I guess I disagree. It's not so much the pollution factor - actually, with me, I couldn't care less - it IS the dependence factor. We use oil for EVERYTHING - not just gasoline. And it is SO woven into our economy that eventually, the high price of oil drives up the cost of EVERYTHING - especially since it drives up the costs of transportation.
It's an increasingly scarce resource. You can build houses out of wood and bricks - which you're NEVER going to run out of - but one day, oil is going to becoming much more scarce in comparison to demand, as nations as HUGE as China - AND *India* (which is expected to SURPASS China in population) - begin to demand more.
There's the distribution of oil, which is disturbing - the largest reserves are now in nations at least marginally hostile - or outright hostile to the United States. Oil is to the United States what water is to plants - we CANNOT survive without it - and we can't compete without it.
Where's the incentive for nations such as China, and Russia - who both have HUGE untapped reserves - and the nations of central Asia - to sell to us what they have, so we can kick their azzes in the global economy?
I hate the idea of depending on other countries to continue to survive - and I'd sure like our nation's foreign policy to be unhinged from oil. It'd be nice to tell the oil-producing nations that they can go f*** themselves, 'cause we don't NEED them. We HAVE to interfere with the Middle East, because our survival depends on it - we DON'T have to interfere in say, nations in West Africa, because frankly, we don't need them.
It's an increasingly scarce resource. You can build houses out of wood and bricks - which you're NEVER going to run out of - but one day, oil is going to becoming much more scarce in comparison to demand, as nations as HUGE as China - AND *India* (which is expected to SURPASS China in population) - begin to demand more.
There's the distribution of oil, which is disturbing - the largest reserves are now in nations at least marginally hostile - or outright hostile to the United States. Oil is to the United States what water is to plants - we CANNOT survive without it - and we can't compete without it.
Where's the incentive for nations such as China, and Russia - who both have HUGE untapped reserves - and the nations of central Asia - to sell to us what they have, so we can kick their azzes in the global economy?
I hate the idea of depending on other countries to continue to survive - and I'd sure like our nation's foreign policy to be unhinged from oil. It'd be nice to tell the oil-producing nations that they can go f*** themselves, 'cause we don't NEED them. We HAVE to interfere with the Middle East, because our survival depends on it - we DON'T have to interfere in say, nations in West Africa, because frankly, we don't need them.
