Not a bad little doco this one. This one came out before Cyclone Katrina in May 2004.

The End of Suburbia traces the origins of the North American suburb, which in itself is quite interesting. But more to the point, its dependency on oil to get people from the suburbs where they live, to the cities where they work. Starting out with idyllic ‘country living for everybody’ 1950s propserous propaganda, very quickly you’re taken straight into the urbal sprawl. We soon find out that the suburban US dream is not under threat from Muslim fundamentalists, but the scarcity of the oil the whole American dream was based on.

So what’s so bad about suburbs you ask? Well North American suburbs were more a less a conspiracy away from public transport. Which if you look at some cities such as Los Angeles today, it seems highly plausible. Early suburbs had extensive trams (or what they call cable cars) and were very accessible without needing your own car. Jump to the post-war baby boomers and suddenly the US auto industry is burgeoning, and they didn’t want competition. So motorways got wider and trams more scarce as every family gets at least one car. Detroit used their Washington connections to keep highways coming and the clamp on PT. It was all based on cheap, plentiful oil and never thought to evebe unsustainable.

Cut a long story short, and post war suburbia was based on a false premise, and continues to this day. "it has none of the amenities of country life, and none ammenities of the town. Just a six lane highway" according to Howard Kunstler. Only one thing keeps the masses in the picture though, oil. And oil production peaked in the mid seventies. So guess how bad it is now? We’re just about out of gas.

The keypoints in this doco are three-fold: the false hope in alternative fuels; what peak oil really means for suburbia; economic impacts.

Alternative fuels

  1. Alternative fuels are bogus. Hydrogen is no alternative to petroleum as it is only a means of storing energy in water and far more explosive. You still have to create the enegry in hydrogen from something. Effectively it takes more energy to make hydrogen than it does the bang for buck you’d get out of putting it in your petrol tank.
  2. Ethanol from sugar cane or corn is not a feasible alternative fossil fuel because you need land to grow it, unlike oil which is mined underground. The amount of corn or sugar cane we’d need to grow to maintain sustainability is unfeasible.
  3. Modern agriculture is heavily dependent on petroleum based pesticides and natural gas based fertilisers. The impact of this is two fold as we require pesticides to maintain peak production of affordable and plentiful food. Secondly that pumping so much oil based fertilisers into fertile land is slowly killing it, decreasing our ability to grow food in existing agri areas. Based on the last point, you’d need oil to fertilise corn. . .

What peak oil really means for suburbia

  1. M King Hubbert an eminent, widely respected geologist predicted that US oil production would peak in the early 70s. In the true American style, they made a mockery of him. But history has proven him right although it took everyone a decade to realise that US oil prouction peaked in 1970, never to be beaten again. He also predicted world oil producton to peak in the 1990s. Scary . . .
  2. According to Michael C Ruppert, 60% of the worlds’ avaialble oil fields are in the Persian Gulf. Guess where we’re at war?
  3. So long as depleting natural resources are a reality, Cheney’s ‘war that will not end in our life time’ will continue. Because politicians that can keep the suburban dream alive, will stay in power. Furthermore control the (remaining) oil and you control the world.
  4. Once you get past the peak of an oil well’s production, both the quality of oil suffers and the energy necessary to drill the oil makes it totally unfeasible to obtain. So there may be 50% of oil left in the ground, but it’s 10 times more expensive to drill for and half the quality of the former 50%

Economic impacts

  1. As oil fields deplete, international free trade becomes impossible. It wont be feasible to make goods cheaply in China if the oil necessary to transport them continues to increase in cost.
  2. Modern retailers such as K Mart and Wal Mart that not only ship in goods from overseas but truck them all over the country will become an impossible distribution model so long as we’re dependent on "cheap gas" to make it all possible 
  3. suburbs themselves will have to become far more sustainable both economically and agriculturally. Local businesses selling local, seasonal goods will become a fact of life

Before we discuss there points further, here’s a bit about the production aspects of this doco. A hero of mine Michael C Ruppert (who wrote Crossing the Rubicon) is also featured in the oil scarcity discussions. Kunstler I don’t know anything about, but he’s pretty hip and calls the whole suburban nightmare a "clusterfuck" and refers to the average modern suburban house as a McMansion. So yes, I like his style! He certainly does lighten up the otherwise sombering tone of suburban despair.  This film also has minimal use of hyperbole and looks like it was made for television, so it production values and continuity are top notch.

Getting back to the crux of the matter, ‘Suburbia does have an upside. While the suburban way of life will be in imminent crisis, there are answers. Civilisation has to get back to a sustainable urban model that’s accessible by foot wherever possible. So there’s flirtation with a renaissance in urbanism to address these concerns. But increased inter and infrastate such as railways to curtail use of trucking and cars to travel are less likely but imperative.

And last but not least, we need to start thinking less of ourselves and more of our neighbors. Ingeneouity will have to solve the problems burocrats can’t. If it doesn’t we’ll perish. Those that do insist on suburbia will have to grow their own vegies and find a job locally. Quite possible even share their McMansion with another family. We’re in for an interesting ride as unsustainability becomes a bitter reality. In raising these points, this documentary has done very, very

The End of Suburbia is available at Mike Ruppert’s site at www.copvcia.com.