The Oil Drum

Gregory Greene, director/writer of the acclaimed 2004 documentary End of Suburbia has released the first trailer of the 2007 sequel Escape from Suburbia.

[Update by Super G] YouTube video moved below the fold to improve page load times.

Today I went to my home church (Unitarian) in Staten Island where my parents still are very active. It was the perfect setting for my first foray as a grassroots campaigner and peak oil educator. I felt very comfortable in my surroundings and knew many people in the audience. They were very receptive to both the movie and my presentation on how to make New York's transportation system less dependent on fossil fuels (Many thanks to Aaron Naparstek who provided invaluable powerpoint slides and photos).

The audience was mostly progressive minded folks and many of them live a fairly suburban lifestyle in Staten Island. I think most realize that this lifestyle is not sustainable and want to change the local systems to encourage more community and less dependency on oil.

The film certainly framed the issue very well for new people to peak oil and in my opinion remains the indisputable resource for spreading the word about peak oil. That said, some of the content does need to be updated and I have heard that they will probably either make a sequel or update the current one (maybe both).

I also made some great local contacts for the future.

Maybe it is the onset of winter and people like gathering inside more to decompress and escape the weather, but this week is movie week here at TOD: NYC.

On Monday, I hosted a screening of the new Walmart movie which clearly painted a picture of a truly evil corporation that sucks the life out of small towns, relying on government subsidies, illegal immigrant labor, not paying workers a living wage here or abroad, all in the name of low prices. Good posts on the film can be found at Startsandfits, Baloghblog before and after with link of rare appearance on TV.

Yesterday I went to see Syriana, which Super G wrote about earlier today and I summarize some additional points in a comment to his post. I think this film will wake up some people, but it does not take on PO head on.

There remains one film that does address PO and the centrality of the automobile in a very direct way that remains the film of choice for spreading the word about Peak Oil - The End Of Suburbia. On Sunday at 1pm, I will be showing EOS in my home borough of Staten Island at the Unitarian Universalist Church. Please tell any friends who haven't seen it to come watch it there. Or tell them to rent it on Netflix!