The latest Peak Oil film Crude Impact was premiered at the Emergence Festival at the Cultivate Centre on the 2nd of December. US Film-maker James Wood came to Dublin with his wife Jennifer to introduce the film.
Although with at least as strong a US focus as the well-known The End of Suburbia, Wood explained this was because he feels “the US leads the world in terms of Energy Abuse”. A lot of the same issues we are now familiar with are covered in this film, which at 98minutes is a little long. Oil dependency, global warming and peak oil are explained and covered well with a mixture of interviews, graphics and shots of traffic jams, war in the Middle East and oil wells in the jungle. Perhaps what marks the film out more than anything else is its focus on the environmental and social justice issues associated with the extraction of oil. In particular, the film covers in detail the shocking and notorious story of Shell’s involvement in Nigeria which in 1995 resulted in the execution of Ken Saro-Wira. It was to fight this toxification of their environment by oil drilling that Ken Saro-Wira formed the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) and began his nonviolent campaign to protest the destruction of the Ogoni people and their lands. Ken Saro-Wira, along with another eight members of the Ogoni people, were hung after being condemned by a kangaroo court. We are also taken to Ecuador where a whole eco-system, and a whole generation of the local people have been devastated by sub-standard drilling practices used there to save money. Amongst the Peak Oil experts, Richard Heinberg features prominently, while Colin Campbell is conspicuous by his absence. Thom Hartman- author of the seminal The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight is prominent, his voice lending a refreshing perspective.
Crude Impact Director James Wood at the Cultivate Centre, Dublin
In illustrating its title- the not just crude but frequently brutally destructive impact of the world’s greatest natural resource, largely squandered in the pursuit of profit- the film achieves its aim. It tells the story of the energy basis for modern society graphically and engagingly, and adds some fresh perspectives. In other ways though, it still falls short in moving us much beyond another analyses of the nature of the threat: solutions as such are not examined closely. I was left with a certain hunger for examples of the real structural changes on a community level actually being put in practice in places like Willits, or Sweden, to Powerdown. Perhaps that is because the issue is really still so little understood. In many ways we are still at the stage of trying to educate and inform people, and Crude Impact provides valuable material for this. The film ends with a positive message that we can make a difference if we do what we can to educate and inform as many people as possible about the impacts of oil dependency, and the enormous challenge ahead of us as we move into the downward curve of supply.
See the trailer on http://www.crudeimpact.com
