Transition Culture

11 Jul 2006

Excellent New Must-See Peak Oil Film Released Online.

‘Peak Oil’, a new film produced by Australian Four Corners broadband in Australia, is an excellent new documentary on peak oil, and is a great example of online films. It features Colin Campbell, Robert Hirsch, Chris Skrebowski among others in a powerful summarisation of the peak oil case. The reporter, Jonathan Holmes, travels around the world trying to assess the global picture, visiting Kuwait and Alberta among other places. Running at about 50 minutes, it is broken down into 6 sections, and offers online links at relevant stages in the film.

Although it offers nothing in terms of solutions, it is a very powerful overview of the peak oil argument. Highlights for me were the interview with Robert Hirsch who tells it like it is, and the man from the Australian agency charged with providing the Government with information about oil security trying to convince (entirely unconvincingly) Australian politicians that there is nothing to worry about, that peak oil is nonsense, and that ‘the market’ will solve all problems. When discussing the impact of oil price rises, he states with a chucklethat high prices mean that resourcefulness is encouraged, *”when eggs are expensive enough, even the cockerels start laying”*, coming across as astonishingly deluded.

Do check this film out, it is certainly one of the better ones around. The Mad Max footage cut in at the beginning and the end is unfortunate, but it doesn’t diminish the power and effectiveness of this must-see film. You can also still see the excellent ‘Real Oil Crisis’ film here.