Movie: Crude Awakening

In short, we're screwed.

Royally. Big time.

How would you feel if you knew that your children or grandchildren would never fly in an airplane? Or drive a car?

Make no mistake about it, this movie about the end of the era of cheap oil is extremely DEPRESSING, but, worse yet... what if it's reality?

What happens if, sorry when, the world does run out of cheap oil?

For a few years, I've been focused on the issue of weaning the US off of Middle Eastern oil as a key driver of national security. That's well and good, but the next question is, "ok, what do we replace it with?"

Ever since I read the Coming Economic Collapse (and my allnighter in March 2006), I've altered my investment strategy to reflect rising oil prices and it's paid off, to some extent.

But this movie raises a much larger question than a financial hedge strategy...it raises the question of...can society even survive in the wake of an ongoing decline in the availability of oil?

There are a huge number of issues, including:

• the lack of viable replacements on a large scale sufficient to meet current (and future) demand
• the lack of political will (all across the board) to focus on the enormity of the problem

There's blame all the way around, but I do remember on Sept. 12, 2001 when Bush got up and made his post-9/11 "axis of Evil" speech and challenged the US to end our oil dependence that I thought, "here's an opportunity to raise taxes on gas, etc. to fund a Kennedy-like 'man on the moon' initiative."

And we've seen nothing.

Nothing at all.

Gas is now cheaper than water, cheaper than Starbucks. The US has 2% of known reserves and consumes 25% of oil. As the Poli Sci Prof from Stanford said in the documentary,

"We have 2 choices as a society. Either we can figure out a way to create renewable energy sources that allow us to grow and live the way we want...OR we need to be prepared to go to war over oil...often."

Ironically enough, I watched this DVD on a flight to St. Louis, gazing out at miles and miles of blue skies, seeing the roads below me and reflecting upon life in a hydro-carbon/petroleum based economy. I began to worry about Tonka, Paco, and #3 (as well as all of us as we age) and wondering what the world will look like.

One commentator (the founder of dismally-named www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net) said,

"this is the end of the American Dream."

We can always hold out hope for the ingenuity of humans and new technology, but we need to recognize the enormity of the challenge that lies ahead and galvanize around it.

I used to tell people that I vote on 2 issues

1. recognition that Islamo-fascism is an existential threat to Western civilization (energy independence was a key element here)
2. the fact that the private sector does a better job than the public sector of creating jobs and wealth.

Beginning today, I vote on one issue...energy policy.

For more info, you can check out Gal Luft's org, Institute for Analysis of Global Security and Mike Granoff's effort at Secure Energy.