The End of Suburbia - Free Screening + Richard Douthwaite

galway | environment | event notice Friday May 19, 2006 14:59 by Caoimhín Ó Maolallaigh - Feasta 087 125 4817

Feasta [Foundation for Economics of Sustainability] presents:

FREE local screening of the new documentary film,
The End of Suburbia
Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream
Followed by discussion with economist Richard Douthwaite*

Nun’s Island Studio [near the ‘Bish’, Nun’s Island]
Friday, May 26, 8:00pm

About the film:
After World War II North Americans invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream. Indeed, in recent decades this has become the principal model of development in Ireland where we are one of the most oil and car dependent countries in the world.
But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are emerging about the sustainability of this way of life. With brutal honesty and a touch of irony, The End of Suburbia explores the American Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, scientists and policy makers argue in this documentary. The consequences of inaction in the face of this global crisis are enormous. What does Oil Peak mean for North America and by extension Ireland? As energy prices skyrocket in the coming years, how will the people of suburbia react to the collapse of their dream? Are today’s suburbs destined to become the slums of tomorrow? And what can be done NOW, individually and collectively, to deal with The End of Suburbia?
Hosted by Barrie Zwicker. Featuring James Howard Kunstler, Richard Heinberg, Peter Calthorpe, Michael Klare, Matthew Simmons, Michael C. Ruppert, Julian Darley, Colin Campbell, Kenneth Deffeyes, Ali Samsam Bakhtiari and Steve Andrews. Directed by Gregory Greene. Produced by Barry Silverthorn. Duration: 78 minutes.

*About Richard Douthwaite: writer and economist, author of ‘The Growth Illusion’ and ‘Short Circuit’ (The Lilliput Press), editor of ‘Before The Wells Run Dry, Ireland’s Transition to Renewable Energy’, is founding member of Feasta and has lived in Ireland since 1974. He has made a special study of rural sustainability. He is a founder of Feasta [Foundation for Economics of Sustainability] and is co-editor of its publication, the Feasta Review. He has acted as economic adviser to the Global Commons Institute (London) for the past ten years, during which time GCI has developed the Contraction and Convergence approach to dealing with greenhouse gas emissions which has now been backed by a majority of countries in the world, most recently the UK. He is currently working on a voluntary basis with groups in Mayo and Donegal on a project that should lead to widespread community investment in wind turbines.

Press comments about ‘The Growth Illusion’:

’’Truly a book for our times: a fierce and unrelenting critique of the failures of laissez-faire capitalism ... I commend The Growth Illusion to all.’’-
The Sunday Tribune

‘’Here's an economist who can entertain, blowing the whistle on consumer idiocies ... After reading Douthwaite's vivid and convincing case studies it becomes impossible to hear a politician promising 'recovery' ... without feeling mingled pity and contempt’’
- The Independent on Sunday

‘’The Growth Illusion is simply indispensable for those who wish to empower themselves by getting a grip on an alternative model to the prevailing economics of misery. What is particularly impressive is the quality of the scholarship... The publication of this book is a very significant act in democratizing economics.’’
- Michael D. Higgins, Hot Press

‘’Douthwaite is no head-banger...The Growth Illusion is a big rich book with an old-fashioned resonance: economics as morality - it does something to hasten the day when capitalism is no longer left as the only game in town.’’
-The Irish Times

Some of those featured in the documentary:

Colin Campbell
Obtained his doctorate in geology from Oxford University in 1958 and has worked since as a petroleum geologist with companies including BP, Texaco, Fina and Amoco. He was Exploration Manager for Aran Energy, Dublin, in 1978-9. More recently he has been a consultant to the Norwegian and Bulgarian Governments, and to Shell and Esso. In 1998, he and a colleague, Jean H. Laherrère, were largely responsible for convincing the International Energy Agency that the world's output of conventional oil would peak within the following decade. He is the author of two books and numerous papers on oil depletion and has lectured and broadcast widely. He lives in Ballydehob, Co. Cork.

Matthew Simmons
CEO of the world's largest Energy Investment Bank, Simmons & Co. International, with clients including Halliburton and the World Bank. Simmons is a also a member of the US Council on Foreign Relations and the National Petroleum Council's Natural Gas Task Force and, as such, has contributed "insider" perspective and hard facts to the study of Peak Oil and its effects. He is the author of Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy.

Barrie Zwicker - Host
Broadcaster and writer Barrie Zwicker has specialized in media criticism since 1970 and was VisionTV's media critic since the multifaith network's inception in the fall of 1988, until 2003. He was a writer for The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Vancouver Province, Sudbury Star and Detroit News, and taught the Media & Society course at Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto for seven years.
Barrie is also the host and producer of The Great Conspiracy, the 9/11 News Special You Never Saw.

James Howard Kunstler
New urbanist, lecturer and author of Home From Nowhere, The Geography of Nowhere and The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition. His latest book, available in May 2005, is The Long Emergency.

Peter Calthorpe
Urban designer and founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism. Author of The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream and Sustainable Communities: A New Design Synthesis for Cities, Suburbs, and Towns.

Michael Klare
The author of Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict and Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum is also a professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Massachusetts.

Richard Heinberg
Journalist and educator, and a member of the core faculty of New College of California, where he teaches a program on Culture, Ecology, and Sustainable Community. Author of The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies and Powerdown : Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World

Michael C. Ruppert
Renowned publisher/editor of From the Wilderness, a newsletter distributed in more than 35 countries including 35 members of US Congress and professors at 20 universities around the world. He is a pioneer in the effort to educate people around the world about the consequences of Peak Oil and global democracy. Author of Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of The American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil.

Julian Darley
Julian is an environmental philosopher who researches and writes about non-market and non-technology-based responses to global environmental degradation. He operates an internet broadcasting station, GlobalPublicMedia.com, and is the founder of the Post Carbon Institute, an educational institution that explores what cultures, civilisation, governance and economies might look like without the use of hydrocarbon energy. His book, High Noon for Natural Gas was published in 2004.

Kenneth Deffeyes
Petroleum geologist, researcher for Shell Oil and author of the definitive analysis on Peak Oil: Hubbert's Peak; the Impending World Oil Shortage. Professor Emeritus at Princeton University.

Ali Samsam Bakhtiari
Senior Expert in the Corporate Planning Directorate of the National Iranian Oil Company, Mr. Bakhtiari was the managing editor of The Journal of the Iranian Petroleum Institute in 1999.

Steve Andrews
Denver-based energy consultant and freelance writer. He has worked at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and taught solar energy design college classes. Contributor to PBS documentary series Running on Empty.