Whose Oil?
6-3-06
A little town in Indiana wants to become energy self-sufficient. Some of the residents are mad at the Arabs for charging so much for oil. So the folks in Reynolds, Indiana are going to show them something; they’re not going to use that imported oil. Good idea; but a faulty premise.
It’s not the Arabs that are driving up the price of oil; it’s us. We are burning up more and more oil, just as the rest of the world is increasing its use of oil. The world is now reaching the limit of the amount of oil that can be gotten out of the ground on an average day. American oil production has been in decline since about 1971. (Peak oil.) Demand is driving the price up. But a lot of Americans have the attitude that the world should not charge us so much for oil. In fact some folks will tell their politicians to do something about it. Like what: invade a country and take the oil? Would that be Iraq, for example? How about Iran?
Oddly enough there is one of our oil supplier countries that does want to charge less. In fact, last winter they distributed heating oil to needy Americans at reduced prices. Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela is trying to get the price of a barrel of oil fixed at $50. You would think we would welcome them with open arms. Instead, Pat Robertson, one of the worlds’s most confused Christians, called for Chavez’s assassination; on his national TV show! President Bush created a coup that had Chavez removed from office. The coup was quickly overthrown. Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush crowd bad mouth the guy every chance they get.
Chavez is on the outs because he wants his people to get a bigger cut of the oil they sell abroad. Unacceptable!
The Bush government, which is basically Cheney, has another idea for energy prices. They want to bring up every last drop of oil and cubic foot of gas as soon as they can. Just one little problem to that: what do we do when that is all gone?
I think Reynolds, Indiana has a better idea.
Patrick Hunter
Carbondale, CO
379-0274
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