Only a few minutes into the movie, Olmsted’s map of Riverside appears, while the narrator explains our village’s place and importance in the history of American suburban community design. At that point in the show, pride and excitement are the closest words to describe my emotions. Not for long.
The End of Suburbia is an award winning 2004 documentary film by Gregory Greene concerning “peak oil” and its implications for suburban life. The term peak oil generally is the simplest label for the problem of energy resource depletion, and specifically, the peak in global oil production. Why does oil production peak?
When charted as a graph of quantity over time, global oil production takes on the shape of a bell curve. The US petroleum industry began in 1859 in Pennsylvania, yielding just 15 barrels per day. At the beginning of the 20th century the age of oil was well underway, as the new energy source was found near the surface, under pressure, and therefore easy to refine. Over the following decades, supply and demand were mostly balanced, and both grew in lock step at a rapid pace. The scientific community believes that global oil production already has or will peak sometime between the years 2000 and 2020. Today, we are at the top of the production bell curve, and we have used up half of all global oil. The current demand side, however, is at an all time high due to new rising economies such as China, India, and Brazil, and is likely to keep growing. The cost to extract the remaining 50% of global oil reserves will steadily increase as fields are smaller and of lesser quality, and occur off-shore, far from markets. Approximately 100 years from today, we will reach a point at which oil fields are no longer viable, neither economically nor energetically. If it takes the energy of a barrel of oil to extract a barrel of oil, then further production is pointless, no matter the price.
The era of cheap oil is over. We are switching from a buyer’s to a seller’s market. This trend was evident less than a year ago when we first experienced 4 dollars per gallon at the pump. The significantly lower gas prices we experience today are temporary and due primarily to the ongoing economic downturn.
Oil has powered phenomenal economic and population growth over the last century and a half. It not only enables our lifestyle, we have leveraged entire economies on ever increasing quantities of cheap oil. In the process of reaping its benefits, we have gradually become addicted to it. We have grown accustomed to the concept of mobility to the point that we are now regarding it as the ultimate expression of personal freedom. But it is not just people that move, goods are easily keeping pace. In the US, produce travels between 1,500 and 2,500 miles from farm to table, and research confirms a growing separation between the sources and destinations of American food.
Towards the end of the movie, the narrator turns to forms of habitation that will be well equipped to develop resilience from dependence on fossil fuels. The key word is “local”. On our path to a more sustainable future we should learn from Tip O’Neill’s ‘all politics is local’, as we need to start relying on and fostering what is close by. Rather than depending on goods and services that are out of our reach, we need to focus on things we can control. Locally grown food is a great example, as it will be seasonal by default and requires a minimum amount of energy for transportation. Nearby and common opportunities for recreation add to the advantage, along with a walkable downtown with businesses that serve the daily needs of residents. Ideally, such a self-reliant town would be located on a line of public transportation.
Sound familiar?
Riverside fits into the discussion of the global energy and environmental challenges in many more ways than we may realize. The fact that we can’t see the wood for the trees has nothing to do with our village’s sylvan beauty, but with our tendency to place short term thinking before long term concern and investment. 140 years ago, Olmsted envisioned a community in which the interests of the individual, the collective, and nature would be balanced, and he masterfully succeeded with his holistic design. That he would also put us in a position today in which we are poised to lead into an ecologically equitable 21st century is nothing short of brilliant, and together, an opportunity we should embrace.
Tom Jacobs
Riverside Sustainability Council Movie Night
Wednesday, March 18, 7:30pm, Riverside Township Hall
“THE END OF SUBURBIA – Oil depletion and the collapse of the American Dream”
Published in the March 4, 2009 Riverside/Brookfield Landmark