catastrophic calamity, world wars, or just too much red bull?

Okay so. I promised myself when I first created this blog that I wouldn't use it as a soapbox for means of proto-typical non-conformist policital purposes, but I think that having my own blog, by right, enables me to break this guideline.
So here goes.
Tonight, I went to cover an environmental commission meeting for one of the towns that I cover. The meeting was actually going to be a viewing of the documentary "The End of Suburbia: the demise of oil and the collapse of the American dream" by Jeffrey Greene, followed by a discussion. YAY. As I headed into the community center where the film was to take place, I first made a quick detour to the store to grab a sans-sugar Red Bull. I wasn't quite sure how engaging this was going to be, and after a deadline day at the office ridden with last minute state Supreme Court decisions (turned into an article in record time I'll have you know) I wasn't about to be messin.'

So into the community center I head. Mystified all the while by the television-less end of the room that lay beforth us. (I
seriously sat there for like 5 minutes trying to figure out where we were going to watch the movie without a television until I saw the projector sitting on a desk in front of the blank, white wall.)

But I digress, and the documentary started. And from the moment that it did, I was transfixed. In case you couldn't guess, the basic premise was pretty much about the end of life as we know it, (because we are so deeply and horribly addicted to oil and natural gas, and the likes) and what that's going to mean for life as we know it in the future.
And let me tell you, I really think that viewing this documentary could make a pessimist out of the most optomisitic of the glass-half-full people out there. And with just cause. This is seriously alarming. I mean, pretty much in 20, hell, 15, hell maybe even 10 years life as we know it will not be the same.

The film asked the average consumer to imagine a day when the mass suburbs of America become slums-and there is massive regression of the human race. The film projected that there will be such massive regression that it is not your choice to do so, but this is rather dependent on our survival.
Which, within itself is a very interesting thought. We, as 21st-century humans really don't have a good grasp on what survival entails, which is quite frightening to me. I'll admit, if I couldn't get into my car (okay, or get on my bicycle) and go to the local supermarket in the middle of the winter in Central NJ I wouldn't know how to get food. Think about that for a second: what if the commodity chain was virtually haulted to a stop indefinetly? Think of the competition, the violence, the scramble that would ensue over a quart of milk or a loaf of bread? Scary to think. Even scarier to think that that may be something that I will have to worry about over the next 50 years of my life. What's even worse is that at this point, my parents, pretty much the entire Baby-Boomer generation that basically has feed off of this suburbia model all of their lives stand to lose alot-if not all of the capital that have worked so hard for all of their lives for, and perhaps too feable to acquiesce.

What really worries me the most over this whole thought of the end of suburbia (not that I was really enjoying all that much to begin with-though my current economic state doesn't really permit me to live in a city on my own--but I am working very hard to change that situation shortly) is that people-myself included-like to believe that there is no immediate problem. Or that if there is, there is a highly-organized team of professionals with doctorate degrees toiling away in some laboratory somewhere combating the problem while I comfortably sleep each night. Or that people of an older generation actually DO realize the calamity-and that my generation is too busy being obsessed with what kind of sleek and sexy gadget Apple is spitting out to really grasp the issue at hand. (And I am one of these people too!!!)

One thing was crystal clear after viewing this documentary tonight: that being dramatic and deploying desperate attempts such as shocking the American public with information that makes them uncomfortable is, in my opinion, necessary.
I know that it's currently trendy to be "green," but I think that this mass-distribution of ideas needs to expodentially increase with a depth that undercuts the current constant desire for what's bigger, shinier, and faster.
It's weird because growing up I'd heard people say to me that they wanted to move out of the United States when they grew old enough, and that they couldn't be associated with a system that just seems to be built on a retro-fantasy of post WWII utopia.
I wish I could say that Canada, hell, even Europe has the answer, but unfortunatley, I don't think it's that simple.....

So am I totally hating on America, or our economy, or in going to the mall on Saturday afternoons? Certainly not. I happen to love New Jersey, (okay you out-of-staters, hold your jokes) this area of the country is where I live and where my loved ones live. I happen to stimulate the economy alot, (once again, slow your roll on the jokes here too please) whether it be shopping locally or going to a chain store. I also agree with the documentary that with times of great stress comes great inguinuity. Maybe we'll get through the peak and fall of fossil fuels just fine.

What I do know for sure is that this documentary has inspired me to want to be, myself, faster, stronger, and more educated about not misleading ourselves to negligent means to an end. To keep one eye fixated ahead on the future, while being mindful of what you're doing right this second to conserve and protect. And to involve others in simple local inniciatives to develop a stronger local economy, and most of all to foster a healthy social environment that I feel we are in DESPERATE need of in America.

And what now know with absolute certainty?
I am moving out of the suburbs as soon as I possibly can.