A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash
A 90 minute documentary on the planet's dwindling oil resources. With special guest facilitator André Riopel.
Sault Ste Marie
Friday June 20, 2008
Screening begins 19h00
Venue: Algoma University (1520 Queen Street East) in the Great West Life Amphitheatre (Room NW 200)
Switzerland / 2006 / 85 Minutes
OilCrash, produced and directed by award-winning European journalists and filmmakers Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack, tells the story of how our civilization’s addiction to oil puts it on a collision course with geology. Compelling, intelligent, and highly entertaining, the film visits with the world’s top experts and comes to a startling, but logical conclusion – our industrial society, built on cheap and readily available oil, must be completely re-imagined and overhauled.
The idea that the world’s oil supplies have peaked, or will soon, is gaining mainstream currency. Robert B. Semple, Jr., associate editor of the New York Times editorial board, writes in the paper’s March 1, 2006, online edition:
“The Age of Oil — 100-plus years of astonishing economic growth made possible by cheap, abundant oil — could be ending without our really being aware of it. Oil is a finite commodity. At some point even the vast reservoirs of Saudi Arabia will run dry. But before that happens there will come a day when oil production ‘peaks,’ when demand overtakes supply (and never looks back), resulting in large and possibly catastrophic price increases that could make today's $60-a-barrel oil look like chump change. Unless, of course, we begin to develop substitutes for oil. Or begin to live more abstemiously. Or both. The concept of peak oil has not been widely written about. But people are talking about it now. It deserves a careful look — largely because it is almost certainly correct.”
Semple concludes: “These [are] not doomsday scenarios from conspiracy theorists, but hard scientific facts backed by serious research.”
You needn’t be a conspiracy theorist to see a connection between America’s current obsessions with the Middle East and national security, and the world’s looming oil crisis. The frenzied search for alternative sources of energy now being pursued by the largest multinational energy corporations makes it clear they also believe a crisis is fast approaching. Each day’s headlines, whether the subject is Iraq or South America, sheds new light on the issue.
Special Guest Facilitator: André Riopel
Andre Riopel was born and raised in Northern Ontario. He is a physiotherapist who owns a private clinic in Sault Ste. Marie and is dedicated to transforming the city into a healthy, walkable community with green jobs, more bicycle paths, improved transit coverage and incentives for residents to not own vehicles.
Andre has used his bicycle as his main mode of transportation year-round for 35 years, and is a strong advocate who has lobbied city hall for 20 years to improve Sault Ste. Marie’s cycling infrastructure. He is a former president of the Sault Cycling Club, an organization that promotes cycling for all abilities and ages. This committee succeeded in getting the city to approve a 20 km, multi-use non-motorized trail encircling Sault Ste Marie.
A strong proponent of locally sustainable economies, Andre built the city's most environmentally sound commercial building two years ago and opened a bicycle shop called vélorution. He would like to expand green industries and develop incentives for local farmers to grow organic, non-genetically modified produce.
http://www.velorution.ca
http://www.backinmotion.ca
Directors: Basil Gelpke, Ray McCormack
Co-Director: Reto Caduff
Written by: Basil Gelpke, Ray McCormack
Producers: Basil Gelpke, Ray McCormack
Associate Producer: Linda Litowsky
Editor: Georgia Wyss
Assistant Editor: Florian Nussbaumer
Online Editor: Esther Winter,
Michael Hertig
DOP: Frank Messmer
DOP USA: Daniel Pfisterer
Camera: Jim Bowen, Tim Kos, Richard Grell, David Merkofer
Sound: Robert Porter, Heinz Kurz
Research: Fuad Akhundov, Reto Caduff, Basil Gelpke, Patrick Held, Rolando Loewenstein, Linda Litowsky, Steve Mencher, Florian Nussbaumer, Jeevan Sellappah
Production Assistant: Florian Nussbaumer, Gabriela Padron
Archive Research: Ulrich Tilgner, Steve Mencher, Linda Litowsky, Basil Gelpke, Daniel Richtman, Dave Room
