Movie: "The End of Suburbia"
Dec. 9th, 2005 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebToday I watched the documentary, "The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream," made in 2004. It was much too long. During the first half I learned only two things:
The first suburbs were pretty cool. They were basically Victorian mansions in parks.
The second suburbs were pretty cool, too. They were set up on trolley lines and were very walkable neighborhoods.
The filmmakers see modern suburbs as beginning after World War II and as being a cartoon of living in the country.
Next, they went on and on about the depletion of fossil fuels. One famous guy said that extraction of natural gas in North America would peak around 1970, meaning that the gas we can find will get more difficult to find, extract, process, that sort of thing. This happened. He also predicted that world oil would peak around 1990, which it didn't because people put it off by ten or fifteen years by conserving oil in the 1970s.
This is a phenomenon I don't understand. People conserving oil? Current US gas prices are lower than our recent peaks, and I heard that it's because demand has fallen. That just seems unAmerican! I wonder what's actually happening. What are people actually doing differently to use less gas?
The filmmaker's conclusion is that suburbs rely on cheap gas and will be insupportable in the foreseeable future. As oil and natural gas become more rare, prices for not only energy but also things like food, which are fertilized with petrochemicals, will become much more expensive. We will need to start driving less and relying more on local resources. One person imagines that suburbs will become the new ghettos, with more than one family in each large house, and the yards converted into gardens. Doesn't sound that scary to me; better than what the characters in Alas Babylon have to deal with.
Except that we won't go quietly. We'll stay in denial as long as possible and go kicking and screaming, electing crazed leaders who promise that nothing will change while they fight continual wars for control over the remaining gas reserves.
Trying to do extra research on the web, it sure seems like people who have a sociological way of looking at things tend to be crazy-sounding extremists. So I won't add anything here about the results of this research.
Unlike most works that try to uncover a scary reality, this movie did include a few suggestions on things individuals can do. 1) When gas prices escalate, realize it's not a conspiracy, and it's not somebody's fault, and it's not temporary. 2) Start now learning to live with fewer fossil fuels. Drive less, look into solar and wind energy so you don't have to rely on the power grid. 3) Start growing some of your own food (in the back yard of course, not the front yard). 4) Try to resist electing crazed extremists. 5) Try to think of jobs you could do that are less global, more local. I'm sure there were more, but they weren't this organized.
The movie had a commentary track, which was kind of nice. With a movie they are trying to line up quotes and video and be all dramatic with a slow build-up and withholding some information until later, but in the commentary they were just talking about what they found interesting.
There's supposed to be a sequel called "Escape from Suburbia," which sounds kind of interesting. They won't feel like they have to spend an hour convincing you that it's really true that life in suburbia can't stay the same, so maybe they can just get right to the juicy bits. Which I'm thinking will be showing people trying to use fewer fossil fuels, create neighborhoods that are pedestrian-friendly, etc.
The first suburbs were pretty cool. They were basically Victorian mansions in parks.
The second suburbs were pretty cool, too. They were set up on trolley lines and were very walkable neighborhoods.
The filmmakers see modern suburbs as beginning after World War II and as being a cartoon of living in the country.
Next, they went on and on about the depletion of fossil fuels. One famous guy said that extraction of natural gas in North America would peak around 1970, meaning that the gas we can find will get more difficult to find, extract, process, that sort of thing. This happened. He also predicted that world oil would peak around 1990, which it didn't because people put it off by ten or fifteen years by conserving oil in the 1970s.
This is a phenomenon I don't understand. People conserving oil? Current US gas prices are lower than our recent peaks, and I heard that it's because demand has fallen. That just seems unAmerican! I wonder what's actually happening. What are people actually doing differently to use less gas?
The filmmaker's conclusion is that suburbs rely on cheap gas and will be insupportable in the foreseeable future. As oil and natural gas become more rare, prices for not only energy but also things like food, which are fertilized with petrochemicals, will become much more expensive. We will need to start driving less and relying more on local resources. One person imagines that suburbs will become the new ghettos, with more than one family in each large house, and the yards converted into gardens. Doesn't sound that scary to me; better than what the characters in Alas Babylon have to deal with.
Except that we won't go quietly. We'll stay in denial as long as possible and go kicking and screaming, electing crazed leaders who promise that nothing will change while they fight continual wars for control over the remaining gas reserves.
Trying to do extra research on the web, it sure seems like people who have a sociological way of looking at things tend to be crazy-sounding extremists. So I won't add anything here about the results of this research.
Unlike most works that try to uncover a scary reality, this movie did include a few suggestions on things individuals can do. 1) When gas prices escalate, realize it's not a conspiracy, and it's not somebody's fault, and it's not temporary. 2) Start now learning to live with fewer fossil fuels. Drive less, look into solar and wind energy so you don't have to rely on the power grid. 3) Start growing some of your own food (in the back yard of course, not the front yard). 4) Try to resist electing crazed extremists. 5) Try to think of jobs you could do that are less global, more local. I'm sure there were more, but they weren't this organized.
The movie had a commentary track, which was kind of nice. With a movie they are trying to line up quotes and video and be all dramatic with a slow build-up and withholding some information until later, but in the commentary they were just talking about what they found interesting.
There's supposed to be a sequel called "Escape from Suburbia," which sounds kind of interesting. They won't feel like they have to spend an hour convincing you that it's really true that life in suburbia can't stay the same, so maybe they can just get right to the juicy bits. Which I'm thinking will be showing people trying to use fewer fossil fuels, create neighborhoods that are pedestrian-friendly, etc.