Good Bye to the Suburbs......Hello to  Local Community Building

Does the end of cheap oil mean the end of Suburbia? What’ll happen to the long commutes, the fancy town and country houses, the tidy square lawns, the skinny trees, and  the two car garages?  The Canadian video documentary “The End of Suburbia” explores prospects for suburbia in the face of sky rocketing energy costs.  Some Republican energy investment bankers like Matthew Simmons agree the end of cheap oil suggests alarming consequences for the American way of life. An interview with Barry Silverthorn, the producer of the video, “The End of Suburbia:  Oil Depletion and The Collapse of The American Dream.”

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	www.endofsuburbia.com

     

Barry Silverthorn the producer of “The End of Suburbia” thinks suburbs are an endangered species because the end of cheap oil is going to make it too expensive to live there.

 An interview with Barry Silverthorn, the producer of the video, “The End of Suburbia:  Oil Depletion and Collapse of American Dream.” by Nick Vander Puy

Does the end of cheap oil mean the end of Suburbia? What’ll happen to the long commutes, the fancy town and country houses, the tidy square lawns, the skinny trees, and  the two car garages?  The Canadian video documentary “The End of Suburbia” explores prospects for suburbia in the face of sky rocketing energy costs.  Some republican energy investment bankers like Matthew Simmons agree the end of cheap oil suggests alarming consequences for the American way of life.

 

After the World War Two, the sprawling suburbs were built as a kind of “you deserve it” payback to American soldiers.  But this development came during the cheap oil era, when almost nobody was thinking about limits to growth. 

 

This all changed in 1970, when United States oil production peaked, and the United States for the first time became dependent upon foreign oil production.  Three years later, in retaliation for our support of Israel, some Arab countries embargoed oil shipments to the United States. The energy crisis emerged. Prices shot up. A recession followed. Conservation and more efficient production occurred, lowering the price of oil.

 

 But now, many analysts in the documentary “The End of Suburbia” say, WORLD oil production has peaked.  That’s why we’re fighting in the middleeast.

 

“The US would not be Iraq if that country didn’t have oil. The only interest of the US in the middle east is oil.”

“Certainly from a sequential view point we are witnessing a war to control the last remaining oil reserves on the planet.  That is the war that will not end in our lifetimes.”

 

“I think this war in Iraq is really what stimulated everybody’s interest in this subject.  Ironically, it did a little bit of good you could say in that regard.  Because people would say why the hell would you want to invade Iraq unless it had a critical role in supply oil.  It’s now evident that these weapons of mass destruction don’t exist, and never did exist, so there has to be some other reason.”

The producer of “The End of Suburbia” Barry Silverthorn was working on a story about the 9-11 attacks, when he came up with another explanation for the war on terrorism.

 

“I wanted to make a documentary about 9-11. And something that questioned the official story about what happened that day.  And the more research I did the more this issue of oil peak came up as part of the story.

And it seemed after awhile that all the big news stories  of the decade, Afghanistan, Iraq, the economy, Enron, 9-11 itself were actually symptoms of this bigger story, oil depletion.”

 

Almost everywhere you look the American dream, either building a cabin or an estate in some park-like, antiseptic setting, a long ways from town. 

 

The movie says that building the suburbs, all the infrastructure, the roads, the gas and electric lines, the big box stores, is actually the greatest misallocation of resources the world has ever known.

 

The documentary asks the question, how long is this way of life possible when gas say, tops five or six dollars a gallon?

 

But living right now in a fantasy world, we think life in the suburbs is powerful and independent.

 

 

“Yeah, I like the way you say we think it’s independence. Because we really have become slaves, we’ve become slaves to our own lives, we’ve become slaves to our automobiles, it’s not going to be an easy process weaning ourselves off from that, it’s going to be a very difficult, emotional experience.”

 

Alternative energy is often touted as a solution to the energy crisis. But Silverthorn reminds us we’ll need plenty of oil to make these devices.

 

“People always say we’ll come up with all kinds of solutions, there’s solar, there’s wind, and all these others energies that we haven’t seen other than a blueprint on a drawing board.”

 

“Once the oil begins to go into decline, and that has an effect on the economy, there’s going to be a lot less money, fewer resources around to put into alternative energy.  So at the time we’re going to need it the most we’re going to have the least ability, we’re going to have the least amount of ability to build it.”

 

According to Silverthorn there are other consequences.  Once the cheap energy supply lines dissolve globalism will reverse.  Probably, no more Wal Mart getting supplies from China.

 

“Economies will become much local.  Food will become much more local.  And you will see people growing food where that manicured lawn used to be.”

 

The documentary predicts we’re in for a rough ride through uncharted territory.  And that the so called “advanced” nations are not prepared.

 I’m Nick Vander Puy for the Superior Broadcast Network

 

 

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