The Curse of Oil
Three-part series that goes on a revealing journey through the world's oil-producing regions, beyond the familiar territory of the Middle East. Now that the oil price appears to be rising inexorably at the pumps, newspapers are full of gloomy predictions related to our increasing addiction to perishable reserves of oil. Bill Cran's series takes a somewhat different approach.
We are in fact still amply supplied with oil on planet earth. The problem is that most of it lies in what we cosseted addicts regard as the wrong places. Getting enough oil to fill George Bush's SUV requires dealing with nasty governments or destroying the wilderness. But the relationship between oil companies, consumers and those who live where the oil is extracted is changing very rapidly. It is becoming possible for native populations to obstruct oil companies.
Cran's series leaves one with the feeling that there are no easy answers - but that, given the hysteria surrounding the subject, is no bad thing. It's also ravishingly shot.
I hope to god we find a better way to power ourselves than oil. For the forseeable future, it's oil all the way, but I really hope governments and private firms look at other energy sources that leave less an impact on the environment of the places they operate...
I feel for the wild life and the environment but, as it stands most people are depended upon oil. If it's not in supply starvation would be one issue since most people don't know how to grow their own food. We would, eventually, want to eat the very polar bears we're trying to save.
I guess it's a question of what and how much we're willing to give up? And who decide that?
Oil pollution will make humans extinct
I thought this series is very informative. All proponents of the oil industry are idiotic fools following what they've been told by their forefathers or they are too old for it to matter what happens to this planet. To care for this planet you need to think outside the time-span of your own lifetime and think about this planet a century or two from now. what legacy will you have left behind..? If you kill the planet in the process it wont have mattered anyways because their will be no semblance of mankind to carry your legacy on. We are all fools. If this is the curse of the white man, you're just as big of an idiot. Sell your SUV and your 24 inch rims you hood rat.
For a better take on the "curse of oil" see Ross Kemp's trip to Nigeria in his movie about pirates.
Poorly done. The pictures shown don't match the story told, one almost gets the impression somebody has written the whole script beforehand and then sent a camera man to capture generic videos of some landscape trips and slapped some boring music on top of it. The people behind this film seem to have little actual interest in accurately reporting the issues at hand.
The Curse of White man.......... they killed all the colored peoples to fill their stomachs..... now they kill Mother Earth too.
Very good series. Part 2 is most interesting, where you're taken on a sort of guided tour along an oil pipeline through some of the Central Asian Republics with a survey of geopolitical challenges in this emerging region. A glimpse at some places most Americans barely realize exist.
i hate bp
good doc...its sad to see our true addiction to oil. i cant even justify the fact i don't drive. cuz the byproducts of oil is in every thing. lusight was a good alternative to plastics. but i guess it wasn't so cheap to make. as for oils in soap we could go back to hemp oil. hemp can be for a lot of stuff. :-)