[Peakoil] Meeting on peak oil, ignorance and denial - Wednesday 21 May 2008

[Nature and Society Forum]

Public meeting: Wednesday 21 May 2008 – 7:30 pm – Paul Tranter on "A  
monster problem or child’s play: coping with peak oil".

Two major problems are associated with our ability to cope with peak  
oil: ignorance and denial.

This presentation argues that a critique of a popular children’s movie  
may provide an entertaining way of introducing people to the serious  
issues of peak oil, children’s rights and child friendly cities. The  
Pixar-animated Disney movie Monsters, Inc., released in 2001, is  
popular with both adults and children, and sales of DVDs indicates  
that it is still a favourite movie. Monsters, Inc. can be seen as an  
allegory about changing conceptualisations of children, an emerging  
energy crisis, and our responses to this energy crisis.

However, a simplistic interpretation of the movie suggests that a  
technological fix will be found for the world’s looming energy crisis:  
peak oil. A more detailed critical analysis of the movie suggests that  
there are far more important messages hidden beneath this humorous  
children’s story. This presentation explores the likely impact of peak  
oil on children’s well-being, and argues that while peak oil may  
present a crisis for children’s rights, it can also be seen as  
providing an opportunity, if we can only see peak oil coming and think  
about how we can change our cities now to prepare for it.

A reflection on messages from Monsters Inc. suggests that coping with  
peak oil may well require the sort of creativity and openness to new  
ways of thinking that children exhibit in their play. In the real  
world, by taking a child’s perspective, and by making our cities more  
child-friendly, we will also prepare our cities for the challenges of  
peak oil.

Paul is at the School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical  
Sciences, University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force  
Academy, Canberra. Those members who were inspired by Paul’s talk to  
Nature and Society Forum two years ago on child-friendly cities are  
delighted to welcome him back.

Please pass on this invitation to your friends and acquaintances.

Venue: the ANU Emeritus Faculty. A map showing the venue can be found  
on the ANU website.

http://campusmap.anu.edu.au/displaymap.asp?grid=cd32

The building is called the Fellows Lane Cottage and is building 3T on  
this map. It is off Fellows Road to the immediate north of the Law  
Faculty buildings and east of the South Oval.
--------------------------------------------------
Keith Thomas
Nature and Society Forum
www.natsoc.org.au --- www.biosensitivefutures.org
02-6125 2526 (weekday mornings) Mobile: 0412 487 625
--------------------------------------------------





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://act-peakoil.org/pipermail/peakoil/attachments/20080517/6e23b65c/attachment.html