Fuel

Australian born alternative-fuel activist Josh Tickell grew up in the “Cancer Alley” petrochemical corridor of Louisiana, where his mother had nine miscarriages. “Factor that into the cost of gasoline,” he says. “Make the companies pay for that, see how much a gallon of fuel costs.” Working with writer Johnny O’Hara, Tickell has taken the opportunity of his outrage to get onboard the feature-length environmental infomercial bandwagon (or at least its biodiesel-powered veggie van). He’d be better off without the specious economic and historical analysis, the choir-preaching political cheap shots, the blathering civics lectures from Sheryl Crow and the carefully lit close-ups of himself getting teary-eyed or brooding on a beach in slow motion about the environmental consequences of biofuel production. That stuff only delays the cool computer mock-ups of future clean cities and the boosterish but sustainably empowering survey of real alternatives, whose potential is palpable.