<\/a> was supposed to have done to the Internet last week.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qhbliUq0_r4\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Here\u2019s what I like about the video:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>LEGO. My 14-year-old son has been a LEGO nut since he was about six, and most of the family has followed suit. I\u2019ve spent many happy hours designing all sorts of things with these endlessly malleable pieces of petroleum.<\/p>\n<p>I also like the production values of this film. The LEGO models are great, it\u2019s\u00a0well shot, and the rearranged version of the\u00a0theme song from <em>The LEGO Movie\u00a0<\/em>is clever.\u00a0If I were teaching a class on how to design effective propaganda, this video would be Exhibit A.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what I don\u2019t like about the video:<\/p>\n<p>1.<strong> Like most pieces of rhetoric coming from groups like Greenpeace, this film exaggerates the risks of fossil fuels while minimizing or ignoring the benefits.<\/strong> For example, it doesn\u2019t note that the only reasons humans are able to thrive in the north at all is due to fossil fuels for heating, transportation and food production. It also doesn\u2019t point out that the soccer ball, the hockey gear, the clothing, the fishing rod, the housing and virtually everything the shiny happy northern people are using prior to the arrival of the big, bad, cigar-smoking fat cat oil people arrive on the scene is\u00a0made from oil and\/or raw materials processed using fossil fuels and shipped up north using fossil-fuel powered transportation. Yes, extracting fossil fuels has an environmental impact. There are costs, but there are also benefits. And can you name the energy source best equipped to deal with the problems created by fossil fuel extraction? You got it, fossil fuels. In sum, without fossil fuels, there would be no northern way of life to threaten, and we would have no way to access the pristine wilderness to observe the wildlife featured at the beginning of the video. This video only presents one side of the equation couched in an emotional package, and a highly exaggerated side of the equation at that.<\/p>\n<p>2. <b>The film presents no viable alternative to fossil fuels.\u00a0<\/b>This is one of my most significant problems with the environmentalist movement as a whole: They\u2019re great at criticizing problems but they offer nothing in the way of\u00a0viable alternatives or solutions. The reason? There really aren\u2019t any. I would love to see Greenpeace do a similar film on the\u00a0environmental devastation created by the mining of rare earth minerals used in windmill magnets, for example. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sustainable-business\/rare-earth-mining-china-social-environmental-costs\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">It\u2019s horrifying.\u00a0<\/a>And yet, this is one of the alternatives to fossil fuels that Greenpeace\u00a0champions.\u00a0Now imagine scaling up this social and environmental devastation to replace the portion of our energy (85%) provided by coal, oil and natural gas. The planet would be literally uninhabitable, and every nation would be bankrupt and likely at war. And let\u2019s not forget that the industrial processes required to manufacture windmills and solar panels are utterly reliant upon fossil fuels (with many of the components in windmills and solar panels made from fossil fuels). Not only that, solar and wind are completely unreliable, intermittent, low-density sources of energy that must be backed up with coal, natural gas, nuclear or hydro power, which means you\u2019re essentially adding an\u00a0extra industrial process to the one you\u2019re protesting against. It\u2019s literally the worst of all possible worlds. But Greenpeace doesn\u2019t want to talk about that. Instead, they do the reverse of what they do with fossil fuels\u2013<strong>they exaggerate the benefits of so-called \u201crenewables\u201d and minimize or ignore the social and environmental risks.\u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s the heigh of irresponsibility.<\/p>\n<p><strong>This is something people need to get straight:<\/strong>\u00a0Even though a particular fuel source (e.g. wind or solar energy) seems innocuous or renewable, the technology required to capture and store this energy certainly is not. The capture or extraction and consumption of every energy source involves an industrial process that has some sort of negative environmental, social and economic impact. No matter what fuel source you choose, there is no escaping this fact. And yet, groups like Greenpeace like to act as if this is true only of fossil fuels. To put it in Penn and Teller terms, \u201cbullshit.\u201d The only important question we should be asking is\u00a0which fuel source(s) presents us with the most benefits and the least risks? Videos like this do nothing to help us answer this question. In fact, they make finding answers all the more difficult, because they purposefully obscure facts with emotional manipulation.<\/p>\n<p>If groups like Greenpeace really care about the environment, rather than issue one-sided propaganda\u2013aimed at children, no less\u2013they should\u00a0be producing films and literature that actually educate the public by presenting them with objective, cost-benefit scenarios for all sorts of fuel sources and extraction technologies. And these cost-benefit scenarios should\u00a0include not only environmental factors\u00a0but also social and economic considerations. As it stands, videos like this do exactly what Greenpeace accuses the fossil fuel industry of doing: <strong>sacrificing public interest for private gain.<\/strong> All in the guise of occupying the moral high ground. The fact that it directs its message at children\u2013and uses LEGO on top of it\u2013makes it downright evil in my mind. Particularly the LEGO part.<\/p>\n<p>That just pisses me off.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Right now I\u2019m in the very early stages of\u00a0a new documentary about the rhetoric surrounding\u00a0fossil fuels, both pro and con. My resume already includes one documentary on this subject, but nearly four\u00a0years have passed since it came out, and director\/producer Mark Mathis and I\u00a0think it\u2019s time for a sequel. So right now, my spidey-sense is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1177,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[402],"tags":[464,465,467,466,468],"class_list":["post-2431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-greenpeace","tag-lego","tag-oil","tag-shell","tag-video"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>I love LEGO, but this video ticks me off<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Right now I&#039;m in the very early stages of\u00a0a new documentary about the rhetoric surrounding\u00a0fossil fuels, both pro and con. My resume already includes one\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/2014\/11\/i-love-lego-but-i-hate-this-video\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I love LEGO, but this video ticks me off\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Right now I&#039;m in the very early stages of\u00a0a new documentary about the rhetoric surrounding\u00a0fossil fuels, both pro and con. My resume already includes one\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/2014\/11\/i-love-lego-but-i-hate-this-video\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Hellbound\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-11-24T16:25:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-11-25T06:42:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kevin Miller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kevin Miller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/2014\/11\/i-love-lego-but-i-hate-this-video\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/2014\/11\/i-love-lego-but-i-hate-this-video\/\",\"name\":\"I love LEGO, but this video ticks me off\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-11-24T16:25:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-11-25T06:42:43+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/#\/schema\/person\/db30868033d115f8e9437ff0a41917b4\"},\"description\":\"Right now I'm in the very early stages of\u00a0a new documentary about the rhetoric surrounding\u00a0fossil fuels, both pro and con. My resume already includes one\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/2014\/11\/i-love-lego-but-i-hate-this-video\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/2014\/11\/i-love-lego-but-i-hate-this-video\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/2014\/11\/i-love-lego-but-i-hate-this-video\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"I love LEGO, but this video ticks me off\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/\",\"name\":\"Hellbound\",\"description\":\"Exploring faith and film, good and evil.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/#\/schema\/person\/db30868033d115f8e9437ff0a41917b4\",\"name\":\"Kevin Miller\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/57c261d2c399221c41e4a66d531bd602?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/57c261d2c399221c41e4a66d531bd602?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Kevin Miller\"},\"description\":\"Kevin Miller is an award-winning screenwriter, director and producer who has applied his craft to numerous documentaries, feature films and shorts. Recent projects include \\\"The Chicken Manure Incident,\\\" \\\"Hellbound?,\\\" \\\"Drop Gun,\\\" \\\"No Saints for Sinners,\\\" \\\"spOILed,\\\" \\\"Sex+Money,\\\" \\\"With God On Our Side,\\\" \\\"Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed\\\" and \\\"After...\\\" In addition to his work in film, Kevin has written, co-written and edited over 60 books. Need someone to edit your book? Kevin's your man. He lives in Kimberley, BC, Canada with his wife and four children.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.hellboundthemovie.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/author\/kevinmiller\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"I love LEGO, but this video ticks me off","description":"Right now I'm in the very early stages of\u00a0a new documentary about the rhetoric surrounding\u00a0fossil fuels, both pro and con. My resume already includes one","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/2014\/11\/i-love-lego-but-i-hate-this-video\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"I love LEGO, but this video ticks me off","og_description":"Right now I'm in the very early stages of\u00a0a new documentary about the rhetoric surrounding\u00a0fossil fuels, both pro and con. My resume already includes one","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/2014\/11\/i-love-lego-but-i-hate-this-video\/","og_site_name":"Hellbound","article_published_time":"2014-11-24T16:25:35+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-11-25T06:42:43+00:00","author":"Kevin Miller","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Kevin Miller","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/2014\/11\/i-love-lego-but-i-hate-this-video\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/2014\/11\/i-love-lego-but-i-hate-this-video\/","name":"I love LEGO, but this video ticks me off","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-11-24T16:25:35+00:00","dateModified":"2014-11-25T06:42:43+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/#\/schema\/person\/db30868033d115f8e9437ff0a41917b4"},"description":"Right now I'm in the very early stages of\u00a0a new documentary about the rhetoric surrounding\u00a0fossil fuels, both pro and con. My resume already includes one","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/2014\/11\/i-love-lego-but-i-hate-this-video\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/2014\/11\/i-love-lego-but-i-hate-this-video\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/2014\/11\/i-love-lego-but-i-hate-this-video\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"I love LEGO, but this video ticks me off"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/","name":"Hellbound","description":"Exploring faith and film, good and evil.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/#\/schema\/person\/db30868033d115f8e9437ff0a41917b4","name":"Kevin Miller","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/57c261d2c399221c41e4a66d531bd602?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/57c261d2c399221c41e4a66d531bd602?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Kevin Miller"},"description":"Kevin Miller is an award-winning screenwriter, director and producer who has applied his craft to numerous documentaries, feature films and shorts. Recent projects include \"The Chicken Manure Incident,\" \"Hellbound?,\" \"Drop Gun,\" \"No Saints for Sinners,\" \"spOILed,\" \"Sex+Money,\" \"With God On Our Side,\" \"Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed\" and \"After...\" In addition to his work in film, Kevin has written, co-written and edited over 60 books. Need someone to edit your book? Kevin's your man. He lives in Kimberley, BC, Canada with his wife and four children.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.hellboundthemovie.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/author\/kevinmiller\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1177"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hellbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}