End of Suburbia as a class assignment
End of Suburbia VOST sur Yahoo! Vidéo
Tuesday night and tonight, I showed my students "The End of Suburbia." The most memorable reactions were "I never understood how anyone was going to make hydrogen work for running cars," "What a shame Americans are so spoiled. The end of oil is going to take away their toys and they'll all cry.", and "Should we really bankrupt ourselves fighting a war we can't win?" The second student wasn't born here, as you could probably tell.
Following is the worksheet I gave them. If you have the time, see how many you can answer.
END OF SUBURBIA
In this lab session, you will watch the 2004 Canadian documentary The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream, which concerns peak oil and its implications for the suburban lifestyle and was written and directed by Toronto-based filmmaker Gregory Greene. The film is hosted by Canadian broadcaster Barrie Zwicker and features discussions with James Howard Kunstler, Peter Calthorpe, Michael Klare, Richard Heinberg, Matthew Simmons, Michael C. Ruppert, Julian Darley, Colin Campbell, Kenneth Deffeyes, Ali Samsam Bakhtiari and Steve Andrews. As you watch the movie, answer the following questions. Your answers will be graded next week.
1. What advantages did suburban life promise, especially compared to the industrial city?
2. How does James Howard Kunstler’s characterize suburbia as an allocation of resources?
3. What effect did the need for housing after World War II have on the development of the suburbs?
4. How did suburbia change the American Dream?
5. What effect did the rise of suburbia have on cities?
6. How did the auto companies contribute to the demise of streetcars and the rise of cars and roads as the primary transportation system?
7. What is the relationship among cheap energy (including oil), automobiles, and suburbia?
8. Summarize the size, causes, and effects of the blackout of August 2003; include how peak usage contributed to the crisis.
9. What are the issues involved with the various modes of generating electricity, concentrating on the problems with natural gas?
10. Explain how oil depletion affects the rate of oil production (Peak Oil) and the quality of the oil produced.
11. Who originally described Peak Oil? When? What was his prediction for Peak Oil in the U.S.
12. What effects would Peak Oil have on the U.S. economy? Do these predictions sound familiar today?
13. How much of Canada’s natural gas production is exported to the United States?
14. How did fossil fuels contribute to the first Green Revolution?
15. What effect will Peak Oil have on agriculture?
16. How many fossil fuel calories are used to produce one calorie of food?
17. What effect does Kunstler think Peak Oil will have on transportation and commerce?
18. How do the people interviewed think the American people will react to energy shortages? Include the political effects.
19. How does Kunstler justify his choice of words in describing his view of the situation?
20. How do the people interviewed think the media have contributed to the situation?
21. How has reliance on oil affected U.S. foreign policy since the 1970s?
22. What effect has our foreign policy had on our government expenditures and our internal politics?
23. Are any of the people interviewed optimistic about the prospects for alternative energy, especially hydrogen? Why or why not?
24. What are the objections to using ethanol for fuel?
25. What are the contributions of New Urbanism to the possible challenges of Peak Oil?
26. What are the prospects for suburbia after Peak Oil?
27. What effect will Peak Oil have on people’s livelihoods?
28. How do the interviewees see the future-global, national, or local?
29. What was your favorite part of the movie?
30. What was your least favorite part?