I watched the documentary A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash this weekend. It was the first time I had a look at an organized view of how much oil is left on the Earth and how it impacts several things such as the environment and the economy. I think the movie makes a compelling case for a simple point: our future generations will not have the luxury of basing their economies on oil. Secondly, it confronts viewers with the question: are we transitioning from fossil fuels fast enough? For me, even before I watched this movie, the answer was and is NO (chiefly for the energy indepedence that I value for the USA). But after the movie, I'm even more passionate (or frightened) about this. I recognize that documentaries such as this usually have a political axe to grind but I think this movie did a decent job of putting those elements in the background and keeping the issues that impact all of us out front. I'm not so sure the movie Fuel will achieve the same feel but I'm looking forward to checking it out too.
I'm trying not to be preachy in this post. I simply think you ought to check out the movie and come to your own conclusions. Also, if you have a recommendation for a different way of looking at the problem, please email me: eestorblog@gmail.com and in a later post, I'll write about it too.
Update: thanks to the reader who pointed out a key problem with one of my sentences above which is fixed now. :-)
5 comments:
Surely depends on your starting position. There is plenty of oil left and this argument was used in the 70's when they said we had 30 years of reserves left. Nearly 40 years later and we have more reserves now than we did then.
New oilfields and shale oil would see reserves sky-rocket. Yes, it may be more expensive to extract, but it would still be far cheaper than renewables.
It is clearly not an economic case, or a case of dwindling resources, but a purely environmental one.
Films like 'A Crude Awakening' do nothing more than scaremonger and try to make money through fear of environmental meltdown.
Really, it is just a load of nonsense.
Economies are not "based on oil" any more than they are based on coal. And eliminating oil from transportation still leaves a very large demand for the product. Plastics and lubricants cannot be eliminated and neither can the need for large amounts of oil.
If you have Netflix you can watch this via the internet. Or if you are cool like me and have an Xbox360 and a Netflix account you can watch it on your TV :)
To me it is not at all about the cost or availability of oil but rather the cleanliness of the environment in which we live. I am old enough to remember how the spring used to smell, sweet and refreshing. There used to be butterflies and animals everywhere (small town outside of Chicago).
I really do not like the internal combustion engine. Much too noisy, much too smelly.
The issue is not what 'can' we do but rather what 'should' we do?
3 links for you:
http://gnomaedh.blogspot.com/2008/11/peak-oil-quickie-video-summary.html
http://flowair.blogspot.com/2009/01/peak-oil-was-in-2005-final-warning.html
http://www.thefuture.net.nz/peakoil.htm
I will never claim to be an expert on Peak Oil, but these people are: Richard Heinberg, Matt Simmons, Dr. Robert Hirsch, and Dr. Louis Arnoux.
Perhaps we should consider the possibility of EROI and Peak Oil?
Our future might just depend on it...
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