Escape From Suburbia scrreening in Burlington ON

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We did it, showed the new sequel to the world-changing End of Suburbia, to a crowd of 40+ at the library in Burlington last night. Greg Greene and Dara Rowland, producer as well as the editor (sorry don't have his name)came on the GO Train to be with us. The dvd will be available June 10th via www.escapefromsuburbia.com.

The conversation afterwards pointed up the emotional impact of the 90 minute documentary. People were distraught at the footage of the wanton destruction of the 14 acre urban garden in Los Angeles, to make way for a developer's warehouse. One of the 'starring' couples in the film is a gay couple from NYC who got the peak oil message and made a 180 degree turn to help build a movement to make neighbourhoods liveable under energy descent future. I think Tom was easily the most likeable guy in the whole piece, winning hearts when he said from a conference podium that peak oil is like a coming out for gay people; you expect to be rejected, even lose your job, but you have to do it, or go on living a double life.

Another viewer wrote this review. After Seeing the Documentary Screening: Escape from Suburbia 
Tonite we saw a California Community Garden of several acres of urban green space bulldozed which is exactly opposite to where Global Warming needs to go... The producer and director joined us for a facilitated discussion after the movie. Please see the press release below for more details about the screening. The sequel everyone who saw End of Suburbia is waiting for... not just about technical energy questions,it is about the people who are trying to address them. Director Gregory Greene states, "These are people who are anticipating massive social changes based on energy becoming much more expensive. That is what we are going to look at. Their futures, our futures, could be vastly different depending on the success or failure of their projects. Very different indeed." People came to find out why the escape is a mindset, not a relocation.

Here is what we sent out as a press release.

We invite all of Burlington to come out and experience our future as energy and climate issues define the lifestyle options of the next decade. Come to Burlington Central Library tomorrow evening, to Centennial Hall, for the Ontario premier of this important film. The director and producer will be present to lead a discussion.

Two years in the making, Escape from Suburbia: Beyond the American Dream is the second film in a trilogy by director Gregory Greene. Greene's first feature film The End of Suburbia (2004) became an independent success, winning film festival awards, returning generous revenue for its producer, and capturing attention from such media as Oprah, The Colbert Report, The New York Times, the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star. Just as The End of Suburbia was the first film to introduce 'peak oil' in irreverent style, Escape from Suburbia explores new territory with bold humour. It weaves together David Suzuki's climate chaos with peaking fossil fuel production. It shows how real change is percolating up from the grassroots, not down from big government and corporate business.
 
In Escape from Suburbia we meet three characters whose very different lives converge on a single note: creating a more sustainable future for their families and communities as Hummer fever begins to power down.

Single mom Kate's MBA in Finance informs her political and environmental community work in Toronto. Phil trades in his valuable comic book collection for a new life based on permaculture and the production of public conferences that bring experts and community activists together in New York City. Portland based Jan and Carol have outgrown the constraints of their suburban home and cross the border to establish an eco village on Salt Spring Island in Canada.

Through the stories of these ordinary people, Escape from Suburbia Provides a sneak peak of a possible future where local economies flourish and communities thrive. But the news is not all shining solar panels and spinning wind turbines: James Howard Kunstler returns from The End of Suburbia with a few other familiar faces to state that "no amount of alternative energy will power Wall-Mart, Walt Disney World and run the interstate highway system." As the context and path for social change are imagined by credential laden thinkers and experts, Escape characters advance from theory and scepticism to active engagement. A small California town inventories its human and natural resources and plots a course toward sustainability.

Corporate and government solutions juxtapose what history and common sense tell us is beginning to happen: our civilization is about to face one of the most significant events in human history, the overhaul of a lifestyle completely predicated on cheap and abundant oil. Is it the fear of change, of a redefined future, that challenges the ability of the masses to embrace ingenuity? Is the American way of life, which is to say the American Dream, not negotiable? According to Kunstler, to cling to an outdated suburban model is to invite an arm-wrestle with reality. Escape from Suburbia is ultimately about a new reality that finds suburbia in a transformed universe.

Sustainable Burlington Citizens Group is people in this city who are concerned to act to reduce our local consumption of energy, particularly fossil fuels, and the effects on climate change. We prepare for a time when the energy we now take for granted is more scarce and costly. For more information, see the attached brochure.

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