"If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst."
- Thomas Hardy
- Thomas Hardy
The film 'A Crude Awakening - The Oil Crash' is the noble successor to ‘The End of Suburbia’, whose crown it steals, becoming, for me, the best exposition of the peak oil argument yet committed to film. Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack’s have done a magnificent job of putting the subject matter into a wider historical context, with beautiful and sometimes shocking imagery, and many respectable speakers. Unlike The End of Suburbia’ this film goes beyond the US experience, being more of a global film. Crude Awakening keeps its focus on peak oil, and presents a well argued, well-paced, and well-edited summary of what peak oil is and what it will mean for us all.
It begins by discussing what an amazing material oil is, how it was formed and how much energy it contains. The message is simple; oil is a one-off extraordinary legacy left to us by history, a material which is so extraordinarily energy-dense that it is little wonder that we have sucked it out of the ground and built an entire society out of it in little over 150 years. As the film goes on to point out, this absurd degree of dependency cannot continue, due to the imminent peaking in world oil production. This is the first film to contain archive film of M.King Hubbert, it is fascinating to see the great man himself on US television in 1975.
It is a film which avoids over sensationalising the material, allowing the facts to speak for themselves. It isn’t overly explicit about what the impacts of peak oil might be, allowing the viewer to follow those trains of thought in his or her own head. For those who feel that technology will provide the solutions, the statistics relating to the various tecnological alternatives to oil, put them into perspective. The film takes you to a place where the enormity of the challenge sets in and leaves you there. It is a powerful place to visit.
I have been following this issue for the last couple of years, and been willing to look at both sides of the argument. As such I experience times when I wonder if the whole Peak Oil matter is a non event, but then a film like this comes along, and wakes me from my slumber, reminding me that the time to prepare is now.
The film will begin promptly at 7.30pm, Tuesday 5th June at the Waiheke Community Cinema. Entry by koha.
See this National Geographic article on this subject.
