[Leanan]

It's starting in a few minutes in the eastern time zone - 10pm ET on the National Geographic Channel. If you miss it, it will rerun at 1am.

World Without Oil
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hat would our world look like if we ran out of oil? The lifeblood of our high-tech, highly mobile world won't last forever. Watch one scenario of what happens when one day oil does run out. How might our world change and how would we adapt? Aftermath follows the chaotic days and months after this catastrophic event through dramatic re-creations and CGI animation. Find out how we might cope as food disappears, electrical power fails and winter turns the big cities into isolated pockets of concrete and glass. What will be more important to our survival — the technology to develop new sources of energy, or a change to a more sustainable way of life?

[GoghGoner]

Can I come over to you place and watch it? I don't have cable/satellite.

[misterno]

wwwooowww my kinda doomer porn )

[lowem]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('misterno', 'w')wwooowww my kinda doomer porn )

[NeoPeasant]

Would anyone who actually saw it care to comment, for the benefit of us non cable/dish users?

Thanks

[hillsidedigger]

I watched it and it didn't make much sense and wouldn't serve to educate anyone who is not yet aware of the peak-oil dilemna.

There was a lot of scenes of people fleeing the cities (some manually pushing and dragging their cars) and the Northern areas on foot but it wasn't revealed where the people went or what they did when they got there.

I thought their final conclusion was particularly heinous, that is that after 40 years America will return to normal from biofuel produced from only 10 million acres of algae. What they didn't say is that after 40 years there might only be 40 million Americans remaining.

[AirlinePilot]

I watched it. There were many inaccuracies to start with. The premise that oil would just one day "cease" was ridiculous. Even though they did that anyway there were vague references to biofuels, ethanol, etc which pointed to some solutions..but.... they shied away from the true consequences which would be famine, economic chaos, huge unemployment and a complete breakdown of order. There was not enough attention paid to the fact that nothing can replace what oil does for us on any scale other than fractionally and without it things would rapidly go "Mad Max".

Somehow after a while we went back to an agrarian, local, old school lifestyle ala Kuntsler, but they completely glossed over what happens to the greater population without any oil at all.

I thought it sucked.

It did nothing other than prove that anything related to resource depletion is just crackpot and tinfoil territory and reality can never be so bad.

[TheDude]

Please lock me away
And don't allow the day
Here inside, where I hide with my MREs.
I don't care what they say, I won't stay
In a world without oil.

[eastbay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'D')id they really say 10 million acres of algae would drive america? I don't believe that anyone has ever produced automobile fuel from 1 acre of algae.

[Laurasia]

They did mention epidemics, and the 'fall' of Miami after a hurricane, having no recourse to oil-powered technology to build it again. They portrayed the new agrarian societies that humans would form but never mentioned that the population would have to be greatly reduced to achieve them. I was very disappointed, and got fed up of hearing about biofuels.

L.

[eastbay]

Funny... they talked about farming Central Park.... like it would contribute to feeding NY'ers in a meaningful manner. The park fully cultivated would only feed a few thousand people. That was another Great Silly in the show.

[Windmills]

A friend of mine, who tends to avoid discussing peak oil issues with me because of their morbidity, said he saw the show. He said he could barely watch it because it was so depressing to him. I'll have to let him know that it was the sweetened version of rapid-rate oil-depletion tea.

[Pablo2079]

I thought it was totally cornucopian. Hard to imagine it depressing someone...

It starts out with "Imagine all of the oil.... gone" Somehow, all of the in ground reserves (including the tar sands) just disappear one day. They do point out that we "should" have about 1 trillion barrels of "easily accessible" oil left in the ground and that we've used about that much in the last 150 years of our oil culture. The problem with statements like that is that people seem to think that it will last us a LOOONG time (as if each of the last 150 years is equivalent to what we use in a year presently).

The program goes through the typical disaster show template of "1 Day After" , "5 Days After" etc.... At one point, they started pointing out the benefits of living without oil... cleaner air, a return to a more traditional/local based economy. It made it seem like that transition consists of building a chicken coop and converting your yard to a garden.

The end of the show was total crap. People were driving around with electric cars. Air Travel was starting up again due to biofuels. In this "future world", it does show that Bolivia is the new Saudi Arabia (Lithium).

I do not recommend this show at all.

[pablonite]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pablo2079', 'I') do not recommend this show at all.

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'D')id they really say 10 million acres of algae would drive america? I don't believe that anyone has ever produced automobile fuel from 1 acre of algae.

[eastbay]

That's what I was thinking! But I flipped it and assumed they were telling America 10 million acres would power America.... as in 200 million cars. Then did the simple math. Sends a happy chill down your spine, huh?

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pablo2079', 'I') thought it was totally cornucopian. Hard to imagine it depressing someone...