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Beware Broken Arrow, Owasso and Bixby: Your way of life is doomed by peak oil.
Nothing so inflammatory, specific nor potentially inaccurate was actually said in the documentary, "The End of Suburbia," shown Wednesday night at the Circle Cinema. The point, however, was obvious in the second installment of the National Energy Policy Institute's inaugural free film series.
"We're literally stuck up a cul-de-sac in a cement SUV without a fill-up," author James Howard Kunstler said during part of the film, which calls suburban life "unsustainable" in light of a future wind- down in world oil production.
Writer and director Gregory Greene's 2004 documentary played as a history lesson on how suburban sprawl developed and as a warning that it will end someday. One of the film's speakers goes as far as to claim that the suburbs wouldn't exist without cheap oil.
Former Congressman and current NEPI Resident Director Brad Carson said he has his own opinions on the concept of peak oil - that production reaches a historic high point and then inevitably and irreversible declines - but that it doesn't necessarily concur with the film's sources. At the same time, he called it a "logical followup" to "Gasland," the film series' first showing several months ago, and maintained that "End of Suburbia" offered some important lessons.
"We consume more than 18 million barrels a day in the U.S.," Carson said. "We are a society that's become rich on oil."
The National Energy Policy Institute is a joint venture supported by the George Kaiser Family Foundation and housed on the University of Tulsa campus. Wednesday's showing was attended by a score of TU students and curious residents.
Jim Roth, a former Oklahoma Corporation Commission and NEPI officer, noted that some aspects of the 6-year-old "End of Suburbia," were out of date, such as the film's contention that natural gas production and reserves were on the decline. Directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing have added decades and maybe centuries to reserves, federal data shows.
Yet Roth pointed out that for all of Oklahoma's continued status as an oil state, overall production peaked in the 1920s. He also added that gasoline taxes can't help planners and agencies keep up with infrastructure needs, such as roads.
The film showing was followed by a presentation from Craig Immel, a Tulsa-based green finance, land use and energy expert. Immel showed one large picture of an unnamed suburban development and called it "The Villas at Soccer Mom Creek" to the laughter of some in the audience.
Immel, like the film's makers and subjects, argued for a return to historic development patterns or "the new urbanization." These rebuilt, compact neighborhoods would offer housing, shops and bicycle paths in "walkable" proximity.
Why? Well, they get people out of cars and talking to each other, he pointed out.
"This is about creating choice," Immel added, asking TU students up front about the suburban option. "Is that where you want to be, out in the middle of nowhere?"
"The End of Suburbia" is subtitled "Oil Depletion and the End of the American Dream." The film does not counter questions of peak oil fears with answers of alternative fuels and dismisses hydrogen and ethanol outright.
The National Energy Policy Institute advocates for finding fuel options to oil imported from hostile nations. The think tank's first major study, a joint effort with Washington, D.C.-based Resources for the Future, championed greater use of compressed natural gas in fleet vehicles, improved energy efficiency standards in cars and homes, as well as wind and solar alternatives.
Rod Walton 581-8457
Originally published by ROD WALTON World Staff Writer.
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