Kurt Cobb wrote his new suspense novel about peak oil, Prelude, for
women readers because they are the ones who generally make decisions about the
household.
"If the women of the world think an issue is important, most of the people
will follow," said Cobb.
He cited the example of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers where women in the 1980s
lobbied successfully to make drunk driving a major offense. They wanted
both to punish offenders and to raise the public's consciousness about the
dangers of drunk driving.
Of course, he encourages men to read to read the book as well because the book
discusses one of the most serious problems in our world today that's not being
talked about: peak oil and our energy future.
"If I can get to them to prepare their families and communities for peak
oil, that can make a big difference."
Cobb decided to author a novel on peak oil because he found that after writing
about energy issues for three years the message about our depleting resources
just wasn't getting through to policymakers or the general public.
His blog is Resource Insights, he is a
regular writer for Energy Bulletin and the Paris-based science news site Scitizen (pronounced like "citizen"), and he is
frequently picked up by the premier energy report site, Oil Drum.
"Ideas are not infused into our culture until they're in the arts,"
he said.
Music, literature, art works, and especially films seem to make an issue
real.
His idea is not without precedent. Uncle Tom's Cabin, written in
1852 by Harriet Beecher Stowe, completely changed the discussion about slavery
in the United States and throughout the world, he said.
Upton Sinclair's 1906 book, The Jungle, was intended to create sympathy
for the working classes who manned the knives in the Midwestern meat packing
plants. However, his descriptions about the way meat was processed
horrified the public so much that it led the federal government to pass the
Pure Food and Drug Act that same year; it eventually created the industry's watchdog,
the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Movies that focus on issues have affected the public in the past, said
Cobb. "Blood Diamond" (2006) illustrated how diamonds were sold
by warring groups to finance their operations. Diamond companies then
responded by making sure this did not happen with their diamonds and they
assured their customers that they would not sell products that financed war.
In "Philadelphia" (1993), Tom Hanks, a lawyer, was dismissed from his
firm when it found out he had AIDS. This film raised consciousness about
this common practice and then led to legislation that made it is illegal for
companies to fire people with AIDS.
Perhaps the most compelling example of movies' impact on people was the 1979
hit, "The China Syndrome." It dramatized an accident at a
nuclear power plant. Uncannily, the film was released 12 days before the
Three Mile Island plant experienced a partial core meltdown. Because of
the similarity between the film and the accident, the film dominated the way
people thought about nuclear power plants. This led to a virtual shutdown
of the nuclear power plant industry for orders to build any new plants in the
United States.
"That's the kind of impact I'm hoping to get with my book," said
Cobb. "I want people to be concerned enough to prepare for peak
oil."
During the first 150 years of the oil age (1859-2009), the
easy-to-get oil has practically gushed out of the ground, so all the oil
companies had to do was capture it, he said. We have been running the
world on that oil. However, today, more and more of our global society is
dependent on the hard-to-get oil that comes from places like the tar sands of
Alberta, Canada, and deep water rigs like those in the Gulf of Mexico.
So the problem is not that we can't get the oil, even with our advanced
technology. The problem is that we can't extract it at a rate that will
meet the growing demand.
Peak oil is not only about running out of oil; it's about running out of cheap
oil.
"Global society is addicted to cheap oil to support endless growth,"
said Cobb. "That is why prices have fluctuated so much from $10 a
barrel in 1999 to $147 a barrel in 2008. We have a lot of oil left but
not in the form that is easy to get in the amounts that we need at the prices
that we want."
Cobb pointed out that once Cassie, an oil analyst and the heroine of the novel,
became aware of peak oil, her relationship with oil changed and that changed
her relationships with the people around her.
To learn more about the novel or to arrange for a presentation, see the
website: http://preludethenovel.com.
