Edward Burtynsky photographs the landscape of oil

[carreralee]

I love seeing inspired and thought-provoking work like this.

[DAILEYericCaryUSA]

Peak oil is a fraud to maintain monopoly control. Petroleum based economy and technology is a monopoly imposed by suppressing next generation energy technology.

[fossilman2]

Next generation energy is akin to saying 'anti-gravity' it makes a neat one phrase solution , alas in words only. Deploying any energy delivery system even magic boxes is a very large undertaking and not likely to proceed without enormous dislocations. But never fear, magic boxes do not exist in this reality.

[DAILEYericCaryUSA]

@ fossilman,

You may know what you are talking about but what you wrote in nonsense. Try agian.

[Knossos22]

@DAILEYericCaryUSA OK smart guy, what are these next generation energy systems that are being suppressed? Give us the details so we can take a close look. Fossilman nailed it. It is easy to say "just do this" but in reality, it is not easy. Do you comprehend the energy contained in 30 or 31 Billion barrels of oil?

[Knossos22]

@DAILEYericCaryUSA

Peak oil DENIAL is a fraud to maintain monopoly control. Petroleum based economy and technology is a monopoly imposed by those paying for Peak oil DENIAL to suppress finding a way to survive peak oil. Energy descent has already begun; few recognize what is happening…

[Scurmicurv]

One of the great reliefs, I must say, when I finish my education and - hopefully - get one of those well paid jobs is that I'll finally be able to do a little about this myself. Get a more fuel efficient car - preferably one that doesn't use either gas or diesel - invest more in solar and wind power to meet my own needs and so on.

It really wouldn't require all that much of us, if only everyone was prepared to do a little. It's a nice fantasy anyway.

[Knossos22]

@Scurmicurv Unfortunately, the technologies that exist so far, only pay for themselves after 30 years or so... There is a real question if an energy infrastructure rebuild can actually produced a net energy return on energy invested. If this is the case, we have a very difficult future ahead. To avert collapse we must reduce energy consumption by 70 or 80% globally and implement a new energy system.

[fossilman2]

As a planet we use a cubic mile of oil every year to do what we do. Since the turn of the century by this New Years day we will have used a volume one mile wide, one mile high (gasp) and 9 miles long. Nearly all of it squeezed through fuel injectors into internal combustion engines. Only the most deluded could believe that condition could continue.

[ShadowShorts]

I'm from Canada, and I'm glad Mr. Burtynsky chose the words "dirty oil" for what we're doing with the tar sands. That's actually a wild understatement. I'm terribly ashamed of my country because of it. Look for the documentary H2Oil to learn more! Or another doc called Downstream! It used to be online.

[planetdarwin]

majority: "We must find a way to deal with our oil addiction and our abuse of the ecosystem!"

minority: "Ok, let's talk about population control. It's at the heart of the issue."

majority: "What! NO! How dare you bring that up?!"

minority: "Ok fine. Keep bangin' your head against the wall looking for a magic solution that doesn't involve change."

majority: "There must be some magical way to allow us to keep consuming!!!!"

minority: *rolls eyes*

[KenshinHemora13]

@planetdarwin Zombies are only a matter of time...

[planetdarwin]

I can't wait! I've been saving shotgun shells.

[cannoir]

the actual video lasts 03:10 minutes and the commercial another 03:11 what the hell is happening here. This was supposed to be the most interesting video of the week .

[ininfluenza]

sometimes the length does not represents the quality ;)

[broben87]

what camera did he use?

[Docthewrench]

WOW knowing just what is laying just under Oklahoma makes me wonder why 45 years? Theres 20 years alone under oklahoma

[47f0]

Doc, the only thing that's "laying just under Oklahoma" is the bottom of the barrel. Even if the dregs of the Anadarko basin could be extracted in a commercially viable way, which they can't until oil sustains about triple the current cost per barrel, your 20 year figure ignores the exponential growth of the planet's energy demands. When Arabian countries are investing in solar, and T. Boone Pickens wants to put up windmills, there's a message there.

[GoldenBoughTrader]

This was really disappointing. What am I supposed to get out of a talk that is only 3 min long? Yeah, cool photos, the few that were shown. But far too short of a presentation. Basically it's just an ad for an expensive coffee table book.

[FlyKitesInTheRain]

GoldenBoughTrader- It wasn't just an ad for his photography. It was his photography that opened up this topic to him and allowed him to explore its depths. His sentiment or message isn't about buying his photography, but rather putting whatever skills we have towards a cause (in this case using his photography towards the issue of oil). He's encouraging efforts that you wouldn't normally associate with directly helping a cause, essentially saying that we all have something to contribute.

[GoldenBoughTrader]

@FlyKitesInTheRain

I get that but why was the presentation so short? TED talks normally have more depth to them. The coffee table book remark was just a jab because I was irritated.

[FlyKitesInTheRain]

Agreed. It would have been better if it was longer...that talk would have been a good introduction.

[ArgueExplain]

But you were right.

We saw a coffee table portfolio, and a brief explanation of where he got the idea.

Not one of his pictures depicted how much oil is left, and that's what his talk was kind of about.

[spongebathe]

Road Warrior

[Weltschmertz2020]

that IBM thing seems kind of elitist.

[silverblue73]

waking up from our fantasy world

[LordoftheJamesClan]

was his whole speech just an introduction?

[ridinmabike]

Much too short! If you want more from Burtynsky you should look up his work from 2004 - 'Manufactured Landscapes' - amazing! It also made into a documentary of the same name.

[seeminglee]

Great photography. Beautiful forms. Would love to see them in person some day.

[ratholin]

The biggest problem I have with environmentalists is that they're against all changes that occur natural or not. Extinction is the predominant fate of all species that have ever been.  massive extinctions are responsible for almost every if not every species we see alive now. Instead of discussing the "inevitable" lets be one of the species that survives it. We're not here because our grandcestors had meetings about the ice age. When it hits I'm getting a solar grill and eating photographers

[McArrowni]

Frankly, the problem with mass extinctions, IMO, is that we don't know how much we depend on other species yet. Reconstructing we naturally get from our native environment (that is, an environment like the one we involved in) is still beyond our skill, by far.

[ratholin]

I'll grant you that. but there's levels of unnatural, environmentalism that we use all the time. every time we quell wild fires to preserve parks, we're screwing the natural balance every time we transplant an endangered animal to a non native area we're screwing the natural balance. We've never given concern to what's natural before we just pretend the world is a snapshot and demand it stay exactly the same except for clumsy efforts meant to help.

[princeofexcess]

boring....

and we not running out of oil if we were noone would buy SUV's and they still are popular

[dharmangersch]

faulty logic or sarcasm?

[princeofexcess]

neither. :) Economics

[neonKow]

Of course. The first time we'll know that we're running out of oil is when common people don't have enough gas to drive....

Obviously you are smart than the people who have to go and FIND and DRILL for the oil.

[BaileysBeads]

You mean when common people don't have enough money to drive. And that's basically what happened before the crisis.

[princeofexcess]

i dont know where you are from but average people in Cali still can afford an SUV. So they obviously can afford gas

[princeofexcess]

actually this is always the case. In economics its called scarcity. There is never enough oil for people to drive as much as they want

[Sardonac]

Are you serious?

[princeofexcess]

Completely

[Go12Go]

where does the TAX go? Rothschilds?

[HigherPlanes]

Yup. The central bank prints money out of thin air with no underlined value to back it up which causes inflation. Then we get taxed and that money goes into the pockets of all the top bankers so they can live handsomely at our expense.

[waysworth]

I expect a little more from TedTalks

[creten69]

no no no the one thing we dont do children is global nuetering, see if we did that then there would be absolutly no problems for the children of the future. Why do we need to populate in trillions? its stupid as fuking itself. Lets populate one million all over the globe in the next 20 years and life for humans could start over, wiser. But NOOO we will kill each other instead and live in shit b4 being sensible, fukn pathetic.

[SmileyWhiplash]

@creten69

kinda l1ke r3aly badd spelng.

[creten69]

udunt no howe tu bade spall u dum dum dopey hed druggy poop

[Organjic]

This video(w/ad) is a big fear mongering propaganda scheme. Global warming is turning into a religion -_-

[theronhart24]

I don't believe he was trying to relate a gsense of fear but of awareness that oil is a finite resource and we will eventually have to rely on alternative sources of energy and fuel.

[Organjic]

I agree, but it isnt a crisis.

[Spacemonkey2084]

Um.

Oil reserves have just about nothing to do with global warming. The only mention of carbon was how much carbon is required to make the gasoline... Not how much is created burning it.

[Shaunt1]

Electric cars!

[creten69]

algea

[scoggles]

"It's not if, but when we reach peak oil." This happened between 1970 and 1971, I'm pretty sure.

[SmileyWhiplash]

@scoggles

I think peak oil in the US was about then...not sure about the world. He may have meant 'end' and said 'peak'.

[Chemicalogic]

3.5 minutes of video and 2.45 minutes of commercial?

[Organjic]

a brainwashing commercial to boot

[david0aloha]

Living in Edmonton, Alberta, just southwest of the tar/oilsands a few hundred kilometres, it's difficult to hear the term "dirty oil" being used exclusively for us. Don't get me wrong, I have some problems with the way our government has approached the extraction of bitumen (tarsand), but at the same time, I look at all those images and I'm appalled at the desolate landscapes left over after people are done with them. Here, it's law to reclaim the land, and the standards are strict.

[Chemicalogic]

If only they would force the oil companies to deal with the tailings ponds. That's the economic disaster waiting to happen.

[david0aloha]

Yah, I agree. They really need some sort of microbacterial cleaning solution or something to clean the water rather than having massive lakes of dirty water (with continual leeching into the groundwater).

[Chemicalogic]

It's despicable. You can guarantee that the oil companies will stick around until the cost/profit ratio no longer suits them, and then they'll declare that they have no money to clean up the mess that they created. We have such disrespect for our water resources.

[studio7manga]

This doesn't worry me at all, the peak of oil will simply spur greater adoption of bio-diesel and hydrogen created through things like wind or solar. There's plenty of energy to go around.

[swyft187]

When Earth will be hit in 2012 by a meteor, we will get squished by all the debris and dust in the atmosphere and we will become the next batch of oil set for the next step in Earth's evolution. The next hominids will fuel their empire with our remains as we do with the oil given to us by the vegetation and dinosaurs of the past!!!

[EnervatedSociety]

Are you on crack? Where did you get the idea that meteor will hit earth in 2012?

[EnervatedSociety]

*a meteor

[studio7manga]

Probably from his colon.

[defect530]

a meteor in 2012? where are the facts and why have i not herd of this? I watch space and science video's every day and the only one they mention is like 20 years from now and has about a 1 in 1000 chance of hitting us.

[neil73]

Why don't they just tell the truth and say the oil companies have a stranglehold on most everything?

[roidroid]

coz it's like saying the sky is blue. common knowledge

[thetravelingboy]

An important work, thanks.

[lukeseed]

a three minute TED talk? why? he didn't say anything and we didn't get to see all of his pictures. grrrr

[studio7manga]

You could google him...

[HiAdrian]

Were the first images taken around Los Angeles?

[studio7manga]

The ones with all the pumpjacks where around Bakersfield CA.

[HiAdrian]

Yeah i meant those, thanks!

[darkenlight22]

this traffic vid on end is a trip basicly they seem to charge to drive on streets the people already paid for sort of a double tax so everyone has to pay for the roads in taxes but less traffic really means less people driving why is that I'm guessing the lower class that paid for the roads can't afford there new scam to rob you. I'm all for less traffic and less cars and clean air but as far as taking peoples freedom to drive when and where they paid for is wrong.

[GI2K]

I was thinking the same, however on some of these nordic countries fines are proportional to your wealth, I hope that also the case with this system if that's not the case the middle class got screwed bad time, the wealthy ones can easily afford to pay and they'll get clear roads... one more reason for them to keep taking their kids to school and back.

[gotilk]

I agree! But they did vote for it. And I would take a guess that the majority are not wealthy. I would only be for this if it's up for a vote. Otherwise, it is what you say it is. Robbery.

[pudicus2]

Did this law also take away your freedom to use commas and periods?

[studio7manga]

Agreed, it seems very regressive.

[RDJim]

For some reason I dislike the square aspect ratio of this guy's prints. Maybe the 16:9 or wider aspects we see in movies and HD TV have crept into my psyche . I just need wide screen I guess.

[HiAdrian]

16:9 is closer to the human field of vision. I did some experiments and ultra-wide film formats (>2:1) are too wide, you miss the full horizontal if the vertical fills your FOV.

[wolffenhaus]

Motor vehicles where a good Idea. Not great. I wont own or drive one. Anyone want to join me?

[user11235813213455]

Unfortunately only during the summer months, I don't think I could go a whole winter without using my car.

[neil73]

Ive gone a whole lifetime without using one! Well, as a driver. Disregarding a few driving lessons too. Okay, ive never owned a car and have a better quality of life than most folks on the planet.

[Plopkap]

Not giving a shit helps. During the winter I have to wear gloves and my face gets cold and wet. And the wind... But then again I don't give a shit. And that helps. :D

This helps too: watch?v=6wS5xOZ7Rq8

[Plopkap]

I'm completely with you on that.

I don't own a motor vehicle and don't have a drivers license. I simply don't need any. I think that a lot of people hardly question if they really need a car or not. Once you own one you start to depend on it and it gets harder to imagine a life without it.

[kaare1992]

nice

[Hilakos]

Ruh-roh

[BeortheMad]

EdwardBurtynsky_2009G_480.mp4