Loeper-+FA+11-+A+Crude+Awakening

1. Title, director and release year? A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash Basil Gelpke, Ray McCormack 2006

2. What is the central argument or narrative of the film? This movie focuses on oil and what it has done to society, cultures, economies, and of course the environment. We use oil for everything and need it for everyday life, it is so valuable and there is such a demand for it, while the supply is decreasing. The movie really goes into the history of oil and how it became so powerful in our society as well as

3. What sustainability problems does the film draw out? This movie shows the problems of oil. This involves issues regarding consumerism, population growth, and globalization. This also goes into economic aspect of how oil is seriously controlling our economy in the US and in the world. There is some talk about how politics plays a role in oil consumption and that politics aren’t doing much to

4. What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why? - The opening of the movie was really impressive and caught my attention. There were very serious images of different regions and what oil has done to their area, including riots, fires, and violence, but it also shows wealthy people shopping with luxuries. o “We actually worship petroleum” o 98% of all transportation energy come from fossil fuels - The images of the oil in Texas o There were the historical pictures of everything and everyone covered in oil and mining the coil o The recent pictures show just rusted pipes and empty gas stations. - The contrast between what was happening in the past and what is now today. In the past the towns in Russia and Venezuela were bustling cities filled with very wealthy and prosperous people. Then there were images of all of these towns, literally just dried up. All of the parts had cobwebs on them, were rusted and the areas were deserted with very poor people living there. - It was interesting when they talked about how oil has really influenced all of the wars in some way or another. It’s so upsetting that humans on this Earth are killing one another for a fossil fuel that the Earth naturally made years ago. - It was mentioned in the movie that the public data is very misleading on the numbers for how much oil the Earth actually still has. o I completely believed that the public does not know all of the true numbers and that the oil companies control so much of the politics and corporations o There was a Halliburton truck that drove by in the movie, seeing that just makes me frustrated because of Dick Cheney. Of course the public doesn’t know the right numbers and the true situation of oil, especially when there are companies like Halliburton and people that work for them like Dick Cheney. o It’s a perfect example of how corporations are way too tied to politicians -

5. What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by? - After a while the film just went back and forth between old commercials and videos and just flashes of images, like random cars on a highway and just stores and people shopping. It was old images/videos/commercials for a while with random images of people and life today. o There is really way too much focus on the past; they are even showing images of footage from elections from twenty years ago. I don’t feel that it’s an effective way of showing how politics is a problem in the fight against oil. - It wasn’t very useful for the movie to continuously talk about a whole bunch of countries and their peak oil times. They went on for a while about the peak oil times of all the different countries and just showed images of Middle Eastern people and oil rigs. It was difficult to pay attention and really understand why they made such a big deal about the peak oil times for each of the countries. I would think that other topics would be more important, like what it is doing to cultures and people, what it’s doing for the environment and sustainability issues. Instead they focused on talking more and more about peak oil times. - Some of the images were really corny and almost comical. o There was one part where someone said, “China is about to have a hard landing” and the movie showed an image of a plane landing. o Another example was they were talking about the peak oil and we’re reading the peak and they kept on showing images of mountain peaks. o It was silly to have these images when people were saying that and it made me roll my eyes and not take them seriously - I’m so frustrated in listening to their solutions! They take all of the alternative energy ideas and just put all of them down and say how each one of them won’t work. It’s obvious o They have a label that says, “Life after the peak” and they just show all of these images of Amish people. They are really discussing how a horse is an alternative of a car. They trash every alternative energy idea and then they talk about how horses are more affectionate with cars. They can’t be serious?

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.? - This movie is even more relevant now because of the oil rig that blew up and sank off the coast of southern US. It really proves how dependent we are in oil and the troubles that we have and will run into in the future. - I would like to know more about some of the successful/unsuccessful cities around the world and what happened to them. I would have liked to have seen interviews with the people there to find out what happened in their communities, especially if their families were there for a couple generations.

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? I think this movie is directed more towards the general public and for people that don’t know much about oil or are not convinced that there is a problem. This movie is really trying to convince the viewer that oil is a serious problem, and for someone that already realizes this, it is very redundant. So much effort is put on the history of oil and trying to show the viewer that there is a problem. They also go into no detail about the alternative energy choices and just say how it will never work.

8. What kinds of action or points of intervention are suggested by the film? - Once oil is depleted we are going to have to make technologies, we won’t have a choice o They talk about the hybrid car § Even if every car on the road is a hybrid, we will still be consuming the same amount of oil because of the economic/population growth o There is also talk about hydrogen power, but it’s difficult to get the technologies made because there is no demand for it. They believe that it will be 30-50 years for hydrogen power to be feasible. o They believe that biomass is very inefficient and that there is really no hope in this type of alternative energy o They also talk about nuclear energy and how expensive it is and the amount of nuclear waste that is being produced o Wind is also mentioned and all they say is how insignificant it is and how it will never amount to what we actually need o They say that there is enough sunlight to use for energy, BUT we don’t have the technologies for it and that it is a huge technological challenge - After saying negative things about every single type of energy, they finally say that it will need to be all of the types of energy.

9. What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental educational value? I would have liked if more time was spent on the current time and the future rather than looking back on the history. It’s good to see the history and see the people, companies, and places that were influential and important to the oil generation, however, the movie became more of a history lesson rather than focusing on sustainable issues. Instead of having all of the cartoons/commercials/videos from the past, it would have been more educational if they focused more on the current time and future with facts/figures/maps and solutions to these problems. They barely talked about the alternative energy options and the only thing they really said about it was that they won’t work. It would have been so much more educational if they actually talked about the options and instead of saying one sentence on how it will need to be all of them combined, they should have went into more detail about all of the other options. Other movies are inspiring to make changes and help the problems, this is just depressing and basically says that we will be forced to live like Amish people in the very near future.