Greed for Oil

Since the beginning of the 1990s through to the present confrontation in Libya, the excuse has always been the same: Making the world safe for democracy. But if we dig not too hard and a little deeper, we will find revealed the truth of the matter and that truth is a war for resources, in particular; oil. But this does not exclude other resources such as found in Afghanistan and Iran, which also has oil and uranium. By now, many of us have dispelled the myth of making the world safe for democracy, when democracy at home is being eroded. We now have to work out the myth of being dependent on oil and gas.

As crude oil from the earth is a fixed quantity resource, this means that at some point that it will be completely depleted. We have built an entire technology that is more or less completely dependent upon this resource. And yet, despite this, we continue building in this direction. There are moves to change to bio-fuels, but this comes at the cost of starving the poor. There are alternatives, but big oil lobbyists pressure policy makers to stay the course. And so, more gas guzzlers are built and sold. We the people continue to buy this technology, being too busy to delve into the ultimate meaning of what is being done to the planet, the resources and ultimately, to ourselves. We depend on others to direct the course in which we go and there seem on the surface few other, if any choices.

Almost every day we hear that oil is running out and that each and that everyone is going to have to pay more for everything and make do with less. The whole of our infrastructure and technology is based on oil as there is hardly anything that is done that does not requires its use. Yet there are other ways to do these things. So why is it not being done. Part of the answer is that big oil business designs to keep the cash flow going as to continue using oil is highly profitable. As supplies get shorter, we have to look for it where ever it is and that means obtaining it from someone else in many cases. If that someone else is not willing to feed our habit, then the next recourse is war to obtain it and this in itself is highly profitable. Some pretext is required to declare a war or just to move in and expropriate it without declaring war. This can be and is explained in far greater detail elsewhere but it diverges from the direction being taken here. This then is this one part of the equation of oil consumption.

Another significant part of the equation is each and every one of us and our consumption habits. That means that everyone who has at least one car, truck, van, SUV or some other gasoline run vehicle is also responsible. Some of us have more than one gas guzzler and we also have snow mobiles, motorcycles, boats and even private jets. Further, when we travel, we prefer the commercial jet that is a huge consumer of oil derivatives. The skies are filled with commercial jets everyday flying around the planet in the tens of thousands. Our food and all other goods are transported in the main by diesel tractor trailers moving from regions of production to every major and minor metropolis of consumers in the whole of the developed and developing world. This translates into a huge amount of oil consumption in a single day and we can thus see why we have the occurrence of global dimming and rising pollution, not to mention escalating greenhouse gasses. Our climate is changing as a result, despite the battling controversy over the issue of climate change and global warming.

Each and every one of us has a personal contribution in this, whether or not we have a car. Everyday we make decisions that support the existing order of oil consumption and the increasing tendency of wars to make sure the supply is uninterrupted. If we eat produce shipped into the city by diesel tractor trailers, we contribute to the bombing of developing regions to obtain their oil. If we heat our homes using oil directly or by electricity generated by oil fired, coal fired or nuclear plants, we contribute to the war effort to ensure the continuance of supply. Generally, to continue as we do with our gas devouring vehicles, generators, jets, boats and recreational vehicles, homes, offices, businesses and malls, we end up ensuring the innocent children and people are tortured and bombed in order that we can continue blithely the way we have all along. Thus, along with big oil, lobbyists and government, we a complicit in and contribute to the war for oil. In our busy chase for the elusive dollar, we tend to overlook it and the media for its part would rather entertain us with inanities rather than telling the unfiltered and raw truth. So we go about our lives in the face of ever rising fuel costs, chasing our elusive dreams ever more frenetically, hoping against hope that somehow we will make it through. This seemingly hopeless spiral into madness and destruction need not continue to its ultimate conclusion of total civil unrest and chaos with each of us battling all others for the last drops of oil and gas. But we as individuals and collectively have to act now. There are ways to begin the break with this dead end way of living.

These ways include concepts such as local production of all the food we need in order to live. It must be grown locally to cut way down on the use of diesel transport. The local manufacture of items like clothing has to also be reintroduced, such as was once done not too long ago. We have to either abandon the use of gas powered cars altogether in exchange for effective mass transit powered by non oil, coal or nuclear fueled electricity. The whole concept of commercial jet flights, especially short haul, has to be abandoned in flavor of electric bullet trains, such as those in Japan. If a large proportion of the population is still caught up in the old ways and as yet unwilling to change, at least we can begin to consider alternatives like biking to work and shopping, The whole concept of how we build cities has to change as well so that less fuel of alternatives such as geothermal power are used. Cities as we know them evolved out of the changes in production. Now they are in danger of strangling most of us, unless we change everything we do. It is no longer enough just to recycle everything, but we must also consider what comes of any of our actions.

Concepts such as planned obsolescence have to be abandoned unconditionally. Commodities have to be built to last as in the old days. But as with everything else, there are consequences. Commodities that last mean that there is less work required and resulting unemployment. But, as needs change, as required now, there will be new tasks and jobs for people and this at least temporarily prevent unemployment. The history of technological progress has been that machines do more and more of the dangerous, dirty and unhealthy work, which is managed by fewer and fewer people. The mechanized displaced people have to then find other work in order to make a living under the existing economic order of capitalism. The vast majority of people in the developed world today have nothing other than their ability to work as a way to survive. Most do not grow or find their own food, but rely on the oil dependent infrastructure to deliver it to them for a profit. Nor do we make our own clothes and again rely on clothes makers half a world away. Again, many do not have any other way to travel except with the personal automobile which we have to gas up, park, insure and maintain at huge cost.

This vast archipelago of oil dependance has become our collective trap. We must break free of this addiction to save one another and the planet. We can begin immediately in small steps and work our way to total independence. There are alternatives for which we must struggle and make demands.