Your lifestyle requires oil
The discovery of crude oil in 1859 in Pennsylvania ushered in the modern age, and the byproducts of it are so ubiquitous in our society we don’t realize they come from oil.
Oil’s primary use is fuel for cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships, which will continue for the foreseeable future, because it’s an energy-dense product. A gallon of gasoline can propel a 3,500-pound car down a road for more than 20 or 30 miles. Solar panels or windmills don’t come close to this performance and never will.
The endeavors of mankind are not without risk. Have terrible accidents occurred in the drilling, production and transportation of crude oil? Yes. Every year, cars and planes crash, killing thousands. Are we going to quit driving and flying? No. We try to manage the risk and improve the machines and operations to make them safer.
Those of you who bad-mouth oil and the oil companies need to take a long hard look at your lifestyle and imagine it without oil. Dystopia is what it would be, not your make-believe green utopia.
Joe Boughton
Gautier
This story was originally published July 23, 2016 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Your lifestyle requires oil."