Imagine for just a moment, that we live in a world where crude oil plays no role, or at least only a tiny one. A world that no longer goes to war over it, that doesn’t feed greedy cartels, that no longer fuels geopolitical machinations, that no longer supports repressive dictatorships, and a world that no longer suffers under its environmental destructiveness.
From climate-changing carbon emissions to plastic waste in our oceans and even our food chain, this ‘dinosaur juice’ is literally killing us yet we just cannot shake our addiction to it.
The first step is the hardest – actually admitting that we have a problem. “Hello, my name is Don and I am an addict.” We hardly, if at all realize that we are addicted let alone understand how much dependence we have on this fossil fuel across so many areas.
But even understanding that we have a problem isn’t near enough. How do we get past it? What 12 steps are going to get us out of the depths of this deep dark oil well?
A world with no oil would be ideal but that’s not going to happen any time soon. If we shut off the taps tomorrow the world would grind to a halt sooner than later. Yet if we keep going the way we are, humanity may well cease to exist before we overcome our problem. It seems we’re stuck in a proverbial Gordian Knot.
Life as we know it would not exist as it does without oil and all its petrochemical variations. In manufacturing, in transportation, the list is diverse and immense. We all complain about high gas prices, we complain about high food prices, we complain about the rising cost of goods in general, but I wonder, how many of us draw the line between all of these? Because in reality these issues mostly all come back to the same smelly black starting point.
Switching to electric vehicles is a great and necessary move but how long will it take for that to have an impact. The percentage of electric vehicles on the road is tiny. I would love to go out and get myself an electric 4×4 but let’s be honest about it, they’re expensive and there’s virtually no used electric car market. This will change, but we’re running out of time.
In the meantime, we plod on with that oily monkey on our shoulder, somehow convincing ourselves that things will get better. That’s the true curse of our addiction.
