This Earth Day, Thank Big Oil
This Earth Day, take a moment to thank the Greens’ biggest punching bag: Big Oil.
Most of us think of oil simply as the stuff that puts gasoline in our car. But oil, thanks to the ingenuity of the oil industry, does so much more. For one, it’s the building block for thousands of petroleum products — everything from Blu-Ray discs to asphalt to stitches to lipstick. And it provides the safest, most powerful, most convenient fuel, not only for automobiles but for the freighters, jets, trucks, and industrial machinery that power our global economy.
Oil makes every aspect of our lives better. For instance, say you’re fixing yourself a quick, All-American breakfast: eggs, bacon, fruit, and toast. What does that have to do with oil? Everything.
For example, you take for granted that the ingredients will be fresh and healthy. But for most of history people have often had to live with moldy vegetables and spoiled meat, because they lacked the refrigerator you have — a refrigerator with an oil-based, plastic interior that resists moisture and bacteria (imagine if it were made of wood!), not to mention the plastic packaging that keeps the bacon unspoiled and tasty and the bread fresh. If you’re frying the eggs and bacon with a coated pan for speed and easy clean-up, that’s a coating engineered from oil — which is also the material used for the insulated power cords that keeps you safe from the potentially deadly electricity flowing to your toaster and refrigerator.
And your breakfast is not only prepared and preserved with oil, it was grown with oil. Food today is dirt-cheap by historical standards only because of industrial-scale farming using industrial farm equipment powered by the cheapest, most concentrated, most abundant fuel: oil (usually diesel). Oil is also the base of the fertilizer and pesticides that have dramatically increased crop yields and lowered food prices.
Finally, your eggs, bacon, fruit and bread were transported to you — not just from your local grocery store (for pennies) via your gasoline-powered automobile, but from around the world. Once upon a time, you could only get food that was grown within walking or buggy distance. Now, even if you live on an island (say, Manhattan) you can dine on apples from Washington state, eggs from Iowa, oranges from California, and pineapple from Hawaii — all thanks to our fast, cheap, oil-powered transportation network that makes possible all of world trade.
Remember this when you hear calls to cut — and even renounce — our use of oil, because of its supposed impact on the climate. Then ask yourself: why do we never hear what life would be like without oil? What does that reveal about the attackers of oil? Is their anti-oil agenda compatible with human progress and prosperity?
To learn more about the ideas driving the attacks against oil and the value of this resource, visit “In Defense of Oil.”
Every day I wake up, I’m thankful for our industrial high-tech civilization.
Of course, if we ever developed some non-petroleum based energy source (such as hydrogen fusion) that was economically viable in the free market and deprived Middle East despots of their current oil revenue, I’d be totally happy.
But for now, Americans shouldn’t feel guilt over their use of the Earth’s resources to improve their lives. Instead, they should celebrate the human creativity that made is possible.
We should thank G-d the Father in christ’s name for creating a planet that formed oil. Instead, this world system celebrates the creation, not the Creator.
Same song, and dance.
I thank God the Father in the name of His Son Jesus for the wealth oil has provided the world. Let none of us forget that natures God has provided this for our betterment and the fact that it was horse nad buggy for the 5000 previous years of our history.
Anybody who wants to go back to those days has not learned history.
I thank the creators of OIL RIGS and the incredible technology which makes our industrial civilization possible. The inventors of such technology were geniuses, and the businessmen today are keeping us alive. The bible doesn’t have instructions for oil extraction. Meanwhile, God is blowing up Haiti and drowning innocent people in Nashville.
Trucks. We do not have railroads guarantee safe and timely delivery of fresh refrigerated and frozen foods. They are mostly trucked. Most of the heat is hate and envy. The radicals are jealous that Big oil makes money and pays taxes and their novelty energy sources drain money by the millions.
Big Oil and using up and/or wasting fuel is an issue but not the be all, end all. Foreign Big Oil and the transfer of our wealth to the middle east, now that is a real head turner. We need to get all of our trucks converted to natural gas within ten years and increase our fuel efficiency and renewables by the same amount within 30 years. The investment and money saved alone will create jobs and add 3-4% to our GDP. So what are we waiting for? now that is definately worth burning the midnite oil for aint it? Now where is my shell card?
Read up on the fallacy of the broken window.
Using money to replace something that works with something else that works is never an investment, it is a waste.
Actually, Poor Citizen is right. Natural gas is cheaper than oil, which is why we burn natural gas to produce about 20% of our electricity, but there are almost no oil fired power plants left open in this country.
While it is true that nat gas is cheaper than oil, there’s a reason why we currently use oil rather than nat gas to run our cars. It’s because the systems needed to get nat gas into a form useable by cars is much more expensive. The storage system inside the cars is also much more expensive.
In an accident, a nat gas car is much more dangerous. Oil can’t explode, nat gas can.
No, Poor Citizen is right in the long term. As per the article oil is just too valuable to do nothing more than burn it. Natural gas, though…
The left’s “big oil” argument re climate change (i.e. skeptics are funded by big oil) falls apart for the same reason. Even if cars magically quit running on oil tomorrow morning, we’d still need a lot of it. The price wouldn’t necessarily change (that whole supply and demand thing being what it is.)
You know, GL, I used to think that, but it seems to me (I dated a chemical engineer for some years, this is based on talks with her) that just as we can crack petroleum to shorter hydrocarbons, we can push methane back uphill to longer ones. I’m not sure if the real equation just comes down to if we are forced to get what we want endothermically or exothermically.
I’m going to celebrate Earth Day by consuming and/or utilizing as many products manufactured with or brought to me via a gas/oil mo-chine as possible. Heck, I may even mow my yard . . . . with a gas-powered mower, causing noxious (to humans) fumes to be placed into the atmosphere. Maybe I’ll run down to the store and buy some ice cream, in my internal-combustion engine-powered automobile, complete with air conditioning. Hey! I know . . . I’ll hook my gasoline-fueled boat up to the back of my gasoline-fueled automobile, pull it to a nearby lake, hop in and cruise around the lake for awhile, and use as much gas and oil as it takes. I might even take some charcoal, set it ablaze, and cook up a burger or two – again causing noxious (to humans) fumes to be placed into the atmosphere. The noxious (to humans) fumes I emit will be gladly sucked up by all the plant life around.
RockThisTown wrote:
“The noxious (to humans) fumes I emit will be gladly sucked up by all the plant life around.”
…no, it won’t. That’s part of the problem we face. The chemical signature of the CO2 that humans pump into the atmosphere is different than the natural CO2 in the atmosphere. More specifically, it’s the ratio of C12 to C13. C12 is what plants incorporate; C13 takes more energy to incorporate, and therefore plants will prefer C12 first. And even then, plants won’t use it, so it stays in the atmosphere. See this:
environmentalchemistry dot com/yogi/environmental/200611CO2globalwarming dot html
I wish you were right, because I’d be right there with ya on my personal watercraft, headed towards the shore and the barbecue, but the scientists tell us that the reality is that we’ve got to change the way we live; we’ve got to go to a carbon-free energy system. It’ll take time, and we can do it, but time is our enemy, so we don’t have the luxury of arguing with the fossil fuel industry over who’s right. We all lose if they get their way.
Where the heck do you get your science, from the back of a comic book?
Plants can’t tell the difference between C12 and C13. (Do you even know what the difference is? I doubt it.)
A molecule of CO2 made from C13 ways a few fractions of a percent more than a similar molecule made from C12, because of a single extra neutron.
You are aware that many greenhouses take the exhaust gases from power plants and pipe it into the greenhouses, precisely because it makes the plants grow bigger and faster.
There are no scientists who tell us we need to get rid of carbon altogether.
There is a tiny fraction who want us to cut down dramatically, but they’ve been shown to be charlatons.
” . . . the scientists tell us that the reality is that we’ve got to change the way we live”
Unfortunately, liberals wanting to tell others how to live has politicized science. Sadly, we can’t even believe the people (scientists) who are supposed to be unbiased and simply report their findings. Their next grant may depend on what they say.
“Your findings don’t comport with our stated global climate change ideology, so, sorry, your research grant request for next year will not be approved.”
Funny, but I haven’t heard scientists tell me the reality. What I’ve heard is a biased media twist & distort the truth, often into outright lies. What . . . am I supposed to start riding my bike to work in Birkenstocks? I do ride my bike on the weekends (for exercise, not the environment, and I don’t tell everyone else they must do the same), but I’ll stick to driving my carbon dioxide-emitting, internal combustion engine-powered automobile to work and back until I can no longer purchase the fuel to power it. sTeeve, I do wonder . . . how do you travel? Do you walk or bicycle everywhere you go, or, like many hypocritical liberals, do you drive or ride in a carbon-based fuel automobile but tell others not to? How is your house heated & cooled? Your use of a computer here proves you’re using electricity. Where do you think it comes from? The electricity powering the computer you’re using, in all likelihood, has at least some carbon-based origin. Also, oil was likely used to produce the computer you’re using, AND deliver it to either your home, or the site of purchase. Interestingly, you provide no specifics on how we reach your utopian goal of a carbon-free energy system.
For a better understanding of V.I. Lenin’s birth day… I mean Earth Day, check this link:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/earth_day_an_assault_on_man.html
I wonder if Mr. Epstein has secured a place on the self-contained biospheres being built by the greedy merchants of death he praises? After their greed has scorched and poisoned our Mother Earth so she can no longer care for her children, such places will be the only places capable of supporting life. Even if he has, I doubt that applies to anybody else here so for your own self-interest do not stand idly by while the corporate plutocrats rape and abuse our Mother Earth. Take action now so she can continue to care for her children!
The earth is greener and healthier than it has been at any time in the last 200 years.
The only rape going on here, is the rape of your mind by the irational hate and fear of others that consumes it.
The Earth is not my mother, you pagan fool.
If she’s your mother, ask her to turn off that volcano in Iceland.
The corporate plutocracy with their airplanes, automobiles, and drilling rigs are raping and abusing our Mother Earth to the point of no return. The volcano is Gaia spitting in the faces of the abusers. If the plutocrats would stop abusing her, she might be nicer.
You know, sometimes you have to look at some of these comments just as works of art.
If I were still I gambler, I’d take a bet that you slaughtered your firstborn son. I’d suggest you had immolated him in fire, but pagans don’t do that anymore; they now go to abortion clinics instead.
Lets not forget that oil saved the whales! Petroleum oil replaced whale oil in lubrication and pretty much everything else.
Would you mind telling that to the Japanese?
Would you mind telling that to the Japanese?
Whale meat. Yummm
The left’s insistence that we’re somehow addicted to oil is so ridiculous as to border on insanity. The author correctly points out that oil is responsible for our modern lifestyle, but only scratches the surface of the many beneficial products made from it.
Radical environmentalists deserve to be marginalized and mocked for the fools they are. I doubt if they’d really enjoy a life free of the oil that they detest. Seriously, if you can apply it safely to an infant’s chapped bottom (thereby relieving diaper rash), just how evil can oil be?
Thanks, Josh! Now that is rich:
Save the Whales – Burn Kerosene!!
Thank you, Mr. Epstein for a fascinating article. It’s well for us to remember how much oil companies contribute to our welfare and comfort. We should also recognize how greatly environmentalists evade the requirements of their own actions in order to mislead and often lie to us. They attack the use of oil while simultaneously depending on it in order to communicate and transport their messages.
Scream this one loudly-is it any coincidence that EARTH DAY is the same day as VLADMIR LENINS BIRTHDAY????????????????
According to the guy who started the earth day movement. It’s no coincidence.
I’m totally into Recycling. It’s simple. “From the Earth, To the Earth”. [directly]
Indeed, oil has served us very, very well, as you point out. We couldn’t be where we are today without it. However, there is no need to stop at oil! We now know the adverse effects it has on our environment and the international dependence on it and on oil-drilling countries; therefore, in the name of the technological progress that you seem to admire, it should be in our greatest interest to wean off oil and move towards creating more efficient sustainable energy systems. We can thus respect oil for what it has been, but by no means should we blindly stick with it.
I’m perfectly aware that those “green” energy systems are not yet as efficient as oil, but there is no doubt that science will eventually get us to the point where it is.
Anyone wonder where his figures are to support that claim?
Just a question.
The USA has discovered 2 great oil deposits. One in the state of Colorado and the Other one that covers the States of North and South Dakota. The latter is bigger than the Arab.
How is the Oil exploitation of these two great oild deposits is going to benefit the Citizens of the United States, through royalties? I hope. No more welfare. Too many people living from it!
No doubt – oil has served us very well. But we now know the harmful effects it can have on lots of things. Just like cigarettes, it took years to figure out what they were doing to our bodies – but now we know and had to take action.
Just like with oil, we now know that there are much better ways to get the benefits of oil. For instance, lots of experts think that the Gulf Stream contains enough hydro energy to power all of North America. Someone said that oil saved the whales, well renewable energy can save the planet.
I read on here where someone implied that liberal scientists had an agenda against oil. Do you not think that the oil companies and the politicians that serve them have an agenda too? Oil has been great, but it is time to move on to the next energy source(s). If not for the environment, then certainly for the political environment.
Yes, thanks so much big oil! Thanks for slicing open the earth, so that millions of gallons of oil could sully the ocean and coastline. Oil is so lovely and delicious! I just want to cover myself in it and laze away, dreaming about all of our wonderful technology.
You might want to look up the LaBrea Tar Pits and the subsurface oil “volcanoes” off Santa Barbara, Ayn.
Why is it that people love to ignore facts that are inconvenient to their way of life? Please submit a counter argument if you have something valid to offer.
About the subsurface oil volcanoes:
“Currently, the volcanoes still produce small amounts of methane bubbling from their surfaces, which Valentine describes as harmless “residual gas” due to its minimal amount.” (source: http://www.independent.com/news/2010/apr/27/asphalt-volcanoes-discovered-coast/) And even when they were flowing heavily, there is no evidence to support that it was anywhere near the levels from the BP spill. I tried to look for an article on the negative impact The LaBrea Tar Pits have on the environment, this was all I could find, “This seepage has been happening for tens of thousands of years. From time to time, the asphalt would form a pool deep enough to trap animals, and the surface would be covered with layers of water, dust, and leaves. Animals would wander in to drink, become trapped, and eventually die. Predators would also enter to eat the trapped animals and become stuck.” (source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_brea_tar_pits) So the occasional animal, but not an entire ecosystem destroyed.
Trivializing this disaster makes you look foolish. I am against heavy government regulation, but something must be done to prevent this atrocity from happening again.
In response to other peoples points and to the main article, the BP oil spill is not a good enough reason on it’s own to switch fuel sources, but there are so many more good reasons. Oil is abundant for now, yes, but with our ever increasing demand for fuel and the impossibility of producing oil commercially, we need another viable source of energy. We may never run out of oil, but that is only because of how insanely expensive it will become within the next 100 years (source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/feature_articles/2004/worldoilsupply/oilsupply04.html). It is naive to think that we can continue using oil forever.
Solar and wind technologies cannot currently compare with the energy output of oil, but their potential is so much greater. How can you not agree that business should invest in finding cheap ways to produces copious amounts of energy from renewable resources? Foreign energy dependence aside, once the technology is created, it is a gold mine.
No one is saying that we should live the way we lived before the oil spurred technological boon of the 20th century (okay, maybe a few crazies). I love cars and computers and fresh food. But there are better sources of energy available which will allow humans to continue satiating their appetite for energy.
this article is complete bunk. there are products, not made with petroleum distillates to keep foods fresh and to build refrigerators with. there were also medical products that worked well, if not better, than those that are now made of plastics. there are actually some medication that must be stored in glass because plastics and latex will leach into them.
and it seems half of this article was ripped off over on the ayn rand sycophant page. or maybe it’s from the same author who just recycles by cutting and pasting from his older works. who knows. nice job either way.