Our Oil Addiction
For my first post, I want to explain why I feel this subject matter is so vitally important. For over the last century the United States has enjoyed fabulous growth and prosperity, fueled primarily by seemingly safe and abundant sources of fossil fuels, particularly oil. That is all good and well if the energy needs are indeed met with an ample supply of fuel to power an economy. However, what happens if these sources dry up or become too scarce and expensive to rely on? How do we power our lives then?
Those are the questions that I believe the US needs to take a cold, hard look at. Fueling our future with finite resources like oil is extremely short-sighted planning. Do we have a real plan in place to eliminate oil from our power supply? No. Are we less dependant on oil now, then say, 10 years ago? No. Is our government promising change? Yes, but do they do anything about it? Not really. Somehow, we need to break our addiction to oil now, before we learn the hard way just how dependant on it we really are.
October 26th, 2007 at 7:16 am
Necessity is the mother of invention.
I agree that we are collectively dependent on oil, but have faith in the adaptation of circumstances. We will find a clean, eco friendly, cost effective way to extract oil from shale…if we haven’t already. Well, not we, but oil companies. Understand this, wherever there is “profit” to be made (and there is nothing wrong with that), someone, somehow will find a way. Want proof? You drive a car. You are inoculated against former epidemic diseases. You have a blog on a communication medium that is global in seconds. I agree that we should take care of our planet. I do my part every day, but please do not resign yourself to worry. The human race is alive and well, and will continue to be for a long time to come.