FUEL
I went out and saw FUEL tonight (limited release; it also just opened in Austin). I guess it’s good see any movie that talks about energy independence from oil out in the public; but I have to say I was a little disappointed that reducing American consumption was little more than a footnote. It seemed rather absurd to see Willie Nelson pumping biodiesel into his gigantic idling tour bus as a way to save the planet. Similarly, the woman in LA who had her Biodiesel Tahoe (and the biodiesel vehicle parade that followed); or the guy who talked about producing plastics from algae oil.
While these products are vastly better than their petroleum-based cousins, I think at some point we as Americans will need to face the fact that we are running a deficit in so many ways in our lives and doing so is simply not sustainable. Switching to biodiesel, for example, will not help with inherent inefficiencies/congestion caused by SOV (single occupancy vehicle) traffic. It will not help with the destruction of open spaces by development (suburban sprawl and the like). Car culture is destroying the livability of our cities, and having vehicles that use a different fuel simply will not help that.
It seems weird to me that to follow the advice of the film and become a better earth citizen, I suppose you’d engage in a sort of eco-consumerism by buying solar panels, a new diesel car, etc. It seems much more natural to simply live more sustainably by using less power, buying less environmentally toxic stuff, driving less, etc. That, IMO, is very hard to swallow for the American public, which is why you get guilt...err....carbon offsets when you buy a Land Rover.
At the very end of the movie, they did promote “the solution” as being a bunch of things, which I agree with; but sadly this was just a small part of what amounted to a very long biodiesel commercial. 70% biodiesel, 20% algae, 8% other fuel sources, 2% reducing (bikes were, for example, relegated to simply being an icon with no mention in the dialog).
I guess like Barack Obama’s “health insurance plan,” it’s at least a step in the right direction. For that, we owe gratitude to Mr. Tickell.
While these products are vastly better than their petroleum-based cousins, I think at some point we as Americans will need to face the fact that we are running a deficit in so many ways in our lives and doing so is simply not sustainable. Switching to biodiesel, for example, will not help with inherent inefficiencies/congestion caused by SOV (single occupancy vehicle) traffic. It will not help with the destruction of open spaces by development (suburban sprawl and the like). Car culture is destroying the livability of our cities, and having vehicles that use a different fuel simply will not help that.
It seems weird to me that to follow the advice of the film and become a better earth citizen, I suppose you’d engage in a sort of eco-consumerism by buying solar panels, a new diesel car, etc. It seems much more natural to simply live more sustainably by using less power, buying less environmentally toxic stuff, driving less, etc. That, IMO, is very hard to swallow for the American public, which is why you get guilt...err....carbon offsets when you buy a Land Rover.
At the very end of the movie, they did promote “the solution” as being a bunch of things, which I agree with; but sadly this was just a small part of what amounted to a very long biodiesel commercial. 70% biodiesel, 20% algae, 8% other fuel sources, 2% reducing (bikes were, for example, relegated to simply being an icon with no mention in the dialog).
I guess like Barack Obama’s “health insurance plan,” it’s at least a step in the right direction. For that, we owe gratitude to Mr. Tickell.