IS OIL EVIL?

PT.1 Is your personal consumption of oil part of the problem?

Yes, my personal consumption of oil is part of the problem as well. With the demand of oil increasing the suppliers contribute less oil to the community, so that the price of oil increases. The use of cars in our society has become a necessity, making the need for gas to accomadate our cars higher than ever before. At our age, all of us must be thinking, when I turn sixteen, I am going to get a car. If more than fifty percent of sixteen year olds get cars, this may be the households' third or even fourth car. Is it really neccesary to have a car, what about public transportation, or carpool? Living in the United States, many teenagers have cars at the young age of sixteen for many reasons, such as they have no other means of transportaion from their parents but do they give thought to taking a bus, NO. My individual opinion is that personal consumption may not matter at the end of each day, but, when calculated together after a long period of time, my consumption of oil daily will build up.

However, as Al Gore so conveniently tells us in his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, by simply turning lights off and carpooling, we can save the penguins. Judging by the picture of Gore on the front page, he doesn't really care much about penguins, but leaving that aside, how much would turning the lights off and carpooling really help? A lot, actually. If everyone in the country would save a few kilowatt hours a month, about what is saved by turning lights off when you leave a room, the amount of energy saved, when calculated together over a long period of time, would add up, and combined with carpooling, where the energy save is evident, might actually save the penguins, if Gore was trapped by penguins in the Antarctic Continent, without his flamethrower.

PT.2 What impact does oil have on our environment?

Impacts which oil have in our environment are more negative rather than positive. Oil spills on land, rivers, bays and the ocean affect the nature in a very harsh manner. OIl which sticks to fur or feathers of an animal can cause hypothermia in birds, hypothermia in fur seal, by dropping or wipe out the animals’ insulation. Also, if oil contaminates marine life habitat, the marine life can lose weight due to the loss of food supply and ultimately bring death to the animals.

This is very true. Many times in the past, the penguins we tried so desperately to save by turning lights off, carpooling, and praying for Al Gore to be captured by those same penguins, have been trapped in an oil spill, and died, not only from hypothermia, but from the poisons that ingesting oil, when they try to clean oil off of their feathers with their beaks, bring into their bodies. In fact, two weeks ago, a cruise ship, the Explorer, sunk off of the coast of Antarctica, leaving an enormous diesel spill in the water, threatening the lives of 2500 mating penguins returning home. If you've ever seen the movie Happy Feet or March of the Penguins, then you know what happens to penguins whose mates don't return home, they die, as do the little baby penguins. So, though only 2500 may be directly killed by the oil spill, upwards of 7500 will be killed by the repercussions of the oil spill. As you can see, the affect of oil on the environment is terrible.

PT.3 Are there any viable energy alternatives?

By clicking on this link, you will be forwarded to the Opec web site, where a video that discusses Opec's opinion on energy alternatives will play.

-OPEC Joint Meeting http://www.opec.org/home/Multimedia/videos/2007/EU-OPEC/Press%20Conference.htm

No, I do not believe that there are any viable energy alternatives, at least not for cars. Electric cars currently take a full night of charging for a few hours of driving, and cannot go fast enough to meet with the speed demands of such expressways as I-75. Also, electric cars are very expensive. Hydrogen fuel cell cars will not work because they are just too expensive for the common man. Anyone without millions of dollars in their pockets cannot afford to buy a fuel cell car, and hydrogen fuel recharging stations are few and far between, unless you move to Sweden, where there are a few.

However, powering our houses and cities through the use of alternate energy sources is very possible, and should be done. If the United States had spent as much money as we have spent in Iraq on Nuclear Power Plants, Windmills, and Water Power Plants, like the Hoover Dam, and continued to spend it for a few years, then oil, coal, and natural gas would be an infinitesimal part of our country's power supply.

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

Yes, there is a connection between oil and violence in the Middle East. The answer to the reason for the violence in the Middle East is plain and simple, oil and pride. surged. As a commentor on Droke's page asked rhetorically, "Would the U.S. be in the Middle East if there wasn't oil there?" (Droke par.6). The United States government is provoked with the thought of an economic miracle, money, like many other countries' goverments are. The price of oil is based off of the number of bombings in the Middle East, a very irrational way of calculation. The Middle East increases the price of oil has a way of revenge against the United States meddling in their territory, and for the bombings in their countries.

This graph shows the increases and decreases in the bombings which as you all may know have affected the prices of oil. (Droke)

However, not all violence in the Middle East is caused by oil. In fact, much of it is caused by the way in which the United States supports Israel. Because the radical Islamists cannot stand to have their Holy Cities controlled by another, what they consider "inferior" religion, they take it out on those that they believe caused the "problem," us.

Another cause that the radicals cite in their fight against the west, or Christianity, depending on how it is looked at, is the Crusades, about 1000 years ago. Now, I'm not saying what the Europeans did in the Crusades was right, but the United States and present day Europe did not have any affect whatsoever on the Crusades, making the radical's claim ridiculous. The underlying reason why radicals resort to radicalism and take it out on larger, richer countries is poverty, and whether or not the cause of the poverty is oil, or our mistreatment of them 50 years ago, or even our ancestors utter annihilation of them 1000 years ago, they have little, and we have much, and they resent it, and answer with violence. So really, was war the answer?

Sources:

http://www.teachingtools.com/CrudeEnergy/OilEnvironment.htm

http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest_05/droke042906.html-  Cliff Droke

http://www.amsa.gov.au/marine_environment_protection/educational_resources_and_information/teachers/the_effects_of_oil_on_wildlife.asp

Contributors:

Nandhinee Vijay

Brad Matola

A2 World Studies Mr. Uhelski

December 11, 2007

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