MayesFilmAnnotation5

Meredith Mayes Annotation #5 9/3/2011 The Blind Spot Word Count 1,217

The Blind Spot was directed by Adolfo Doring in 2008. The primary focus of the documentary was the astonishing usage of oil and petroleum products in everyday life, the shrinking reserves and our approach towards peak oil production. In order to successfully convey the message of the film, a variety of sources were interviewed about the coming oil crisis. There were several PhDs, which was wise, as people tend to listen to direct appeals from people smarter than themselves. Additionally, economists, activists and even lawyers with self-taught knowledge were called upon to defend the points of the film. However, this specialization led to less emotional appeal from the sources and relied upon images of nature to convey potential losses. Short videos of babbling brooks, forests, people walking through iconic places such as Times Square, and monuments such as the Hoover Dam broke up the monotony of people sitting at desks. Although not all of the interviewees sat behind desks, many were sitting in other venues: a greenhouse, a deck, a creek, which made the problem seem less enclosed in a scientific speculative bubble and more applied to many different types of people, even if they were, in many cases, cut from the same cloth.

The movie addressed many potential changes that will likely occur after oil production begins to decline significantly. The first, and most immediate, effect of the scarcity of oil would be steeply increasing oil prices. Many Americans would simply complain, but ultimately many would simply reply, it’s just oil. Even this simple fact; however, has devastating ripples that would affect many different facets of life. Aside from the problem that ethanol is a net negative energy crop (it takes more energy to produce the ethanol than it does when used), ethanol is currently fairly cheap. An increase in oil; however, allows ethanol to be priced competitively, raising the value of corn and cornfields used to produce ethanol. This incentive encourages farmers to increase their production of ethanol corn which in turn reduces the number of fields used for food production. Lower production values of foods and higher transport prices would raise the price of food in the United States quite painfully, which would lead to further economic problems as Americans cut back entertainment and other consumer-esque budges simply to feed their families. This would eventually disrupt the world economy, according to one economist interviewed for the Blind Spot, as it is tied up in Americans’ ability to consume world goods. And consumption is in American culture, ingrained into almost every person, with advertisements reinforcing this cultural lesson every day. The need to consume is, logically, completely unsustainable, but an entire culture shift would be necessary to adjust American and, to a lesser degree, global consumption levels.

Several persuasive points were brought up in the film. The first was the usage of concrete examples of peak oil production on small scale levels. If every rig eventually peaks and then can no longer produce oil at that level, and there is a limited number of rigs that can be constructed, then eventually countries and even the world will no longer be able to either. Additionally, the consequences of using fields to dig up oil, lots to build gas stations, and incentives to grow ethanol corn at the expense of producing and distributing enough food were fairly persuasive, although an element of “it can’t possibly be that bad,” still likely pervades in many minds. There were a few convincing graphs, such as the world’s population growth and demand versus supply curve of oil in the coming years, but a major point that the film missed was more hard numbers displayed in graphs long enough to be processed. The few graphs that were shown were not shown for very long, as though the director was averse to pictorially diagramming the scenarios outlined in his film. The film further emphasized increasing prices of gas, which can be proven, which was nice, since some of the claims were not backed up with hard numbers, such as the ethanol issues of increasing ethanol farms and decreasing food farms. The theories without such facts would be more convincing if the director had opted to use such statistics and illustrate them. It is easier to see a bar of a certain height and another bar and compare the two, versus two numbers.

The film is primarily directed towards college kids due to the potentially long-term societal effects that may not come to pass in the lifetimes of older people. It also was meant to target older audiences but I feel as though if an adult were to watch this film, odds are they are already aware that there is a problem, which lowers the effectiveness of the message. I think to increase the effectiveness of the message, more concrete graphs. Additionally, fewer disjointed nature shots would have smoothed the narrative out and kept the documentary shorter. This would have been good since the film felt really long and by the end seemed very repetitive. The actions provided by the film were rather limited. One was ending ignorance of the young adults on the abundance of oil, giving priority to food over oil production, reducing consumption, leaving individualized desires behind, and ending ignorance of published statistics.

There are dozens of sites dedicated to peak oil and life after peak oil, but their credibility is debatable. But Business Insider ran an article at the end of May this year (found here: []). Its primary argument is that without another economic contraction to reduce oil consumption, another oil shock is likely to happen in the next year due to demand exceeding supply. As countries ignore the impending peak oil, countries such as Japan who are entirely dependent on oil imports will feel the shocks worse than the strong economies with diverse sources of fuel. The analyst estimates that costs of oil are likely to double, causing a shock for everyone. Oil production appears to have surged in 2010 and dropped back to 2009 values in 2011. Saudi Arabia has lower oil output, a problem when 29% of the world’s oil comes from Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia claims oversupply is the culprit for this oil drop, but the analyst predicts this is likely a cover story. Libya has also dropped production, partly due to civil unrest. Around the same time Saudi Arabia is claiming oversupply, the IEA is claiming that areas such as France are experiencing demand greater than supply. The oil producers are turning to heavy crude oil, which is far more expensive to extract and refine. This measure shows how quickly trouble will be coming. Forbes also ran an article on whether non-OPEC countries have already hit peak oil (found here: []). According to them, the output of oil, even including Libya’s problems, dropped 8% in quarter 2. Most non-OPEC countries were either up or down only a touch, and on average, output fell 4%. Big fields have been declining an average of 5% a year. This is troubling, especially as it coincides with higher oil usages per capita in China and India. The general conclusion of both of these recent articles? Peak oil is either here or right around the corner, and no one is prepared.