Josh Tickell Film Analysis

This documentary narrated by biofuel advocate Josh Tickell looks into the background of America’s dependence on our fossil fuels. In the documentary Tickell interviews and asks questions from all over the spectrum of fuel use in America. Ultimately, he looks at how American’s fuel lifestyle and how we can better change our fuel addictive lifestyles in the future.
Josh Tickell created a van that traveled around the country for almost 2 years using grease from fast food restaurants to fuel the van. Did our choice of oil lead to what this country has been experiencing for the past nine or so years? The way the he chose to find out was to get back on the road again. He grew up in Louisiana and that is where the petrochemical companies dispose of their toxic waste in three ways, burn it, put it on land, or pour it into water. This is considered now cancer alley, because of the oil processing and dumping of toxic waste.
It was interesting to hear that after 9/11the U.S.
passed the law that said that if you buy a car that weights 6,000 pounds or more, that the government will buy it for you essentially in tax breaks. It is insane to look at how much we need hybrids and fuel-efficient cars yet consumers go for the cars such as hummers and other large gas-guzzlers. Diesel cars for a while were not appealing due to the fact that they are loud, smoky and not fast. Yet these days Europe have come out with vehicles that have turbo charged diesel that are quite appealing. In 2007, these diesel engines have changed dramatically and according to the emissions, standards for diesel vehicles and gasoline vehicles have become equally the
same.
It was also intriguing to look at the fact that we put oil in front of our bill of rights, and we have in a sense become addicted to oil. As Abe Lincoln said, “I believe America is a great nation because we are a good nation, if we stop being a good nation we will lose our greatness,” and we are so addicted to oil that we have lost a sense of greatness, because we have put oil in front of the bill of rights.
Looking at energy efficiency is one of the cleanest and quickest ways to ease our oil addiction. Companies and even governments are hesitant to do this because they are waiting for the masses to join in, and masses are made up of individuals and until the individual make the change, you do not have the masses. The documentary looks at sustainability as a barrel, and the elements in the barrel are energy efficiency, public transportation, plug-in hybrids/ev’s, solar, wind, biomass and sustainable biofuels. Who will fill the new sustainable barrel and who will lead this difficult task, as Gandhi said, “When the people lead… the leaders will follow.” Personally, I agree with the overall view that our government has to hear from us in order for them to speak for us. We have the power to make a difference, and we cannot wait for the oil companies to hand us the chance to do the difference, we need to make a difference today.