i've been thinking about oil lately. my attitude towards oil and energy was probably informed by my youth in spanish fork--lots of sweet trucks with big tires (low gas mileage) and wide open spaces on which to enjoy trucks and other engine based toys. i suppose i subconsciously felt that if God was worried about mother earth's health i would have heard something from a priesthood leader about conservation of energy. in most of utah there just aren't enough people for a critical mass of pollution to build up and visibly show the effects of carbon emissions on air quality...
currently, i believe that the majority of environmentalists use biased and alarmist data to further their positions. it does them a disservice because reasonable people tend to dismiss their claims on this assumption.
recently my favorite author :) wrote
a treatise regarding conservation, and it struck close to home...for those of you who don't share my love of his writings, i will save you time and share the poignant points:
"...Back when I was in college, I was reading estimates that we'd be out of oil before the end of the 20th century..."
"...What is obvious is that we have used up almost all the easy oil and the "vast reserves" remaining in shale and other such marginal deposits are very expensive to extract.
How short-sighted do we have to be? We have been burning oil for only a century and we've nearly used up all the easy, high-quality stuff. What if we last another hundred years before it's all gone...?
Do you know what that means? Six thousand years of recorded human history, and in only two hundred years we wipe out a precious resource that can never be replaced..."
"...But we're just as dumb....because we still have plenty of time to change, and we're just not willing to do it.
Why? Because we still center our lives around the automobile.
It's so sad -- a real crisis is staring us in the face and hardly anybody is talking about it, because the phantasm of global warming is getting all the press..."
"...That's why I said we have to change our social expectations. We have to make it a mark of shame to be stuck in a neighborhood where the lots are so huge that you can't walk in order to get anywhere.
It's already a huge inconvenience and expense. I daresay most readers of this column spend most of their gas money and transportation time on two things: Shopping and commuting. And how much of that is spent just getting out of your neighborhood..."
"...Because of the rate we're burning oil, our kids, or maybe grandkids, won't have any.
So they'll have to live in smaller neighborhoods. They'll have to walk or take public transportation.
The difference is, it will have come on them as a disaster, an economic collapse, and they really will be poor..."
now i don't agree with all his assumptions and accusations (and he isn't without blame as he commutes 2 1/2 hours twice a week to teach at southern virginia university in his ford 500.)
however, we need to find economical ways to find new sources of energy. i am optimistic that turning the capitalistic market loose on the race for economically, profitable technologies will yield results. in the meantime, al gore may be hypocritical and wrong on most issues, but his crusade may be what saves our nation (and it will probably save it in ways and for reasons he will never understand...)
what are your thoughts? are these ideas new to you? distasteful? dangerous? sound? do you look into a child's eyes and fear for their future?
