EDITOR'S COMMENT:

Here's a documentary I hope everyone on this list will watch. Presented by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, it was first broadcast on May 24th and is now available for viewing online. If you want to come to a deeper understanding of how peak oil and global warming are intimately connected -- and how both are pushing the Earth (and human civilization) into places we probably don't want to go, this is the film to watch.

--- David Sunfellow

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CRUDE - THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY OF OIL
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
May 24, 2007

Watch This Important Documentary Online

ABC TV is proud to present the world television premiere of Crude, a superbly crafted, 90 minute documentary spanning 160 million years of the Earth's history to reveal the story of oil. From the food on our tables to the fuel in our cars, crude oil seeps invisibly into almost every part of our modern lives. It is the energy source and raw material that drives transport and the economy. Yet many of us have little idea of the incredible journey it has made to reach our petrol tanks and plastic bags.

Coming in the wake of rising global concerns about the continued supply of oil, and increasingly weird weather patterns, award-winning Australian filmmaker, Dr Richard Smith takes us through time: from the birth of oil deep in the dinosaur-inhabited past, to its ascendancy as the indispensable ingredient of modern life. Filmed on location in 11 countries across five continents, Smith consults the leading international scientific experts to join the dots between geology and economy and provide the big-picture view of oil.

Smith says: "When I first started getting interested in oil, I was amazed to find that not only did most people not really have a good idea what this stuff was, but it was hard to find a really definitive explanation from the experts on how it formed. Clearly, the science of oil was lagging behind the exploitation. The deeper I dug into the latest research on the subject, the more incredible links in the story began to drop into place."

Crude takes a step back from the day to day news to illuminate the Earth's extraordinary carbon cycle and the role of oil in our impending climate crisis. Nearly seven billion people have come to depend on this resource, yet the Oil Age, that began less than a century and a half ago, could be over in our lifetimes. Crude is essential viewing in the tradition of "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Who killed the Electric Car?"

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