How to Change the World

How to Change the World charts the earliest days of Greenpeace as a group of Vancouver-based eco-freaks and peaceniks improvised their way into starting a global movement, filming the revolution as they went. Drawing on Greenpeaces own vast archives of action footage, Deep Water director Jerry Rothwells documentary spans the period from the first expedition to enter the Amchitka nuclear test zone in 1971, through the first whale and fur seal campaigns, to 1979, when, overwhelmed by their own success, the founders gave away their central role to make way for Greenpeace International. Drawing its themes from founder leader Bob Hunters memoir, the film engages closely with the personal dynamics of the founding group and the strategic rifts that eventually divided them. Still adversarial today among many reminiscing original participants are Hunters unofficial dueling second-in-commands, Paul Watson (who would split to found the still-whaler-bedeviling Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) and Patrick Moore (whose environmental corporate consulting firm is considered a betrayal of his Greenpeace past by many).  Dennis Harvey, Variety