Oil

2005. It's freakin 2005 and very likely we've used as much as half of the usable oil in the Earth's crust. Put that in your pipeline and smoke it. I can already hear the energy "conservatives" clucking their teeth. "No where near it," they're saying. And, in truth, I'm not going to fall on my sword over the statistic. Because, you see - the statistic's not the deal. Here's the deal, here's the sad sobering truth of the matter - nobody knows. Nobody knows. Think about that for an instant. Nobody knows! They don't know what percentage of the retrievable oil we've used. They simply don't know. Some of those most closely aligned to the industry might have their own suspicions in the matter... but, still they don't know.

The only reliable way to determine the status of the world's oil supply requires compiling the production data of all the major oil fields on the planet, and that is something that oil folks won't – simply won't – do. So, let me see if I got this right. It's better to keep one's production figures and related oil field data secret and go on – as an industry – simply NOT KNOWING, than to join together and make an educated decision on how we should move forward with this finite resource. Finite, folks. Demand will outstrip supply. One day there will not be enough oil. We have, in the geologically microscopic period of time between our years of 1859 and 2005, used a significant portion of what's there. That's less than a century and a half for those of you who are lagging behind on the math. 1.49 centuries to use one quarter, one third, one half of a finite planetary resource? We know it's a significant percentage but we just don't know how much. My father would have asked "If you don't know, who does?' In my book, 'I don't know" is a paltry excuse to be leaving the generations that follow. About time we pulled our proverbial heads out of the Saudi sand and face this situation head first.

At work. 8.22.05