jani_crude_impact

** 1)  **  Title, director and release year?    I am annotating a movie “crude impact”, released in 2006 and directed by James Jandak Wood.    **  2)  **  What is the central argument or narrative of the film? The central argument for this movie is to show impact of oil on human society in general. The movie begins reporting scary picture of “massive profits”, and “concentration of wealth”. However, movie fails to support any of these claims. The movie represented social, environmental, financial, and political impact of oil drilling all over the world. The movie argues that it is possible to create a better world by eliminating oil supply and consumption; artificially if necessary. This claim sounds farther from the truth. ** 3)  **  Who are the key social actors and stakeholders in the film?     The key social factors in this movie are as usual. On the one side of the argument, there are oil companies who have some serious and frequent safety and health infraction in foreign countries. On the other side of the argument, there are good people who really want to change the world for better, some who believe in global warming, some manipulative environmentalists, and college kids who believe in dooms day. This movie fails to mention those who are none of above i.e. people who do not believe in apocalyptic scenario but believe that oil companies like anyone else should be subject to law.     **  4)  **  What does the film convey about the matrix of factors that contribute to our dependence on oil? There is only one factor that mandates use of oil. Oil is easily accessible and we can afford it. This is the best energy resource we have found so far, given that molten salt reactors are not considered. ** 5)  **  What does the film convey about the matrix of problems caused by our dependence on oil?     This movie mentions environmental degradation, oil wars, political instability, population growth and global warming. I agree with all of them but global warming and population growth.     **  6)  **  What does the film convey about the matrix of affects that would be mobilized by a shift away from oil? This movie does not particularly emphasize any specific energy source but send a message about reducing our energy consumption. Movie shows pictures of wind mill and solar panels but does not discuss them. ** 7)  **  What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?     Despite socialist suggestions throughout this movie, I found two points convincing. Texaco in Uruguay and British Petroleum in Nigeria have created massive environmental disasters using collusion with government in that region. This should not have happened in the first place. Now, whose fault is it? Is this a fault of an oil company or the fault of the government who will sell anything to oil company for a few thousand dollars of bribe? Providing rule of law is the fundamental function of the government, and governments all over the world do not like to do that. Governments in those countries could have stopped those disasters by providing rule of law to the citizens, but governments decided to take bribe instead of providing rule of law. However, if you ask a socialist, government is always right, just put “right” bureaucrats in the place and everything is all right! ** 8)  **  What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by? Why?      1.   This movie says at 4:38 that as oil becomes scarce and prices go up, the human suffering will increase. This contradicts its own fundamental assumption that more oil consumption creates devastation.       2.   This movie at 86:25 suggests  power of women in the culture inhibits population growth. This is correct. However, this movie does not make a correlation between power of women in culture and wealth in the society. Wealthier societies tend to have powerful women. Why not mention that? Is it because wealth creation requires fossil fuels? This movie mentions Iran as a secular nation. This is nonsense.       3.   This movie at 88:45 suggests that it is possible to sustain same life style using only ¼ th of energy. Where does author get this number from?       4.   At 15:00, the movie says that even if material wealth has increased by five times since 1950, Americans are not happier than they were 50 years ago. This does not make any sense. Today, Americans homes are twice bigger than they used to be 50 years ago and both standard of living and life expectancy have gone up in the USA. What does director mean by “happiness”? Does director want to start a government bureau to make sure that husband and wife do not screw each other? According to this stupid happiness index, Mexico is the happiest country in the world. Then why are Mexicans jumping fence to enter USA? Does director want Americans to live in the state of orgasm 24/7? ** 9)  **  What kinds of corrective action are suggested by the film? If the film itself does not suggest corrective action, describe actions that you can imagine being effective.      1.   This movie suggests at 85:20 that the most powerful action we can take is to bring population under control with “earth balance”. What does this mean?       2.   Movie asks to produce local organic foods that use no fossil fuel. I wonder if locally grown foods are so wonderful, why isn’t any entrepreneur producing cheap foods that will compete with those outsider and fossil fuel consuming foods? Why are organic foods more expensive than other foods? How come Whole Foods can never sell more food than this “evil” Wal-Mart?       3.   At 90:00, movie suggest to stop using cars and get into trains. However, Amtrack has not made any profit in last 20 years. Public transport services rarely make any profit in the world including developing world. Everyone likes to drive a car as long as they can afford it. All right, high-speed railway is going to save the world. 4.  Finally, there are light bulbs. We are going to save the world with light bulbs. The orator in the movie suggests that they made a calculation that it is possible to get around with only 1/5th of energy usage and maintain same standard of living. Why can every one not come up with this trick? 5.  The movie suggests that we have to nurture our local economies with food. How is this possible in the cities? This movie maker does not understand Adam Smith’s principle of specialization of trade. People who specialize in growing potatoes will do that in Idaho and electronic chip manufacturers will specialize in computer processors in Silicon Valley. They will produce them at the lowest cost possible, and trade them while enriching the society. Putting a potato farm next to Intel Factory is not a good idea. Similarly, installing a computer factory near a potato farm is also a bad idea. 6.  The “solution” at 92:00 is really outrageous. This asks us to constrain our consumption with regulatory regime; so that a bureaucrat will decide how much you can consume. This movie asks to vote democrat so that we the “evil Americans” will live a “sustainable life” while our green leaders like Barack Obama can fly in Air Force One, and Al Gore will live in the mansion with $12000 a month electricity bill. Of course, this will be a hog heaven for environmentalists, but this country was not founded on this principle nor do immigrants come here so that bureaucrats can tell them what to use and what to eat. Third world already has enough of this crap. 7.  Movie asks for legal framework that “will be imposed on all the nations equally.” Pardon me, but I am an enemy of one world government concept. I do not want Bilderberg and Trilateral Commission, and Club of Rome ruling the world. 8.  At last, James Wood wants to take all the profit away from oil companies who are manipulating us and destroying political process. I do not understand why unions never destroy political process; who are biggest contributors in the US elections. Why is there never a talk about confiscating union treasury? I would certainly agree to confiscate all the profits that James Wood made by proposing all these idiotic solutions. ** 10)  **  What additional information has this film compelled you to seek out? (Provide at least two supporting references, explaining what your learned from each reference.)     This movie prompted me to look in happiness index. This is basically a measurement of “benevolence” of people. In short, I found this index total nonsense. What is benevolence worth if you do not have food on the table? Why is there no index of rule of law that government must provide to its citizens? (happiness index)    I also looked into the light bulbs. I found that major reason light bulbs are banned is not because they are inefficient, but because profit margin in incandescent bulb is lower than that of fluorescent ones. (LIGHT BULB CLARITY: NEW ELECRTIC POLITICS, Dr. Peter Thomas)  =Bibliography = happiness index. (n.d.). //About the Happy Planet Index.// Retrieved April 10, 2011, from happyplanetindex.org: http://www.happyplanetindex.org/learn/ //LIGHT BULB CLARITY: NEW ELECRTIC POLITICS.// (Dr. Peter Thomas). Retrieved April 11, 2011, from http://www.ceolas.net/: http://www.ceolas.net/
 * Meghal Jani Crude impact 4/26/11 **