This is perhaps one of the most debated and argued points in the world. You’ve got oil companies not really saying too much (or painting a happy picture about oil), and other organizations saying we’re close to hitting the peak or saying we’ve already peaked. People say that we should drill everywhere for oil, put up oil rigs everyplace in the word and pump the earth dry before we say how much time is left — and they yell and complain about the environmentalists that don’t want it done. But what it comes right down to is no one really knows. There is no chart to see just how much oil there is left. No asking the earth “so how much you got left?” We have to rely on tests and known reserves. Known reserves… that’s always the “slimy” way to avoid the question.
Oh they always seem to toss that little gem into the estimates, it’s like the phrase “the bible says so!” — once it’s uttered, nothing else matters and the conversation must stop. Known reserves? We could deplete the entire planet of oil, but they’ll still say “known reserves”. You can’t go basing when to stop using something based on the unknown — especially when it’s not a renewable resource. One day, there won’t be any left.
And here’s the worst thing about the oil: they always use fuel as the reason. It’s like people have it burned into their brains (perhaps the gas prices have caused this) that oil is used only for fuel.
But fuel is only one of probably thousands of things that oil is used for or in in one form or another. Just for a few quick examples, imagine life without these things:
- Styrofoam
- Motors (for lubrication — so every motor, power generators, washing machines, etc)
- Plastic (including wiring covering)
- Asphalt
- Paint
- Vinyl
- Polyester
- Basically, almost everything we have today is either made with an oil product, relies on oil for the lubrication of machines to make the product, or relies on oil to transport the product
We’re so dependent on oil that if oil were to disappear — humans would follow shortly thereafter. Now I don’t mean this as a “everyone will die!” but a huge percentage of humans would die as we’d be unable to transport food and lose all of our machines and power. Anyone relying on medication would die, anyone on machines would as well. Anyone living far away (say as far as a horse and buggy could go in a day) from the food source would die from lack of food. While cities are frequently close to bodies of water — there wouldn’t be enough food to support the populations.
We’d be thrust back into ancient times where stone buildings were built, and steam power was used to drive things. We couldn’t recycle existing products, nor could we really dig for new as the machines used for digging wouldn’t be able to run. We have the technology right now to drastically offset our oil use, but we don’t use it. Green buildings and such don’t get funding because it’s “too risky” as the expense is currently high, and no guarantee for a return (as a lower-power consuming building doesn’t make money in itself). Just little things, even building air and electric powered cars, could drastically cut back how much oil we use.
And I know what some of you are saying “but electric cars can only go like 200 miles on a charge!!!” If you really have over a 100 mile one-way commute to work, you should consider moving closer to your job. That would mean you’re spending close to $32/day for gas right now (25mpg @ 200 miles = 8 gallons @ $4/gal for gas). It also means you’d be on the road for over 3 hours a day driving at 60mph. Most people would have a commute under 50 miles — that means you could go almost 2 days without a recharge (some could go a week or two). And what’s the hassle of plugging in the car at night?
And using the excuse of “we have plenty [oil] left for 20-100 years!” is the worst thing to say as once it’s gone, we have nothing else. Failure to plan now for something that isn’t an infinite resource will be humanity’s downfall. And you know what? If we started to develop and fund renewable resource items — we’d create more jobs. Just think, we could save humanity, save the world — and even potentially eliminate unemployment as a side effect.
But it probably won’t happen. People are getting too much money from oil. And as the oil runs dry, and they keep on searching for more and more — they’ll keep on bringing in more and more money. They’ll get rich, humans will die. All the money in the world can’t help you if civilization dies. But the rich oil tycoons will be remembered — they’ll be the first ones to “accidentally” die when the oil runs out.
