"Oil Smoke & Mirrors" offers us a sobering critique of our perceived recent history, of our present global circumstances, and of our shared future in light of imminent, under-reported and mis-represented energy production constraints.
Through a series of impressively candid, informed and articulate interviews, this film also argues that the bizzare events surrounding the 9/11 attacks, and the equally bizzare "war on terror", can be more credibly understood in the wider context of an imminent and critical divergence between available global oil supply and increasing global oil demand.
The current method of raw food production is largely a response to the growth of the fast food industry since the 1950s. The production of food overall has more drastically changed since that time than the several thousand years prior. Controlled primarily by a handful of multinational corporations, the global food production business, with an emphasis on the business, has its own unwritten goals namely — production of large quantities of food at low direct inputs (most often subsidized) resulting in enormous profits, which in turn results in greater control of the global supply of food sources within these few companies.
Health and safety (of the food itself, of the animals, of the workers on the assembly lines, and of the consumers actually eating the food) are often overlooked by the companies, and are often overlooked by government in an effort to provide cheap food regardless of these negative consequences. Many of the changes are based on advancements in science and technology, but often have negative side effects. The answer that the companies have come up with is to throw more science at the problems to bandage the issues but not the root causes.
The global food supply may be in crisis with lack of biodiversity, but can be changed on the demand side of the equation.
…care about whether or not there is a human race around in the next hundred years
…care about the quality of life for your children and their children over the next 50 years
…are a young person who expects to be around for the next 60 to 80 years
If you do this is all about your future.
As one watches "The 11th Hour" it becomes clear that it doesn't matter how rich or powerful one may be, there will be no escaping the inexorable consequences of the indefensibly insane/unsustainable global industrial/economic model; a model clearly based on little more than short term greed.
