Another Green Issue
This is our annual green issue. Our magazine has been
publishing editorial on sustainability and the environment long before it was
fashionable. We have interviewed such key figures as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
Jane Goodall and John Robbins, going back as far as the ’80s.
....Today it seems that everyone has jumped on the
environmental bandwagon. Industries that pollute and endanger our health and
the environment even claim to be “green.”
Sustainability is
the word that is the key to preserving a quality of life for all. Oil has
transformed the world in merely a few decades. We have built civilization
around this important resource, but we are on the precipice of a catastrophe of
global proportions.
A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash, an
award-winning documentary by Basil
Gelpke and Ray McCormack, covers the many-faceted viewpoints of scientists, oil
executives, public servants and geological experts on the history and future of
oil. The film, available now on Amazon and Netflix, charts the peak of oil
exploration and availability of oil and projects how quickly we are going to
reach an oil crisis of monumental proportions. This film is riveting because it
explores the viewpoints of experts on all sides of the issues, not just those
leaning left or right. In fact, the unbiased filmmaking is what makes this film
so powerful.
For decades,
environmentalists have been sounding the alarm that oil has peaked and
therefore we must conserve our resources and explore sustainable sources of
energy. Efforts to find alternatives have given many of us reason to be
hopeful. However, A Crude Awakening points out that using compact fluorescent
light bulbs, driving hybrid cars, nuclear energy, ethanol, biomass and wind
power will only put a tiny dent in the amount of energy required to fuel our
needs. A Crude Awakening describes why these options to crude oil are
insignificant in our quest to replace the billions of barrels of oil that we
use to fuel our cars, trucks and planes, fertilize our fields, transport our
food to cities, power our homes and farms, cook our meals and run our
factories. Many household and personal products and building supplies that we
use every day are also made from petrochemicals.
Given the enormous
growth of industry, transportation and population in countries like
We are dangerously dependent on crude oil.
Despite gas prices at the pump, the film points out that the price of oil is
very cheap—in fact, it is cheaper than bottled water or coffee. Other
alternatives to oil are expensive, and there is no infrastructure to make them
readily available to the masses. Options such as ethanol require other fuels to
produce them and are diverting costly corn crops to dubiously expensive fuel.
Our own oil fields in the
Despite the
warnings of experts from the diverse perspectives, no one can deny that the big
business of oil has contributed to the instability in
The decision to
remain dependent on crude oil forces our country into political positioning
with corrupt rulers in order to have access to the last drop of their oil and
remain in perpetual war to secure the last reserves of oil in countries that don’t
want to sell to us.
Middle East
officials interviewed in this film describe virtually the same situation—that
we will need a miracle and the best minds in the world working together—to find
a solution to the problem of what to replace oil with when our reserves run dry
and our financial markets crumble. The experts interviewed in this film
describe a terrible scenario in which we may approach the end of our oil supply
as early as 2020.
This countdown is
in our midst. This is an election year. It is up to us to wake up before it’s
too late and to vote to put leaders into power that will fund research for
alternatives to oil and stop propping up corrupt dictators and regimes in other
countries that supply oil. We are merely extending the inevitable.
We must think
about what kind of world we are leaving for our children. Do we continue
business-as-usual as we approach the point of no return or do we invest in
scientific research before it is too late? Do we hold our representatives
responsible for the decisions they make with our future? What kind of message
do our “oil men” leaders send the world when we continue to flex our military
muscle to threaten the oil-producing countries and fail to support the Kyoto
Protocol? Why are we giving away tax dollars to the oil companies and corn
producers? Are we so accustomed to living and spending beyond our means that we
are blind to the impact we are having on the earth? We over-consume, over-fish
and pollute our air, with no end in sight. If we don’t reverse our habits and
invest in new technology to solve our addiction to oil, modern life will
collapse as early as 2020.
Don’t miss this film. It will leave you
feeling that we all must take action immediately. We don’t have any time to
spare.
Published: April 06, 2008
Issue: 2008 Spring Green Issue
