Oil: an unsustainable addiction

"America is addicted to oil," said George W. Bush. That was a startling admission from a President who used to be in the oil business. Another oil man, T. Boone Pickens, launched a plan for energy independence that involves substituting wind power for natural gas to generate electricity and using natural gas instead of oil to run our cars.

We are indeed in the midst of an oil crisis on many fronts. In fact, Bush understated the problem. The entire world suffers from the same addiction. India and China, trying to catch up with the United States and Europe as industrial powers, are driving up the world-wide price of oil. As long as oil is the fuel of choice, it puts economic development, or even self-sufficiency, out of reach of poorer countries.

Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, has more money than it knows how to spend wisely, so it diligently exports the anti-technology, anti-modern Wahabi sect of Islam to other countries.

The influence of that sect directly discourages education (especially for girls and women) and economic development. Indirectly, it discourages jobs and the people who need them. Whether on the Arab street or among the starving masses all over Africa or anywhere else, discouragement and discontent lead to violence.

I have nothing to say about global warming or climate change. Polar ice caps are melting, and the Northwest Passage that Henry Hudson couldn't find is becoming a reality. As to the argument over how much modern industry contributes to it, it really doesn't matter.

We--not just Americans or Europeans, but everyone else as well--have ample other reasons to find less expensive and more equitable sources of energy. Most of the ones under discussion now also seem to be cleaner and less damaging to the air and groundwater.

Both economically, environmentally, and geopolitically, the world cannot sustain its current energy usage. I, for one, would welcome development of enough viable alternatives to oil that we could stop using it entirely, or at least use less than we can produce ourselves.