DOXA 2012: Last Call at the Oasis confronts a growing water crisis

Last Call at the Oasis (USA)

Most of us have heard the term “peak oil”, but what about peak water? In director Jessica Yu’s recent documentary, Last Call at the Oasis, audiences are reminded of our overconsumption of the world’s most vital resource and how our decisions and actions have deadly consequences.

“[My dad] promised me we would see in my lifetime water be more valuable than oil. I think that time is here,” legal clerk and environmental activist Erin Brockovich says at the start of the film. Brokovich, who is best known for constructing a winning case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company for the contamination of drinking water in Hinkley, California—a story that was brought to film in 2000 with Julia Roberts in the starring role—is called to Midland, Texas, for a similar water contamination case in 2009. Here, neon green tap water tainted with hexavalent chromium is making residents sick, but not a single politician from Midland to Washington seems to want to do anything about it.

This is just one of the many examples of water terror that Yu presents—from the gradual depletion of the Hoover Dam by the Las Vegas Strip, to farmer suicides in Australia due to the effects of extreme draught on their businesses, to the rise in popularity of bottled water in North America. Yu’s documentary remains decidedly upbeat even as experts repeatedly drive home the message that we’re all essentially screwed. As one scientist in the film eloquently puts it: “An infinitely growing population can’t be satisfied by a finite amount of water.”

DOXA presents Last Call at the Oasis on May 9 at 7 p.m. at Empire Granville 7 Cinemas.


Watch the trailer for Last Call at the Oasis.

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