Oil, The United States's Vice

Oil is not the blood of society; it is a deadly drug that can kill us all. Like drug usage, oil dependency carries health, financial and social problems. For the country dependent on oil, these drug related problems translate to global warming, recession, and the possibility of war respectively.

As the gas prices in the United States reach an all time high of $4.50 per gallon we wonder what the politicians are going to do about this. The problem is demand. The US and the Middle East have been dealing in oil since its discovery in the Middle East and we are now their number one customer. With oil becoming less plentiful, the price of oil has gone up. In addition to the decreasing supply, China has begun to manufacture automobiles for use in their country and now they have a demand for oil as well. Our addiction to this "black gold" will cause many hardships in our country and the rest of the world.

The Environmental Concerns Arising From Our Addiction

When the problems with petroleum use arise in conversation, one topic that is always discussed is the environment and what we are doing to it. Los Angeles California is one of the most obvious examples of petroleum pollution. One will realize the impact over one million cars and businesses can make in the air by burning petroleum products. Air quality is not the number one concern, however. The main issue brought up with petroleum is its impact on global climate change. When petroleum products are burned, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is released into the atmosphere. When the heat energy from the sun enters the atmosphere, that energy is trapped by the CO2 gasses, hence the name greenhouse gasses. Many scientists and even politicians like Al Gore will agree that greenhouse gasses are contributing to rising temperature and, consequently, melting ice caps and rising seas.

I, personally, try to avoid the topic of global climate change because I believe it is the least of our problems now. Mankind can and will adapt to the changing climate with the only major repercussion being that the number of natural resources available will decrease. Like a drug addiction that ruins a body, petroleum dependency deteriorates the environment and our other natural resources. I believe that global climate change is a relatively slow process in comparison to the other problems we face associated with petroleum.

The Attack of the Killer Gas Prices

This is probably the most brought up conversation piece at the water cooler in the US. This is the topic of the high gas prices. In my home state of Nevada, gas prices are reported to be at an average of $4.50 per gallon. My usual response to the complaints of this is "Remember when $2.00 per gallon was expensive?"

Many people say that when gas reaches 5 dollars that they are going to quit driving. This is a brilliant initiative but there are two problems with this ambition. One of them is the people who say this said that they would quit driving when gas was at 3 dollars then they up it to 3.50 and 4 dollars and they still drive. I will say, however that there has been a decrease in the number of Hummers and SUVs driving around. In fact a couple of years ago, diesel fuel was about half the price of unleaded and millions of Americans went out to buy diesel. It made sense because diesel is a byproduct of gasoline. The unfortunate thing is that all of these people now pay more for diesel than regular.

The other problem with the initiative to stop driving is our culture itself. Since the invention of the automobile, it has become ingrained in American culture. It is heavily advertised and the media says you are cool if you own a car. With the ability to travel longer distances in less time, American businesses and cities have become more and more spread out. On the East coast, where cities have existed since the 18th century long before the automobile, people have many mass transit systems available. This is due to the fact that a lot of the businesses and cities back east are closer together. Out West in the more modern part of the US, cities and businesses are more spread out. Although the desert climate is a contributing factor, we have not built our cities as close together because of the evolution of efficient transport leading up to the automobile. With the vast spread of our cities, it has become impossible to commute without the use of a car and gasoline.

Because of the insanely high gas prices, the economy is going through a recession now. This is due to a few things. One is that people are spending more on gas and less on other goods. Another is that producers are spending more to transport goods, which raises the price. Rising prices on goods due to high shipping prices have also been a contributing cause of inflation. Combine inflation, people not having money for things other than gas and high production costs and you get a country headed right for another depression. Of course, in times of financial hardship people are going to blame the government for their problems. The truth is that oil companies do not have much of a grasp in Washington as they used to. More and more politicians are upset with "Big Oil" and their extremely high gas prices and even higher profit. In fact, when "Big Oil" went to congress in April requesting billions in tax breaks, congress immediately shut them down. One thing politicians can do to curve high oil consumption is lobby for alternative fuel research. If we found a limitless supply of energy or an energy that would cost less to produce and could be produced domestically, then we could sell it and rid ourselves of the debt. We would also prevent the downward spiral of high production costs and high prices for goods which leads to a depression.

The Possibility of World War 3

As I have said before, our oil addiction can be compared to a drug addiction. With a drug addiction comes the high possibility of making enemies, especially with the dealer. The US imports about half of the world's oil sources and controls only 3 percent of the world's oil. Our high demand and limited supply have raised the price. In addition to our demand, China has begun to import and manufacture cars, meaning they are going to want a piece of the oil supply and they are willing to buy it. With the limited supply of oil, this sparks worldwide competition for oil, which could lead to war when the Middle East runs out of oil. In addition to the possibility of a fight over oil, the US is constantly in conflict with countries in the Middle East. If conflicts were to get any worse than they are now, the Middle East has the option of cutting us off at any time. This will shut our country down because nothing would get transported and we would have no other way to get from A to B. If we are not careful with how much oil we import, we could end up in a war when the oil runs out or be at the mercy of our supplier.

Solutions

There are many solutions to our oil addiction. Of course we could drive electric cars but unless something is done about the petroleum burning power plants, we would only be re-routing our dependency. The solution is to redefine the way we produce energy. We can use solar, wind and geothermal, which are the three basic alternate fuels. I am even going to go out on a limb and suggest nuclear power. There have been incidents such as 3 mile island and Chernobyl, not to mention the possibility of a terror threat but we have vast areas of open space for these plants. As for the waste, we can develop ways to recycle it, just as Germany is doing with their nuclear waste. We can then send the un-recyclable waste into space if we need to, this will eliminate the problem of where to put it.

Aside from reinventing our energy, we can campaign and inform the citizens of different transportation. If we engrave biking, walking and public transit into our culture just as we have with the car, we can not only cut back on our energy usage but we can solve the country's obesity and other sedentary lifestyle related health problems.

In conclusion, something needs to be done about these ridiculously high oil prices. The answer lies in curving the demand. If we develop alternative fuel, use it and export it, we can get out of debt, and prevent conflict over a limited energy source. The time is now to break our addiction and improve our environment, our financial situation and our social status.