What's On Fire, What's Burning

As Dina and Miami squeeze through the fence of the oil refinery, they are immediately apprehended by Achille. However, before the guard hands them over to the police, he agrees to a deal: the two young women tell him why they broke in, and if they can convince him that they did the right thing, he will let them go. This is the beginning of a journey through the history of fossil energy production, with oil as the ‹fuel of the modern age› at its centre. They tell him about those whose wealth is based on the pipelines and those whose present and future are threatened by the exploitation of nature – from the inventor of the solar cell to the very first climate scientists, from oil moguls and people who manage petrol stations to plastic dinosaurs. The longer Dina and Miami tell their stories, the clearer it becomes to them how infinitely difficult it is to free themselves from something that has long since hijacked every area of our lives – and that it is time to bring themselves into the narrative.

In What’s on fire, what’s burning, Magdalena Schrefel addresses the big questions of social responsibility and the power of action of each and every individual. She describes how we lurch in the face of increasing in environmental catastrophes and of the limits of our own prosperity. The throbbing and knocking of the oil in the pipelines beneath her feet become the rhythm of resistance, driving of the struggle for the end of the fossil age and the engine of hope that it is not too late to make a start.