New Documentary Warns World of Oil Apocalypse

[babylonsister]

New ‘Disaster’ Movie Warns World of Oil Apocalypse

The latest gloves-off documentary to hit screens predicts a global meltdown as vital fuel runs out
by Robin McKie


Oil is ‘the bloodstain of the earth’s economy’ and will soon trigger a global conflict that will cost millions of lives. That is the stark claim of a controversial new film, which says a crash in oil production is about to set off worldwide recession and economic collapse.1105 03

A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash, which opens in UK cinemas this week, shows stark images of rusting Texan and Venezuelan wells and fuel riots in Asia and Africa. Such scenes will be repeated thousands of times around the planet in the near future, argue the film’s makers, who say the world is facing changes ‘more frightening than a horror movie’.

The film is the latest of several polemical documentaries to achieve nationwide release. Others include Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, Michael Moore’s Sicko, and the forthcoming Darfur Now, in which Don Cheadle provides a voice-over about the Sudanese civil war.

However, A Crude Awakening has had a boost not available to the rest. Just as its screenings were scheduled to begin here, crude oil prices soared to their highest level for decades, reaching $96 a barrel last week. Petrol and diesel at more than £1 a litre at UK garages is now common.

‘This is a bleak and very worrying topic, but we have tried very hard to make it entertaining and exciting,’ said Basil Gelpke, who - with Ray McCormack - wrote, directed and produced the film.

And to judge by film festival screenings, they may have succeeded. A Crude Awakening has won prizes at the Zurich and Palm Beach festivals. It is a dramatic depiction of the arguments of economists and geologists who say that the day of ‘peak oil’ has either occurred or is imminent. Peak oil is defined as the time when the world produces its maximum output of oil and enters a period when prices start to soar as demand rises - thanks in part to the industrialisation of China and India - while supplies dwindle.

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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/05/5020/

[Ezlivin]

1. Next, the apocalypse, but first this informative documentary

We'll all be in the theater when the end comes.

Peak Oil, global climate change and the collapse of the dollar. We've hit the trifecta!

[kestrel91316]

2. Yippee!! Peak Oil is gonna stave off catastrophic climate change!!!

The problem is, the massive cuts in fossil fuel use are gonna be INVOLUNTARY.........

Oy.

[Yael]

3. This is available now in the US through Netflix

[babylonsister]

4. Thanks! nt

[ProgressiveFool]

5. this line:

‘This is a bleak and very worrying topic, but we have tried very hard to make it entertaining and exciting,’

seems to sum up the state of the world these days.