Energy+Crossroads+-+Helinski


 * Energy Crossroads **

1. Title, director and release year? · Energy Crossroads · 2007 · Chris Fauchere, Tiroir A Films Productions  2. What is the central argument or narrative of the film? · Fossil Fuel dependency is at a level that our society and economy would collapse without it, yet we are not prepared that fossil fuels are not an unlimited source and will be depleted one day in the future.  3. What sustainability problems does the film draw out? · Unsustainable use of energy is going to cause a collapse of the fossil fuel supply and drive the need for other methods of generating it.  4. What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why? · The United States is composed of only about five percent of the world population, yet uses one fourth of the total world energy use. o 380billion gallons of gasoline are being used daily in the United States, which is unbelievable considering the fact that the cars that are being used are not entirely much more efficient the when automobiles were first created. § You would think that if technological advancements have allowed us to locate fossil fuels much more efficiently, that some of that technological advancement would be put towards inproving automobile efficiency. · The average of 10 calories of energy beings used to deliver 1 calorie of food to your plate is completely unsustainable. · I am glad to see that this film is going to access some of the social aspects that must be corrected in order to break our dependency on fossil fuels. It is not always necessarily our actions, but more so the thought process that drives those actions as necessary. · 1973 the united states witnessed what happens when the oil dependency gets out of hand when there was the oil embargo, yet today we still did not take what happened to heart. We did not learn that we need to ease on our dependency and are just as if not more dependant today. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The amount of temperature increase and hurricane strength increasing over the past years is a startling piece of information that obviously has some direct answer to it – our impact on the environment. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I found it interesting that the economist did a study on the effects of global warming, and compared it to the economic standings of the Great War which shows how it is going to effect all aspects of life and not purely just the environment. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I like the fact that this film touches upon that the issue at hand is not find new ways to develop energy, but already use what we have and the key word there being, do it more efficiently. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> 5. What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by? · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The mention of a large amount of energy dependency is being shufted towards coal which again is a limited resource, yet continues to touch upon the oil crisis. I believe that either they should have saved it for a segway later on to go onto more about coal extraction of have just left it out. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The touched upon developing the use of fuel cells in automobiles but they do not talk about the expenses of investing in fuel cells, such as the economic expense that come along with it. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">They mention the method of using more than one trash can, but what does that do when households are purchasing more plastic products. What the weight of each of the decisions? o <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Double of triple pane windows, what is the cost versus the payoffs of doing simple actions like these on a national level. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> 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.? · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I agree with the concept of global warming and that it is directly linked to the greenhouse gasses that mankind are releasing into the environment, yet I would have liked to see if they brought that 1 out of 100 scientists who do not support it to speak for a brief second and express his opinions although I do not agree. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> 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? · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The statistics and the brief touches on the output if nothing changes I believe is enough to awaken some viewers of what could happen if we continue to demand the energy at the rate that we do. o <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This could allow viewers to possibly persue other methods of getting their energy for their homes such as investing in wind energy programs, which all the difference helps. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> 8. What kinds of action or points of intervention are suggested by the film? · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Supporting actions in the political level is where most of the change is going to come from. o <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Voting for and supporting new amendments will drive the government to make changes such as ensure that a portion of the country must come from renewable energy. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Supporting wind and solar and other renewable forms of electricity will allow for the dependency on fossil fuels to lessen, taking steps in the right directions. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Supporting technologies such as plug in hybrids allows for the elimination of fossil fuel needed for short driving distances close to the home. · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Simple methods such as splitting trash up amongst several types of trash cans, would less the trash that is dumped into landfills · <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Businesses such as the New Belgium brewery taking steps to making sure that they are minimizing their carbon footprint and accessing all of the sustainable sources that they have at hand. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> 9. What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental educational value? · I believe that showing some of the statistics of each of the renewable energy sources that they talk about would be very beneficial. If they talked about how much energy one windmill, or one solar field created over a period of time and compare that to how many cars that takes off the road would allow for viewers to grasp the concept better if they can apply it to some tangible object. · There were brief touches about the energy crisis in the social sense but I wish that they went into some more detail about that and what exactly they referred to every time they mentioned it.