Is Oil Evil?

 

 

  1. Is Oil Evil?
    1. 1-Is My personel consumption of oil part of the problem-
    2. 2- What impact does oil have on our enviroment?
    3. 3- Are there any viable energy alternatives?
    4. 4. -Is there a connection between oil and violence in the Middle East?
    5. Sources:
    6. Contributors:

 

1-Is My personel consumption of oil part of the problem-

 

For along time americans have been guzzling up oil like its going out of style. In fact  America currently uses 25 percent of the world’s oil. We consume 20 million barrels a day (around 840 million gallons). The second largest consumer of oil is China who uses about 6 million gallons a day. I as an American am part of the problem, but I have however taken a few steps to solve it. During the summer my parents consumed so much oil a day just to drive me to my sports and tons of other activities which I really didn’t need to be driven to at all. At least I didn't need to go by car, that is. So I rode my bike to my sports which were either at the high school or around 4-5 miles a way. I got my exercise and I was allowed to take money and buy myself lunch along the way. I was also able to save my parents money on their oil bills and decrease our consumption of oil.

 

2- What impact does oil have on our enviroment?

This video shows a small group of divers in Lebanon after an oil spill.

They are under water, and the camera is held in the viewpoint of 1st person.

Oops, this video is no longer available. Please refer to the videos section, video 1.

 This shows the lasting effects of oil on our enviroment. These divers have luckily decided to dive around 3 weeks after the actual spill, but one can still see a definate film over the surface of the water.

 

 

 As this pic illustrates, oil has a serious affect on our enviroment. The fact of oil spills is just one of the many side affects that oil has on our world. Oil is a problem to not just our land, air, and sea, but it has a large effect on our economy, too.

 

If I may now direct your attention to Video 2, where you will see a short segment from the series: Ocean Oddesy. This series is dedicated to the safety of our oceans. The clip shows the actual damaging effects of oil, and how quickly it can spread out over a large area and affect many species.

 

 

 

3- Are there any viable energy alternatives?

 

 There are a large amount of alternatives for oil in todays society. Some of them include, but are limited to:  Hydrogen Fuel Cells, Biodiesel, Electric Power, and Solar Power.I also beieve that the governement should invest in more hybrid cars or at least more fuel efficent cars.They could start developing cars like the Japanesse whom have far more fuel efficent cars than us Americans do.We can also invest in solar power and build major solar power generators across the country in order to slowly lose our dependency on oil.As we save on oil,we could slowly invest that in Solar Energy.

 

 

 

                                                                            

 

 

The website above on biodiesel is a link to the company Pacific Biodiesel, a company that holds it's headquarters in Hawiaii. The company is dedicated to improving the quality of Hawiaii's air pollution levels.

 

 

4. -Is there a connection between oil and violence in the Middle East?

I think that there is indeed a connection between oil and violence in the Middle East. For one thing, the Middle East holds the largest reserves of the worlds oil in comfirmed existnece, as show by the graph beneath (There is a larger and more legable version of this graph in the Images section).  This graph shows that Saudi Arabia, a land in the middle east, has over 250 billion barrels of oil.

Due to their being a large amount of oil,there is obviously alot of money.In fact all that money is in the hand of the few.In Saudi Arabia ,all the money is in the hands of the Saudi royal family who through their cruel; regin manage to keep the country under their palm.Howver due to their harsh treatment of the people ,terrorists like Osama ben Laden have risen who are dedicated to fighting them ,and their allies which happen to be the United States(which has a good investment in Saudi Arabia's oil).There has also been violence in the middle east due to claims that America only invaded Iraq in order to protect their oil intrests.(which I don't think is true because they don't get that much oil from Iraq.) . The escelation of violence is due to the entire arab world except for Israel having a lower Gdp than Spain.This however wouldn't be the case

 

 

Videos-

(1)

 

 

(2)

 

 

Images-

(1)

 

Sources:

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Contributors:

 

 

 

 

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  • Recent comments:
    Aamir Bandagi:I agree with you on most of the parts. Especially about alternative energy and reducing consumption drastically. However I do not agree with your last section about conflicts and oil. I believe that the main reason we are in Iraq is to "protect our oil supply". Resulting in killing innocent people and causing there to "insurgents." To solve this issue the best thing we can do is to move out of Iraq and let the people handle things on their own. Otherwise very good job.
    Kiren G:I agree with you on all of the alternative engry stuff, fuel cells and solar power could reduce comsumption substantially. The only problem is that the alternatives are generally expensive and not usually obtainable to average people because of that. Although, some hybrid cars are relativly cheap. Anyway good use of charts and videos. Nice job.
    Adam:It is great that you are making some changes in your lifestyle (not matter how small they are). If everyone were to decrease their oil consumption a tiny bit, it would drastically change our oil consumption in this country (which is extremely high). Fuel alternatives have been invested in; the only problem is that they are very expensive. We don't have any product in the market right now that could fully replace oil. However, I agree that the U.S. should slowly use tax money to invest in energy alternatives, or should cut taxes so that the citizens can afford to buy hybrid cars. -Adam J
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