BuzzFlash Reviews
A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash (DVD)
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Oil is at the epicenter of so many issues including our wars in the Middle East and the environment. We have an unquenchable thirst for the black gold, but it is, despite Dick Cheney's wet dream, a depletable fossil fuel -- and a pollutant at that. It does not, like water, replenish itself.
America's suburban expansion became possible due to the oil that makes the gas that powers our cars. It has been the primary source of energy in industrial expansion. Our comfortable style of living requires it.
And countless tens of thousands of people die because of it.
"A Crude Awakening" is a wake up call to even progressives who denounce the Iraq War, but unwittingly live a lifestyle that is dependent upon who controls the flow of oil.
From an online reviewer:
As a film, "A Crude Awakening" is brilliantly crafted. The cinematography and the music are moving. While the message of the film is of utmost importance. For years, environmentalists have been advocating for a more sustainable energy system. In this film, they have their concerns and goals validated by Republican representatives like Roscoe Bartlett, several energy industry investors, and the former head of the CIA - James Woolsey. While "Earth First" and the CIA may seem like strange bedfellows, there appears to be a shared interest in avoiding an amplified global catastrophe that is pulling them in similar directions. I say "amplified" because in many ways, there is already a catastrophe related to oil going on - the megadeath in Iraq, the propping up of dictators, the oil production waste sites in Nigeria and Ecuador, and much else.
Another online reviewer:
This documentary should be one of the most important of this past year; unfortunately it has not received the same level of publicity as "An Inconvenient Truth".
Oil industry analysts and geologists interviewed for the documentary convincingly argue that it's becoming more and more difficult to increase oil production to meet demand--not because oil producers want to keep prices high, but because major oil fields are becoming depleted and no new major, comparable oil field discoveries have been made in decades. Hearing this from the horse's mouth (and not from environmental activists or green energy advocates) does make the case for the urgency of this problem.
This truly is the major challenge of our generation. What many people do not realize is that our lives depend on oil not only for energy. Look around you and realize that all the plastic is made from oil. The food we eat depends on oil for fertilizers, pesticides, and of course for the fuel to drive tractors, etc. In fact the "green revolution" that made it possible to feed billions more on the same (or comparable) arable surface as in the 50's depends on the availability of cheap oil. There is still no energy source as cheap or as compact as oil (in terms of energy per gallon--for instance it takes 50% more ethanol than gasoline, by volume, to run a car).
What all this means for the future depends on the actions each of us will take as the production of oil starts to level off then decrease. This DVD should be on the desk of every congressperson and senator.
From the filmmakers:
OilCrash, produced and directed by award-winning European journalists and filmmakers Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack, tells the story of how our civilization�s addiction to oil puts it on a collision course with geology. Compelling, intelligent, and highly entertaining, the film visits with the world�s top experts and comes to a startling, but logical conclusion � our industrial society, built on cheap and readily available oil, must be completely re-imagined and overhauled.
The idea that the world�s oil supplies have peaked, or will soon, is gaining mainstream currency. Robert B. Semple, Jr., associate editor of the New York Times editorial board, writes in the paper�s March 1, 2006, online edition:
�The Age of Oil � 100-plus years of astonishing economic growth made possible by cheap, abundant oil � could be ending without our really being aware of it. Oil is a finite commodity. At some point even the vast reservoirs of Saudi Arabia will run dry. But before that happens there will come a day when oil production �peaks,� when demand overtakes supply (and never looks back), resulting in large and possibly catastrophic price increases that could make today's $60-a-barrel oil look like chump change. Unless, of course, we begin to develop substitutes for oil. Or begin to live more abstemiously. Or both. The concept of peak oil has not been widely written about. But people are talking about it now. It deserves a careful look � largely because it is almost certainly correct.�
Semple concludes: �These [are] not doomsday scenarios from conspiracy theorists, but hard scientific facts backed by serious research.�
You needn�t be a conspiracy theorist to see a connection between America�s current obsessions with the Middle East and national security, and the world�s looming oil crisis. The frenzied search for alternative sources of energy now being pursued by the largest multinational energy corporations makes it clear they also believe a crisis is fast approaching. Each day�s headlines, whether the subject is Iraq or South America, sheds new light on the issue.
Producer Basil Gelpke explains: �Suddenly, seemingly unconnected news about Katrina and Rita hitting the Gulf Coast�s oil refineries; the ongoing war in Iraq; the nuclear ambitions of Iran; the populist politics of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela; the appalling corruption in most oil producing countries; the de facto nationalization of Yukos in Russia; the steep rise in costs of everything oil-related; and even increasing share prices of companies involved in solar, wind and nuclear energy all pointed in the same direction. Oil is running out, and nobody is ready for the cataclysm that is bound to follow.�
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