GETTING RID OF OIL

Ramsey Kerr:

Why can't we get rid of oil?

 We can't get rid of oil because we NEED it. We depend on the cheap, powerful, and abundant energy of oil and we have for centuries. The government is keeping us from moving on from the dying energy source that we use so much by spending tax money on finding and harvesting oil sources instead of finding clean and renewable sources to power that car and that cell phone and that TV and the million other things that we use oil to power. We don't only use oil for energy but also for material synthesis and farming, all plastic is made from oil and almost everything we use is made of plastic. It even takes oil energy to shape and distribute these products. In addition food, the essence of life (or, one of them), we have over farmed and mistreated the land so much that we have to make it fertile again by, you guessed it, putting oil in it. Fertilizers that almost all farmers use are made from oil. We are currently completely dependent on oil.

What would happen if we got rid of oil, and what will doing this it take?

 If we were to somehow be slightly: selfless, motivated, and aware of what is really going on with oil, we would be sensible enough to start to think about maybe looking at other possible serious sources for energy as a whole nation. But were not, we just keep acting like oil is going to last forever, and ignoring the signs of trouble, like the increase in gas prices. But oil is not going last forever, oil came from plants that were compressed and heated and underwent a chemical process that changed them into oil millions of years ago, and this isn't happening anymore. If we are to eliminate this problem like a tasty, but unhealthy junk food, we need to gradually take oil out of out technology, to have a long time to start finding ways to power our toys, or give them up. There are already people who are using healthier sources for energy, and they are the ones who don't have to pay taxes or oil generated power and refill their car with gas every time they run out.

What would happen if we didn't get rid of oil?

 The alternative is to keep using oil like it will be there forever. The government will keep paying to find more oil, instead of fixing other problems (national debt, education, global warming), and the consumer will keep buying the oil products and paying for the increasingly not cheep and abundant oil generated power. We will keep burning that black goo and not caring about the toxic emissions, or the wasteland we create every time we finish an oil source, or the unusable farming fields that we have filled with oil. We will keep finding source after source and draining it dry, until we don't, because there isn't infinite oil. We will eventually lose oil and there will be an economic breakdown because we will have lost all our plastic products, there will be no more power, and there will be chaos for people who can't get to their jobs or get their food or even pay for it, and we'll think "Why didn't we see this coming, how naive we were!"

 how nieve we were!"