Clastic Detritus

I recently watched the documentary End of Suburbia and, inspired by Thermochronic’s comments on gasoline prices, I figured it was a good time to post my thoughts about the film.

This documentary is essentially about Peak Oil, which is the notion that we are very close to producing half of the Earth’s oil reserves (if we haven’t already). What this means is that once we hit that peak, production will decline. Couple this decline in supply with an increase in demand over the next half-century and we have a recipe for global disaster…so say the most adamant peak oil theorists.

I’m not going to spend time on this post discussing peak oil as such. If you don’t know much about peak oil, it behooves you to learn a bit about it before watching End of Suburbia. There are differing viewpoints from petroleum geologists as well as economists regarding the validity of global oil production being described by a bell curve, but let’s save that for another time. So, for the rest of this post, i’m going to focus on the film.

This film discusses the theory, evidence, and implications of peak oil within the context of the American suburbs. This is what I like about this film. The information and commentary regarding this issue are woven into a narrative about the origin, rise, and predicted demise of the suburban landscape. Instead of a boring encyclopedic presentation of what peak oil is and what it means, the creators of End of Suburbia asks a key question: Is suburban living sustainable? The subtitle of the film is Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream so you can probably guess what they think the prospects are.

The American suburbs evolved from the combination of post-WWII prosperity and the rise of the affordable automobile. That is, everyone can have a car. Why? Because cars are relatively cheap? That’s part of it for sure, but more important in this equation — cheap and abundant fuel to run the cars. They do a great job in the film of emphasizing the underlying issue of peak oil: it’s not about running out of oil in an absolute sense…it’s about running out of cheap oil. It is an economic as well as geologic issue.

So, fast forward from the prosperous and enthusiastically pro-capitalism 1950s to the turn of the century. We now have a situation where many people drive over 100 miles a day to commute from their unnecessarily large (and poorly constructed) home in the suburbs to their place of work and back. The original suburbs of the 1950s/1960s feel like the inner city compared to these ‘exurbs’ that are far out on the fringes of a metropolitan area, the so-called suburban sprawl. These areas are designed around the automobile. This is the only way to get around. You know these places…we all do, that’s where you can find Target, Chili’s, Best Buy, and all the other mega-stores. Try being a pedestrian in this environment and you certainly risk your life.

So, now as Americans are feeling the effects of more expensive fuel it is getting more difficult to sustain this lifestyle. The film does a great job of painting a rather bleek picture of the future of this kind of life. Like most documentaries, End of Suburbia includes a combination of narration that presents the information and interview clips with various people for additional information and commentary.

The last part of End of Suburbia takes a turn from the thesis of a doomed civilization to more optimistic thoughts. They discuss the ideas of people returning to urban settings, sometimes referred to as ‘new urbanism‘, where most of what residents need for everyday life is within walking distance (or at least a much shorter trip on public transportation or car). The filmmakers also touch on the idea of buying locally grown and produced goods to cut down on the ridiculous distances the stuff we buy and consume is transported (why do I need an apple from New Zealand in California?).

Personally, I loved this film. I was raised in American suburbia and didn’t think about what it actually was and how it was set up until recently…that is what I knew. For me, these kinds of films (or books, essays, websites, etc.) are important for my own education and awareness.

Call me a pessimist, but I tend to think that it takes significant events to produce significant change. Will we need to experience a Great Depression II to collectively change our ways? I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I fear it will. The best-case scenario in my opinion would be continued high fuel prices to wake the public up to the realities of our energy situation. I have set up my own lifestyle to anticipate the future higher gasoline prices (i.e, buying a high-MPG car, having only one car for two of us, taking the commuter train as much as possible, living in a neighborhood where we can walk to the market, taking the bus when we can, etc.).

Check out the trailer to End of Suburbia and then rent it.

If the embedded video is broken, go here.

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