RosenbergCrudeImpact

Crude Impact

The film // Crude Impact //, released in 2006 and directed by James Jandak Wood, draws from historical observations and case studies relevant to the dependence on oil to paint a sobering picture of a future in which these resources become scarce and contested. Invoking notions of economic vulnerability, environmental devastation, and political corruption, the film suggests that our current dependence on oil is both unsustainable as global discoveries decline, as well as representative of a larger trend of inefficiently living beyond our means which has led to overpopulation and increased conflict. Such overconsumption, the film claims, has led to significant complacency and ignorance amongst the population and media regarding the magnitude of the impending crisis, and has brought us to a potential global tipping point in which famine, pestilence, climate change, and ultimately the death of both the human race as well as other species may be wrought upon the Earth.

As is typically the case with environmental considerations, the social actors and stakeholders portrayed by the film are diverse and reach across national boundaries. Among the principal interests are those of the multinational oil corporations such as Texaco and Shell, which are primarily interested in maximizing profits obtained from the extraction of these resources, even if it requires them to sacrifice safety protocols and human rights standards in cost cutting measures. Some of these corporations additionally receive subsidies from national governments such as that of the United States, which have vested interests in maintaining the economic security which accompanies access to fuel reserves from abroad.

These governing organizations, whose objectives are often clouded by financial ties to industry through lobbying monies, have taken on increased roles in the process of allocating oil resources as supplies have begun to dwindle. From a political perspective, these leaders have the clout necessary to negotiate directly with the dictators and other officials of oil rich regions such as Venezuela and the Middle East, in addition to backing up such claims with military might and the doctrines of international law which support national ownership of discoveries.

Other primary stakeholders include the citizens of regions and nations in which extraction occurs, which in Nigeria for instance has led to approximately 70% of the population living below the poverty line due to the corruption and human rights violations bred by the so called “resource curse.” In addition, these citizens are subjected to serious environmental catastrophes such as the dumping of toxic water in Ecuador by Texaco, which has led to increased cancer rates due to the presence of carcinogens in the waste products.

The last set of major stakeholders consists of the citizens of developed nations, as well as their sources of information which typically include corporate media organizations such as CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. These citizens may or may not be organized within environmental causes, but it is believed by the film that the majority of ignorance of the fossil fuel crisis is bred by the inactivity of the media, which it believes has become biased and hushed by conflicts of interest arising from business connections. Additionally, these citizens face serious impacts on their manner of daily living and quality of life, since a decline in oil reserves may ultimately force a return to localism and the switch to alternative energy sources.

In emphasizing the use of oil as a means of industrialization and growth of human society, the piece makes clear the underlying factors which have enveloped us within a dependency on oil and petroleum products. Until around the year 1800, the human population remained below 1 Billion people, in large part due to the difficulty of providing sustenance through agriculture and other forms of farming. However, the advent of fossil fuels as a means of extracting a greater amount of resources from the Earth has served as a means of artificially increasing the carrying capacity of the human race. Through such economic factors as deforestation for the purpose of generating agricultural activity, the use of petroleum in the manufacture of artificial plastics and products such as nylon shirts, as well as the use of oil in powering the equipment necessary to complete these processes, fossil fuels have become embedded within nearly every industrial process which satiates our consumption requirements.

In addition, the film suggests that political obstructionism by the Bush administration prevented investment in alternatives to oil, with the goal of preserving the energy paradigm which was already in place, and which some believe contributed substantially to the campaigns of these politicians.

The last major feature of dependency highlighted in the film consists of the historical nature of oil within the United States, in that its previous status as both the largest producer and reserve bearer in the world led to the expectation that these resources could perpetuate self-sustaining growth which would prevent the United States from losing its position within the hierarchy of global politics and economics.

Despite this optimism, the picture within the United States was far grimmer than had been expected by optimistic prospectors and industry analysts. As early as the 1930’s, the United States began to pass the period of maximal discoveries, and around 1970 it reached the point of “peak oil,” at which its production would continue to decline as a result of diminished supply. Since present oil production within the country is at 2/3 of its peak levels, and the demand for oil has increased since that period, the United States has increasingly been forced to import oil from abroad to satisfy consumption requirements. These practices have threatened its economic security, and have led to expanded security relationships with nations such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which consist of undemocratic institutions that have a history of human rights violations. In addition, competitive pressures from the recent growth of China and India are likely to create geopolitical conflict over scarce resources, which may ultimately lead to military endeavors, either directly involving the armies of these countries or through financial or other support of civil wars and confrontations. As was suggested by the film, leaders in the future will be forced to weigh whether the “Price in Blood” of oil is worth bearing.

In conjunction with these institutional factors, environmental degradation and catastrophe has become an enormous externality of our reliance on petroleum. As was discussed previously, actions such as the dumping of toxic water in Ecuador by Texaco, as well as the corruption fostered by oil extraction by Shell in Nigeria, have degraded the quality of life for many indigenous populations in third world countries. Such activities threaten the safety of groundwater and increase rates of disease and cancer in these regions.

On a greater scale than human civilization, the burning of fossil fuels and rapid industrialization has promoted the buildup of Carbon Dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere, which has accelerated the greenhouse effect responsible for Global Warming and Climate Change. Higher temperatures have increased the rate of melting of the polar ice caps, which has in turn warmed the oceans and threatened the maintenance of the Gulf Stream, which is responsible for moderating European climate. Ecosystems have been destroyed, leading to extinction of species at as much as ten-thousand times the previous rates, which some have hypothesized is sowing the seeds of a “Sixth Great Extinction” on order of those observed previously only from natural calamities such as asteroid impacts.

Last, global weather patterns have shifted, with an increased frequency of floods, droughts, and an increase in the intensity of severe storms such as hurricanes and tornados. Although difficult to comprehend on the macro-scale, these impacts are substantial, and have begun to take shape in recent years.

Beyond these larger scale consequences of oil dependency, the use of petroleum processes in the manufacture of numerous wares and consumer goods has led to a greater expectation of material wealth and consumption which has become ingrained culturally within societies. Such increases in demand have continued to fuel import and extraction requirements, and ultimately may force leaders to continue to absorb the risks of fossil fuel-based economies, even though the world is estimated to pass “peak oil” around 2017.

In terms of shifting away from oil, the film suggests that the values and beliefs in the growth dynamic embedded within society will be difficult to alter in the coming years. Although energy is but one constraint on growth, it is unlikely to be the only one, and it is suggested that we may hit additional resource barriers in the future which will lead to similar crises in the absence of a true shift in attitudes. In the absence of reasonable alternative fuel sources, it is suggested that a shift away from oil may cause increased human suffering as food supplies dwindle and the world economy is subjected to recessionary periods of decline which lower standard of living across the board. However, it is suggested that although radical lifestyle changes may be required to sustain these achievements, such as a return to local food sources and a reduction in population, they may not be necessary within the context of presently available technologies applied on a larger scale. Regardless, the film believes that a world without oil has the potential to look substantial different than the one we see today, and references the rapid ascent of the resource as a prime example of how such may occur.

Within the examples presented by the piece, I was especially persuaded by the cases of human suffering highlighted within Ecuador, as well as the figures depicting the progression towards peak oil and peak discovery that highlight the severity of the modern supply of oil. In a country such as the United States we take for granted the availability of seemingly cheap and abundant access to energy, but often lose sight of the true economic and social costs of these activities in light of the subsidies afforded to these organizations. The indigenous peoples of Ecuador have seen substantial hardship and threat to their well-being under the lackluster standards employed by Texaco since the 1960’s, and it makes one wonder whether these costs are too high to bear. In terms of the second point, I was personally unaware of how early world oil discoveries began to decline, and how severe the chances are of the collapse of supply suggested by these results.

I was much less compelled, however, by the seeming argument ingrained within the film that human population growth on the basis of oil has universally led to inefficiency of lifestyle. Just a few hundred years ago, scholars such as Thomas Malthus were proclaiming similar limits to human expansion on the basis of resource constraints, yet technologies such as the cotton gin and mechanical tractor have allowed us to more efficiently utilize these resources to provide for ever increasing numbers of people. Although there is clearly concern with the example of extracting one calorie of food energy from ten calories of work, I’m not convinced that this is true in all processes.

Perhaps the reorganization of societies around urban centers of commerce has also counteracted this notion through enhanced efficiency resulting from economies of scale. Locations such as New York City, for instance, have managed through collective efforts to produce one of the lowest carbon footprints per capita of any city in the United States, by emphasizing public transportation and imposing stringent regulation on business practices. Although there are countless case studies of damaging externalities of this expansion of the human race, perhaps also a pooling of such a scale of minds and the technological advances accompanying industrialization may also permit officials to more globally remedy these problems in a manner which would have been impossible in an age of localism. While it is easy to harp on the negatives of innovation, it is also difficult to exclude the benefits in areas such as medical technology, food production, and the like which have increased the quality of life for those who manage to take advantage of them. It seems likely that there will ultimately have to be some compromise between these opposing perspectives, and it would be foolish to disperse the gains which have been acquired in the process.

While primarily a critique of the structures that have permitted the dependence on oil both culturally and socially, the film does provide a significant number of viable corrective measures which may help to wean us off of this habit. Although in one sense the film suggests radical lifestyle changes, among them population control and enhancing the resiliency of the food supply by returning to localized sources, it is also suggested that individual actions on the larger scale may manage to enhance progress in tackling these issues. In the event that every household in the United States were to switch one of their lights to fluorescent bulbs, it is stated that the reduction in energy usage would be equivalent to taking one million cars off of the roads.

Similarly, population control may also be achieved not only by strict “one child policies,” but through increased education and equality for women. Studies cited in the film suggest that for every three years of education women receive, they tend to on average have one fewer child. Since the largest population growth rates are observed in lesser developed countries in which these resources are not readily available, it seems possible that worldwide development plans may be necessary to fulfill these goals.

As was mentioned previously, a major opposition to decreasing our dependence on oil has been the worry of a loss of standard of living fostered by decreased consumption. However, the piece suggests that even with present, off-shelf technologies an individual could reduce their energy consumption to one-fourth of present levels without significant lifestyle change. If these actions were to take place on a larger scale, perhaps by fostering citizen movements which make politicians more aware of these issues, they may serve to ameliorate these concerns in the short-term without creating the unrest anticipated by more radical parties.

In absorbing the perspectives of this film, I was compelled to seek out more information regarding some of the costs of making these shifts into “green” technologies, as well as some examples of off-shelf techniques for reducing energy consumption. The following links proved useful in addressing these inquiries:

[]

[]

From the first source, I obtained estimates of some of the costs of achieving energy reductions in large office buildings in Denver, Colorado. The study which was cited by the piece estimated the costs of achieving 50% energy reduction in low-rise buildings as $10.80 per square foot, while this figure was estimated to be $5.00 per square foot in high-rise buildings. With the savings in energy use associated with these alterations, the payback periods were found to be 12.3 and 5.4 years respectively, which suggests that over the lifetime of one of these entities, which is typically greater than sixty years, such an investment is incredibly feasible from both an economic and environmental standpoint. From such results, it seems likely that there may already be incentives in place to accelerate the process of this transformation in the event that social awareness is enhanced.

From the second source, I became aware of the use of advanced LED lighting schemes to meet United States energy consumption requirements within government buildings under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which requires a 3% baseline reduction per year through 2015. With these lamps having lifetimes of up to 50,000 hours, as well as possessing enhanced control mechanisms through the inclusions of drivers, they have had a significant impact on the ability of these agencies to meet such targets without facing mounting costs. In particular, these mechanisms are said to permit strategies such as daylighting, automatic dimming upon vacancy, and more specific tuning configurations. By drawing from the present technological base, the United States government has managed to make significant gains in reducing its reliance on fossil fuel energy, while also enhancing the efficiency of its facilities.