Filmography
The Big Fix (with Rebecca Harrell Tickell)
Pump
Kiss the Ground (with Rebecca Harrell Tickell)
The Revolution Generation (with Rebecca Harrell Tickell) (2022)
On Sacred Ground (with Rebecca Harrell Tickell) (2023) about the 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline construction and associated protests on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.
In 2014, Harrell Tickell directed and produced the documentary film Pump, which is funded by the Fuel Freedom Foundation, whose aim is to reduce American dependence on imported oil through replacing it with US-produced methanol from fossil gas, compressed natural gas (obtained by fracking) and biofuels. These solutions are promoted in Pump, which includes an interview with John Hofmeister, Advisory Board member of the Fuel Freedom Foundation and former President of Shell Oil Co. The film has The Los Angeles Times reviewed the film as "well reasoned and compelling". The film has also been criticised for promoting fossil fuel production such as fracking and methanol from fossil gas, as well as biofuels, which are controversial due to their competition for agricultural land with food production and high emissions. For instance, maize ethanol is estimated to have a higher emissions impact than gasoline and diesel, once carbon opportunity costs are factored in, and substantially higher emissions than solar-powered electric vehicles.
In 2020, Tickell and his wife Rebecca Harrell Tickell co-directed documentary Kiss the Ground, which is narrated by Woody Harrelson, and advocates for restoring soils through regenerative farming as a solution to climate change and soil degradation. The film has received criticism for its uncritical presentation of the ideas of Allan Savory, a controversial figure who has claimed that the carbon sequestration potential of holistic livestock grazing is immune from empirical scientific study. A Food and Climate Research Network meta-study found that Savory's claims that holistic grazing by livestock can reverse climate change were "unrealistic" and very different from those issued by peer-reviewed studies. Kiss the Ground has also been criticised for its selective reference to Project Drawdown, a respected ranking of solutions with the most potential to combat climate change - the film points out that Project Drawdown states that 13.72 - 20.92 Gigatons CO2eq can be sequestered in soils between 2020 and 2050 due to “Managed Grazing” (0.46-0.70 Gigatons CO2eq per year), but omits to mention that this would only be enough to offset of 7-11% of ruminant livestock's total estimated emissions of 6.4 gigatons CO2eq per year, and that Project Drawdown ranks a reduction in livestock numbers due to "Plant-rich diets" as having the 2nd highest potential of all solutions, with potential to reduce emissions by 78.33 - 103.11 Gigatons CO2eq between 2020 and 2050 (2.61-3.44 Gigatons CO2eq per year).
