Revinventing the Way We Live: Interview with Ray McCormack

It’s one thing to eat poorly or smoke cigarettes and know that somewhere down the line, you may pay for your individual behavior with poor health. But it’s quite another thing to participate in the destruction of a planet. The documentary, A Crude Awakening, presents the theory of “peak oil,” namely, that because all crude oil sources on the planet have already been found, nonrenewable fossil fuel’s production will eventually enter a terminal decline. Whether you understand this peak to be approaching or already reached, the scenario is dire, given global oil consumption rates. Co-directors Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack’s well-researched and eloquent film doesn’t let anyone off the hook, no matter the size of your “environmental footprint.” The Swiss production has collected numerous awards along its festival route. McCormack brought the documentary to Torino last fall for the 10th edition of Cinemambiente. He spoke openly and passionately about the reality of the peak and making his important film.

This film doesn’t let people off the hook or suggest it will all be okay in the end if you just recycle. It argues for a major mind shift. Do you believe people are capable of making such changes?

Without being too apocalyptic about it all, I think these changes will be forced upon us sooner or later, because oil is such a unique substance. So we either have to prepare in advance for a time when there isn’t enough oil to go around or we wait until it crashes onto the shore and deal with it then. If we wait, then it is going to be very, very rough for us all. It’s not a question of if or when it will happen, it’s a question of how it will happen.

I appreciated what you said at the screening regarding re-localization and the efforts small communities are making.

Re-localization is sort of the mantra at this point. If you look at the kind of lifestyle that we lead, certainly in Europe, America, and the more industrialized countries, our supply lines are now so long. Almost everything that is manufactured or that we consume or buy in Europe and America comes from China. We’re very vulnerable if these supply lines somehow get broken. And we’ve lost a lot of the skills that we had 50 years ago which made us resilient as communities or as cities or towns and villages. People say that we can’t go back and it’s probably true, but we have to revert to being more independent and resilient as communities, towns, and cities.

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