Escape from Suburbia, is the long-awaited sequel to the award-winning film on Peak Oil., ‘End of Suburbia’. It is being premiered in Ireland, at the Green Living Experience, on 26th August in Castlewellan, Co. Down by the Belfast Film Café.

Released in Canada in late June, Escape from Suburbia chronicles the journey of three people, (Kate Holloway, Philip Botwinick and Carol Steinman) as they struggle to do what they feel is best within the coming era after Peak Oil. Whereas ‘End of Suburbia’, (2004) contained many dire warnings from leading oil industry experts and academics on the coming end of the age of oil, Escape from Suburbia takes the issues raised by Peak Oil to a more human level. The film examines the choices open to all of us - individuals and communities - as the supply of plentiful and cheap oil comes to an end. The director does a wonderful job of dealing with the complex layers involved with transportation, urban density, local farming, industrial agriculture, over-population, renewable energy and governmental attitudes toward peak oil.
The term ‘peak oil’ was coined by an eminent American geologist in the 1950’s, M.K. Hubbert who accurately predicted the peak in US oil production, which caused the oil crisis of the 1970s. ‘Peak oil’ refers to the point at which consumption begins to outstrip production.
With our overwhelming dependence on oil, Ireland is particularly exposed, given our stretched supply lines through Europe and it’s use in how most of our raw materials and food are now imported and transported.

Solutions are to be found: we are not doomed. But significantly, the solutions are not in corporate boardrooms and government offices: the significance of, and the great opportunity presented by the end of oil, is the end of highly centralized economic power and the beginning of individual empowerment. The new paradigm will be the creation of a new type of low-energy society where communities and localities will have the opportunity to rediscover their strength, innate skills and power.

However, in spite of the great prize, the journey will not be comfortable. This is what “Escape from Suburbia” reflects so well to its audience. The juxtaposition of this prize of human empowerment with the inevitable human suffering, which such great change will bring. “In ‘Escape’ I wanted to look at the people who really were trying to make some kind of impact over the energy question, right now”, says Greg Greene, Writer/Director of Escape from Suburbia. “Who were the people who had a future without cheap oil? Who were the ones who didn’t want to waste any time waiting around for it to hit them? “

There is also the poignant story of a city farm. South Side Farm, was a six hectare community garden in Los Angeles, gifted to the people by the city authorities and successfully supporting many families with fresh local food. However, it was also a valuable piece of real estate - too tempting to the city fathers. In one day, watched by the distressed community, they wrested the farm away from community ownership and flattened it to make way for yet more real estate development, and ‘Mcjobs’.

The powerful message of this and other scenes from this inspiring film is not to depend on central and local government to deal with the immense challenges presented by Peak Oil. In reality government is part of the problem. We must look to ourselves and our neighbours to find a way through. There may be many painful set-backs, as experienced by the urban poor in Los Angeles, but the prize of a low-energy society is in rebuilding individual and local empowerment and in the rediscovery of the value of community-living once enjoyed by our forebears, a time before the Age of Oil gave us great material comfort but destroyed our social glue.