Crude Impact

So in my in Sociology class on Friday, we watched a movie/documentary/film called Crude Impact. The movie included a lot of information that I thought was interesting and the film was definitely an eye opener for me. I wrote down some information from the film:

• 40% of our energy comes from oil
• in 1 year, the worldwide consumption for oil is 1.3 trillion barrels, compared with 1.3 trillion barrels of natural gas and coal combined.
• Within 150 years of finding and drilling oil, we(the world) have extracted more than half the oil in the ground
• Oil production peaked in 1970-71, and at least half of the 30 largest oil producing countries have peaked in oil production meaning that those 15 countries are producing less and less oil
• Before agriculture there was virtually no population growth
• Countries with no oil reserves have less poverty -Whoa
• The US has 4.5% of the world's population, but uses 25% of the world's fuel

Those are just a few of the examples I wrote down. Part of the movie also talked about oil, agriculture and population and how they were all related. Before agriculture, there was virtually no population growth, probably because sources of food were unpredictable. After the birth of agriculture, humans changed the landscape around them so that they could plant food. The human population also exploded reaching its first billion people by 1800, 2 billion in 1930 3 billion by 1960, and so on. Agriculture made a huge difference, but with the help of fossil fueled farming equipment that didn't require as much manual labor, agriculture made a huge impact on population again. It's overwhelming how intertwined things are in the world. If you change one thing, it influences all the other parts. Like an organ system or something. It's going to take A LOT of work to change things in the world.

Ishmael Ch.2

Chapter 2 of Ishmael was sort of jarring. There were a few points in the chapter that really stuck in my mind and made me think.

1) The story of Germany and Hitler made me think about our situation, and I began trying to compare the two situations. A couple quotes on that subject that especially meant something to me:

• "I'm telling you this because the people of your culture are in much the same situation"
  

• "Even if you privately thought the whole thing was madness, you had to play your part, you had to take your place in the story"

The second quote I thought is very true. There are so many people who know we are destroying the world, yet do nothing to attempt to stop it. They are unable to change the story they are playing in. It sort of reminds me of that saying "If you can beat them, join them."

2) Takers and Leavers are enacting 2 different stories

3) "They put their shoulders to the wheel during the day, stupefy themselves with drugs or TV at night, and try not to think too searchingly about the world they're leaving their children to cope with."
If you look at the world today, that quote is true for so many people. It seems really selfish to me. Everyone knows the world is wasting away, yet no one does anything about it. So many people distract themselves from whats going on and leave it for someone else to deal with.

#3 In my opinion was the most meaningful quote in the chapter. It says so much about society and the impact "Mother Culture" has on it. Mother Culture must have a HUGE impact if she can convince parents not to care about the world they are leaving for their children.