BarnardSarah_Blindpsot

  //Blindspot // | Adolfo Doring | 2008   “The next few decades aren’t going to look like the last few – not at all. And the sooner we come to terms with that, the better. This documentary is a good place to start.” This quote by Bill McKibben, author of //The End of Nature//, is a good summary of the film //Blindspot//. //Blindspot// is a documentary focused on the impending time of peak oil, and what our world will look like when we finally run out of fossil fuels. The film starts with an old Shell promotional video, pointing out that petroleum is in so many of the products we use on a daily basis. This will result in a snowball effect as we reach and pass peak oil, as energy crises will become food crises, especially as global population continues to rise. //Blindspot// points out that we are currently “The Culture of Make Believe,” refusing to acknowledge that our resources are exhaustible and believing we can sustain our same quality of life without consequence. The United States is currently burning 25% of the world’s fuel with only 4.5% of the world’s population, and is therefore a major consumption point across the globe. Presently, the world is not prepared for declining oil production, and until we “learn to count” and acknowledge the many sustainability problems drawn out by the film, we will keep up the faulty premise that we can always keep expanding. When will it stop? Most likely only when there is nothing left.   //Blindspot // largely focuses on the interconnectedness of two main sustainability problems: ecological and economic. As we continue to ravish the Earth in attempts to find more fossil fuels to run our lives, we create an even higher economic dependence on these commodities. “If we continue to burn fossil fuels, we will choke the life out of our planet, and if we don’t, our way of life will collapse.” The huge independence on non-renewable energy sources causes many ecological consequences, many of which have been touched upon in more detail in other films this semester. Economically, however, we have become so dependent on fossil fuels not just for energy, but for making products used everywhere on a daily basis, that it could cause a complete economic catastrophe if we do not prepare for the consequences of peak oil. Agricultural production of food requires high inputs of energy, and as energy prices begin to rise, the market will dictate a rise in food prices as well. Very quickly an energy crisis becomes a food crisis, further fueled by the ever-increasing population on our planet. 3.7 million people in the world are already malnourished today, and these problems will not decrease as energy as we know it becomes harder and harder to come by.  The media is also a sustainability issue closely related to this idea of peak oil. The United States is being advertised into being the world’s greatest consumers. This use of advertising as propaganda only furthers the United States’ consumption of energy, nearly a quarter of the world’s fuel with less than one-fifth of the world’s population. Constant bombardment with advertisements furthering the present quality of life just causes more problems in trying to move forward to more sustainable means. Yet, if some people realize the problems associated with peak oil and the impending energy crisis, why doesn’t anyone else want to admit it? “ You can lead people to the gas chambers if you can just give them enough reason to think that they're showers. You can lead people to the end of the world if you can just get them to believe they can solve the global warming problem by changing a few light bulbs to CFLs.” Culturally, we are so engrained in our present way of life that we choose to live in a “Culture of Make Believe,” pretending that everything will work itself out for the better with little to no input by us. The film also brings up the point that we have “forgotten how to count,” recognizing that we only have //x// amount of fuel left, but ignoring the fact that at present consumption, we will run out in //y// years. For as long as people can kid themselves into believing nothing is wrong, they will continue to live life as usual with little intervention. These cultural and behavioral traits pose an extreme problem to solving the sustainability problem of peak oil. Politically speaking, officials in charge are no more willing to change than individuals, and they generally have even more interest in continuing as is, often for economic reasons. All of these problems intermingle, making it impossible to solve just one without addressing the others. Until we recognize our “blindspot,” we will continue to move closer to the impending energy crisis.   Certainly not an optimistic film, //The Blindspot// was quite convincing about the issues it covered. I was very compelled by the idea of a “Culture of Make Believe” previously mentioned. It was quite persuasive to see that the film focused on the cause of the problem, human consumption, rather than on the fact that we are running out of fossil fuels. Taking that fact as undeniable, it instead looks at the human consequences and implications. The fact that over 14% of US corn is currently going into ethanol production is a case in point; 14% of corn is only making enough energy for less than 1% of US car consumption. We continue to ignore the real issues, not the problem of the fuel itself, but changing our culture to become less reliant on it. I felt the film did a good job of getting across that we can’t just create renewable energy sources, but we must learn to become less energy dependent in the process, becoming more efficient and changing our way of life.   A lot of interviews were done in //Blindspot,// yet many of them simply continued to repeat the same ideas. It was very important to get the big picture across, but the individual interviews became quite repetitive. Also, many of the speakers seemed to be authors of books written on similar topics. It would have been slightly more convincing to have a larger diversity of opinions through the interviews in the film. I also felt that while the message was clear, “we need to change the way we do things,” the film skirted the even harder question of “how do we accomplish this?” While the facts and figures and general information of the film were quite convincing on the importance of the topic, I had hoped for some more insight on how to get people to care more than by replacing light bulbs with CFLs. <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> //<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Blindspot //<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> made me interested to see what type of research, if any, is being done, not on renewable energy sources, but on cultural implications of change. It seems that the main point of the film is that no matter what we do, we will not be able to sustain the type of life we are presently leading. To move away from this without complete disaster, people need to start changing their cultural expectations of the world we live in, which certainly isn’t an easy task. I’m now curious to know what type of research is being done to study the cultural and behavioral aspects of humans related to impending crisis, and see if there are any ways researchers have found to genuinely begin reaching people to change. It seems that up until this point it has taken large-scale catastrophes to reach people, and I’m hoping we can find a new way to begin changing cultural ideals before the energy crisis becomes the next (and possibly last) world-wide catastrophe. <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> I think the film is best for audiences who have some background in sustainability issues. It is not a film I would have wanted to see as one of the first films, because it required a prior understanding of the implications of the matrix of sustainability problems. It also took for granted the existence of peak oil, pointing out the blindspot that we have toward the problem. However, while very compelling to those with a background and prior knowledge, it may not actually convince anyone who doesn’t already admit we have a problem. The way the film is structured “doubters” could just as easily dismiss the information given to them; although this is probably the point, that people refuse to believe even when faced with hard facts. One quote online said that this film should be required for any government official before taking office, and I agree that this is a powerful film to those in power to recognize and begin implementing changes before it’s too late. //Blindspot// may change the way some viewers think about our culture and its dependence on energy, and possibly cause them to start looking at more individual-scale changes they could address. <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> The film very broadly suggests that we need to change our overall way of life to avoid a complete energy crisis. It does not put much focus on individual solutions, but rather on the point of convincing the general public that there is an impending crisis, and that our resources are exhaustible. It tries to tear down the faulty premise that we can always keep expanding, and suggests that we must do whatever we can to destroy “the Culture of Make Believe” that we have allowed ourselves to fall into today. <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> //<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Blindspot //<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> could have benefited from some more individual solution ideas, as previously addressed in question five. The film brings up the problem of getting people to change, but then furthers the problem by ignoring how to address it. There were many good facts and figures that made the film quite educational, but the general feeling of the film was one of despair, and I believe the educational value could be enhanced by increasing upon the fact that we got ourselves into this mess, there must be a way we can change to begin to find our way out. To those who don’t recognize the inherent matrix of problems, they may see that if we have become so dependent on oil and it will disappear, that there is no reason to change the way we are now if there are no solutions. I think to be more educational, the film needs to address some of the ways we can begin to change, not just simply the ways we haven’t been able to up to this point.
 * <span style="color: #404040; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Sarah Barnard | Film Annotation 7 | //Blindspot// ** <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">
 * <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">1. Title, director and release year **
 * 2. What is the central argument or narrative of the film?**
 * 3. What sustainability problems does the film draw out?**
 * 4. What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?**
 * 5. What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by?**
 * 6. What additional information does this film compel you to seek out? Where do you want to dig deeper and what connections do you want to make with other issues, factors, problems, etc.?**
 * 7. What audiences does the film best address? What kind of imagination is fostered in viewers? Do you think the film is likely to change the way viewers think about and act on environmental problems?**
 * 8. What kinds of action or points of intervention are suggested by the film?**
 * 9. What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental educational value?**