A Crude Awakening

The evening begins with an optional social hour and pot luck supper at 6:00 pm,
followed by the film at 7:30 pm, followed by a discussion at the end of the film.

A CRUDE AWAKENING

This famous documentary tells the story of how our civilization’s addiction to oil puts it on a collision course with geology. Compelling, intelligent, and highly entertaining, the film visits with the world’s top experts and comes to a startling, but logical conclusion -- our industrial society, built on cheap and readily available oil, must be completely re-imagined and overhauled. The idea that the world’s oil supplies have peaked, or will soon, is gaining mainstream currency. The Age of Oil -- 100-plus years of astonishing economic growth made possible by cheap, abundant oil -- could be ending without our really being aware of it. Oil is a finite commodity.

You needn’t be a conspiracy theorist to see a connection between America’s current obsessions with the Middle East, national security, and the world’s looming oil crisis. The frenzied search for alternative sources of energy now being pursued by the largest multinational energy corporations makes it clear they also believe a crisis is fast approaching. Oil is running out, and nobody is ready for the cataclysm that is bound to follow. Shot on location at oil fields in Azerbaijan, Venezuela, the Middle East, and Texas, with original music by Daniel Schnyder and Philip Glass, this important film provides not only questions, but possible solutions to the most perplexing and important economic, environmental, and public policy issue of our time. Some years ago a government report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy under Robert L. Hirsch challenged the notion that the free market can solve the onrushing emergency: "The world has never faced a problem like Peak Oil. Without massive mitigation more than a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary. Previous energy transitions (wood to coal and coal to oil) were gradual and evolutionary; oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary."

Wheelchair accessible around the corner at 411 28th Street
$5 donations are accepted

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