More Oil Or Less -- Do We Care?

by Robert L. Gisel


 The great revelation of the 21st Century that crude oil is a replenishable resource comes as big joke on two centuries of drama on the subject. Now that we have a choice, what do we really want to do with this?

 That it has been discovered in Russia that the pools of oil we have been relying on come from the center of the earth, as a by-product of the molten combustion that seeps to the surface of the planet eliminates the whole false picture. No more exhaustible fossil fuels. There never were that many fossils anyway to supply all the oil we have already used.

 The news today that Israel has found oil that could be the second largest deposit in the world is a "so what?" item. It may have political significance in the power broker's game, but it may just be a "who cares?".

 Attempts to "scarcify" the supply to excite demand and higher prices fall to raucous laughter at the knowledge the we aren't going to run out. We have as much oil as we want or as little. All factors considered there are reasons to use little.

 A good friend of mine who has been hanging out in Hollywood for some while took a jaunt up to Seattle, which I predicted she would like, it is on the water and so forth, with its own beautiful atmosphere. Her feedback was unanticipated: it was the cleanliness of the air, compared to that of Los Angeles, that thrilled her.

 You have to take the broad view and the span of time looking into all corners of the globe to see the accumulative effects of major trends. The whole Mediterranean area millennia ago was thickly forested. These were raped to build huge palaces and sailing war vessels. Thousands of years later it is a desert. Someone from there points out the area to me and says, "See how beautiful it is?" Thinly forested with scrawny trees, am I missing something?

 At the Yosemite National Park the most populated look out, at first glance to me, was of nothing, until this realization it was thickly forested hills continuous as far as the eye could see that was the breathtaking phenomena. Growing up in Southeast Alaska this was a daily sight, not the exception, and not just from one look out. It is that way for hundreds of miles.

 If your life view is no further than how you will eat this week or how to keep your kids interested in life and off drugs long enough to make it to college, the rest of the world be damned, you can do nothing to change that, you are missing the point. Try opening your eyes. That errant personage whose life you crossed and refused to take any responsibility for when you could have helped with a minuscule effort may come around to prevent your child from ever going to college. That personage might become an oil man (let there be blood).

 Forcing people to live in red-line smog levels may shorten lives, the difference which could mean a happy renaissance or too little energy to stymie someones would-be war to secure their oil fields. Oil is one of those trends that effects the environment with long term consequences we won't like scores or hundreds of years from now. Oil comes from Nature but Nature can only withstand just so much of its use.

 There too many sources of abundant, clean, un-impacting energy to not take a broad view stance that doesn't overlook consequences. It shouldn't be too hard to extend your omniscience to see this.

[]