Peter+Park's+Collapse+Reflection

  2210: The Collapse opened a whole new perspective on the world for me. The difficult truth that the cities of the world can collapse faster than they have grown to their current state is something that no one can swallow lightly. Although I have constantly heard of the inevitable scarcity of oil and water, and the mounting environmental issues arising from urbanization of cities, I didn’t regard them with prime concern until the documentary shone light on the crucial matter. The documentary clearly outlined the underlying problem of city failure, explained examples in history, and showed what humans can do to prevent this crisis.

 We are at a point in history where peak oil, peak water, peak everything have been reached. The documentary illustrates a scene where oil was inexpensive to the point of wasting 75% of energy from oil combustion and utilizing only 25% for electricity generation. On the other hand, currently, all of the easy-to-reach oil sources have been depleted, and now the massive world demand for oil exceeds the remaining world supply. As fossil fuel supplies are estimated to run dry in a matter of decades, the ensuing energy crisis is a menacing threat to the survival of our cities. To resolve this issue, the documentary advocates “using everything we have”: nuclear power, wind power, solar power, geothermal power. While the list is quite long, each of these alternatives has a significant disadvantage; nuclear power requires expensive infrastructure and produces long-lived waste, whereas most renewable energy sources are situational and relatively small-scale. Not only that, but the oil crisis is only one of multiple problems faced by today’s cities; the documentary depicts 2210 archaeologists trying to figure out for which of the many resources did cities reach the carrying capacity.

 While looking at the imminent scarcities looming over our daily lives, I couldn’t help but think of capitalism. A seemingly ideal economic system that encourages efficiency, entrepreneurship, and productivity, capitalism is one of the most pervasive systems in the world today. However, capitalism lies on a fatal assumption: that our planet has unlimited resources, and is able to sustain the sheer level of exploitation caused by humans’ thirst for profit. As scarcities in some of the most important resources we rely on have surfaced, it is evident that to prevent the collapse of our civilization, we must work to curb the exploitation of nonrenewable resources that is occurring right now.  The documentary, though clear in its outlining of the problems our cities face, ends on a hopeful note. Humans are resilient and flexible beings who have historically adapted to hardships - such as the collapse of cities - and survived. The documentary also underscores the importance of the choices we make. Our current situation is compared to a impending fork in the train tracks, which divides into a path of destruction and a path extending throughout the horizon. As I, a citizen of this ‘peak’ society, will inevitably make many of these choices, I can say that this documentary was an enlightening, valuable, and compelling source of information.