This follow-up post didn't stop the oil spill in the Gulf either

Some things I didn't explicitly address in the oil spill post (that were brought up by commentors):

I called oil "cheap" and it was emphatically noted the other costs there are that people don't think about. Those are all entirely true, but I was referring to the public perception that it is cheap, not the actuality. Another took it a bit further, noting that it won't merely be a matter of finding some other solution but taking steps to make petroleum unattractive (by taxing it greatly, the way they do in Europe). Obviously there's no real incentive for oil companies to change the status quo, and any lip service they give to alternatives is nothing more than placating the public, making it seem as though they're agents of change. All very much applicable, and all items that I'd consider to go without saying. Which is why I didn't say them. But worth acknowledging, certainly.

Of course, I'm pretty sure that any politician (one of the few who aren't in the pocket of the oil companies) who proposed taxing gasoline and raising the price at the pump up to double what it is would not only be thwarted by other politicians , not only have no chance of being re-elected, but likely he'd have to move to Canada.

The public acts in dissociative ways when we rail against the oil spill but turn around and fill our tanks. That doesn't make us as villainous as the oil companies but we are complicit.

Oil is part of what made the country rich in the 20th century. Slavery facilitated the cotton boom that made the country rich in earlier centuries. So perhaps what it will come to is an out-and-out war. I hope it doesn't require that.

All of this may be moot, as we'll probably run out of potable water before the oil dries up.

~

I fear someday we should be so lucky as to have crude oil remain our most pressing concern.