Monday, August 17, 2009

A Crude Awakening

National library allows all ordinary member (those not paying special membership fee) to borrow up to 2 audio visual materials for 2 weeks. Go make use of this facility and borrow great materials from the library!

Just watched the documentary A Crude Awakening, and this documentary discussed about (i) why we are probably near or has passed peak oil production. (ii) What are the probable political, enviromental and social impact of world with no cheap oil. (iii) Possible solutions to the problems and why without the political will to do so, we are simply living on borrowed times.

You can view the complete show free online on google video, it might just change the way you think about all the talk about alternatives energy and if there's anything you'd need to do to prepare for the day of reckoning.

The film interviews top experts who presented a balanced view of what should be done but why is not done. And the sad reality that even if we are to start tackling our problems today, there are still painful prices to be paid.

You'll get a glimpse of why exploiting ethanol fuel could be a pretty stupid idea as the tradeoff between world hunger vs. fuel depletion does not allow such transfer of land use. An interesting hypothesis was also presented - If the growth of financial market and wealth over the last century is due to efficient exploitation of fuel by mankind, then a fall in available fuel will cause global wealth to decrease or at lease slow to a rate absent any cheap alternative.

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