Peak Oil makes for ‘Black Monday’ at the Movies

It’s always fascinating to try to discern the patterns of how Hollywood reflects what’s moving in the zeitgeist.

Angst about nuclear power and weapons was transformed into mutant blobs and monsters set on infecting or ingesting the population. Fear of Communism was made flesh in pod-people, who would suddenly act and think differently and subversively, while still looking like their old selves.

So what fear is rising up to the surface of the dark waters of our collective unconscious today, like some Leviathan of the deep? What clammy nightmare jolts people awake in the middle of the night drenched in the sour sweat of panic? Judging from “Black Monday”, a new movie that’s being rushed into production, it might be sticker-shock at the petrol pump.

Peaking Too Soon

For many years the term “Peak Oil” was unknown to most ordinary people and dismissed by the ones in political and industrial positions of power. Sure, everyone knew that petroleum was a non-renewable resource. But there just seemed to be so much of it as to not make much difference.

European Tribune