Joys of precious, precious crude. If there's anything that has proven its use time and time again it's our good buddy crude oil. See there's so many cool things that we can make our little pool of hydrocarbons do. Gasoline, naphtha, kerosene, natural gas, benzine, diesel fuel, and the wonderfully enDOWed family of petrochemicals, including plastics, fertilizers and all things poly-, all spring from oil like Athena from the mind of Zeus. The mind in this case are the minds of our most friendly of oil industry scientists, heroes for all (is this what Ward Churchill meant when he called the World Trade centre employees "Little Eichmanns"?).
Here's the skinny:
What a beautiful world of joy and friendly chemicals! See? All those little poly-carbons are saving the world and civilization as we know it.
Or something.
So what happens as oil becomes increasingly scarce? Will we continue to enjoy the fruits of our civilization as democratically as are the current standards? It seems as though our civilization is on the verge of a new form of depression, wherein all that we have come to accept as a token of modern culture will come into question. Food and clothing will be more expensive. Electricity might become prohibitive if alternative energy sources are not optimized. More than likely, the totality of our living standards will have to be redefined. In other words, it's time to get used to a new industrial process.
Oh, the hurt transition will bring...
Happy Earth Day/Lifetime
oil depletion, The Guardian
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