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Page added on November 3, 2014
Why your environmentalism is nauseating
Oil products are essential to maintaining our quality of life
Recently, I’ve been in the throes of a group project that requires students to address a social issue. At the start of the semester, I groaned inwardly when classmates expressed their interest in an environmental topic. During presentations about environmentally related issues, I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
Before you peg me as the anti christ of environmentalism, let me tell you that I believe we need to take better care of our environment. In fact, my summer job for the past three years has been picking up garbage and planting greenery.
However, the idealistic and utopian ideas that tumble out of my peers’ mouths like rainbow-coloured vomit is appalling. Not only does this show a lack of understanding in terms of how things work realistically, but it is often only substantiated by information gleaned from biased pieces that exclude the full picture and have no accountability for misinformation.
If oil were a person, I am certain some of my fellow students would form a mob, hang him in the Academic Quadrangle and feed his remains to the koi fish in the pond. However, what they neglect to consider is just how many petroleum products touch our lives. Did you wear a sweater today? Oil product. It rains a lot in Vancouver, thank god for umbrellas! Oil product. Did you brush your teeth today with a toothbrush? Oil product.
What students neglect to consider is just how many petroleum products touch our lives.
I’m not advocating that you go out and purchase a foam finger with the words “#1 Oil Sands Fan” printed on the front, but I do think it’s high time that students opened their eyes to reality. Unless you are hiking the mountain to school, sporting ‘Adam and Eve’ leaf couture, you cannot feasibly say that you are accustomed to a lifestyle without petroleum products.
The grim reality is that we currently do not have any other energy sources that can replace and improve on what we get from oil. So no, the oil sands are not in business solely because greedy oil tycoons want to watch the world burn as they soak in bathtubs full of crisp hundred dollar bills; oil is actually something we rely on to maintain the quality of life modern society demands.
In a tutorial, my TA asked if we supported pipelines. I was the sole person to raise my hand in support. My classmates’ eyes burned into me as the TA asked for my reasoning. My answer was simple enough, but a revelation to the dissenting crowd: oil was going to be transported regardless, and I’d rather have it done via the lesser of evils.
A quote from a Forbes article serves as a poignant reminder that “1.5 million gallons of crude oil spilled in a single day last year in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, and 47 people were killed” during a railcar accident a little over a year ago. Plus, let’s not forget that “five out of the 10 largest oil spills in US history were from boats.” Pipelines aren’t perfect, but are you really advocating what’s best for the environment by protesting against them?
When it comes to the environment, enough is enough. Students, of all people, should know that, while ideals are really nice and we all yearn to live in the romantically simplistic world they paint, these notions are just not realistic.
18 Comments on "Why your environmentalism is nauseating"
sunweb on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 8:01 am
One 42-gallon barrel of oil creates 19.4 gallons of gasoline. The rest (over half) is used to make things like:
Solvents Diesel fuel Motor Oil Bearing Grease
Ink Floor Wax Ballpoint Pens Football Cleats
A few products
Upholstery Sweaters Boats Insecticides
Bicycle Tires Sports Car Bodies Nail Polish Fishing lures Dresses Tires Golf Bags Perfumes Cassettes Dishwasher parts Tool Boxes Shoe Polish Motorcycle Helmet Caulking Petroleum Jelly Transparent Tape
CD Player Faucet Washers Antiseptics Clothesline Curtains Food Preservatives Basketballs Soap Vitamin Capsules Antihistamines Purses Shoes Dashboards Cortisone Deodorant Footballs
Putty Dyes Panty Hose Refrigerant
Percolators Life Jackets Rubbing Alcohol Linings Skis TV Cabinets Shag Rugs Electrician’s Tape Tool Racks Car Battery Cases Epoxy Paint
Mops Slacks Insect Repellent Oil Filters
Umbrellas Yarn Fertilizers Hair Coloring
Roofing Toilet Seats Fishing Rods Lipstick
Denture Adhesive Linoleum Ice Cube Trays Synthetic Rubber
Speakers Plastic Wood Electric Blankets Glycerin
Tennis Rackets Rubber Cement Fishing Boots Dice
Nylon Rope Candles Trash Bags House Paint
Water Pipes Hand Lotion Roller Skates Surf Boards
Shampoo Wheels Paint Rollers Shower Curtains
Guitar Strings Luggage Aspirin Safety Glasses
Antifreeze Football Helmets Awnings Eyeglasses
Clothes Toothbrushes Ice Chests Footballs
Combs CD’s & DVD’s Paint Brushes Detergents
Vaporizers Balloons Sun Glasses Tents
Heart Valves Crayons Parachutes Telephones
Enamel Pillows Dishes Cameras
Anesthetics Artificial Turf Artificial limbs Bandages
Dentures Model Cars Folding Doors Hair Curlers
Cold cream Movie film Soft Contact lenses Drinking Cups
Fan Belts Car Enamel Shaving Cream Ammonia
Refrigerators Golf Balls Toothpaste Gasoline
Americans consume petroleum products at a rate of three-and-a-half gallons of oil and more than 250 cubic feet of natural gas per day each! But, as shown here petroleum is not just used for fuel.
The vast majority of medicines, are summarized as from benzene, and derivatives, and benzene is derived from petroleum, some examples are all those drugs which carry a bencenic ring , such as aspirin, acetaminophen, salicilic acid, sertraline, benzodiazepines, barbiturics, antiseptics,antiemetics, ulcer treatment, like aloglutamol, ranitidine, famotidine, omeprazole, lanzoprazole, pantoprazole, antiespasmodics, like hioscine, fluopropione, thiopramide, phloroglucinol, lidamidine.It is correct to say, that for all the areas it covers Medicine at present, each has medicines derived from petroleum, through synthesis of benzene or derivatives of benzene.
I’ Chemist-Pharmacist,Phd, MSc. 30 years experience, Medicines Quality Control, Manufacturing, Synthesis research.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080206175810AAiAVJu
MonteQuest on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 8:04 am
“The American way of life is not negotiable” (Dick Cheney, 2001).
Dredd on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 8:10 am
A translation of the code words in this piece: “a lack of understanding in terms of how things work realistically” (means: “the real world can’t be changed”)
“the full picture” (means: “you do not know how addicted civilization is to the oil drug”)
“no accountability for misinformation” (means: “Oil-Qaeda owns the governments so get over it”)
“What students neglect to consider is just how many petroleum products touch our lives” (means: “we are too addicted to quit”)
The writer of the piece is an oil-qaeda propagandist who wants his students to memorize his mantra.
A fear monger with Romper Room “facts” (The Real Dangers With Microbes & Viruses).
Davy on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 8:10 am
There is wishing and hoping and then there are hard, painful, and permanent choices. Reality and truth could care less about our human situation. We need to grow up and realize the tradeoffs and quit acting like we have winners and losers and either and or.
We have a systematic descent paradigm, descending energy gradient, and time is running out. It is time for tough choices and plan mitigation. There is no place for idealism anymore just the cold stark stoic reality of some kind of collapse that is impossible to forecast in our future. Gets some gonads folks and make your bed the storm is coming.
Makati1 on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 8:23 am
As sunweb shows, there are better uses for oil than heat generation in engines and homes. So, even at $500/bbl, there will be profitable uses.
eugene on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 8:33 am
Years ago, I read about a “monkey trap”. A hole is drilled in a container large enough for the monkey to put his hand in, a bit of food put in the container which the monkey grasps but then can’t get his closed hand out. Won’t let go of the food so is trapped. Now I haven’t a clue if this old tale is true but sure fits the human situation now. We’re caught by our own greed. We’re at the intellectual whining stage now as we’ve discarded the poor, elderly, disabled, etc. You know those folks that have slid or are sliding beneath the survival level. Now it’s what ifs, should do, could do, somebody oughta do something, academic discussions and all the rest of the air headed ramblings of those not yet at the “I’m dying” stage. We talk about tooth brushes, paint, driving and other nonsense things but, hell, makes one think they’re doing something.
Norm on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 9:08 am
The one that cracks me up, is the ‘holier than thou’ preaching about plastic grocery bags. There is scarcely 1 gram of plastic in the bag, but they rend their garments, wail, and gnash their teeth about the plastic grocery bag.
Then they go to their Cadillac Escalade, to drive home the bag of groceries, and could care less about the gallon of gasoline they burn up getting home, which is thousands of times more by weight or volume.
Either is a hydrocarbon, but which do they worry about? The plastic bag. Most people are incredibly stupid.
Another one is they paint the garbage trucks green. When the paint is green, its an ‘environmental garbage truck’.
Same garbage, same truck, different
paint. And the sheeple fall for it.
I like to call this ‘my soy-based organic printer ink is more compassionate than your hydrocarbon based printer ink’. As though it would make a single molecule of difference.
Meanwhile there ARE big picture items that we COULD focus upon… recycle your trash. But nobody wants to do that, they want to pretend about caring, with their little mind-games about grocery bags and the color of paint on a garbage truck.
GregT on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 9:17 am
“My answer was simple enough, but a revelation to the dissenting crowd: ”
Simple answer only because someone appears to be a simpleton. Thirty years from now, I can see lynch-mobbing becoming quite popular.
Apneaman on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 10:26 am
A student alright. A student of Edward Bernays. You would think humanity just stumbled around all day drooling on itself before oil. There are plenty of thing that can only be made with oil and some of them might be argued as necessary. On the other hand, many products made from oil already existed prior to oil. They were made with other resources. For example plenty of useful goods were made with hemp prior to DuPont and the other chemical monopolies. The student author (wink) along with the rest of us will soon see a return to said products. Loss of mining and major transportation will sting a lot more than having to use a wooden handled, horse hair toothbrush.
Solarity on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 11:38 am
We are living in the AGE OF HYPOCRACY, and it probably will not end well.
dubya on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 12:14 pm
An excellent bunch of information o n all the useful things we could use petroleum for.
Instead we’re burning it.
Beery on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 12:21 pm
“The grim reality is that we currently do not have any other energy sources that can replace and improve on what we get from oil.”
And the implication there is that we must use oil. The fact that we do use it does not mean we must. Humanity advanced perfectly well before the first oil wells were discovered, and it will advance perfectly well after the last oil rig is shut down.
“…while ideals are really nice and we all yearn to live in the romantically simplistic world they paint, these notions are just not realistic.”
Not in a world where oil “must” be used for humanity’s survival. But we don’t live in that world. If we did, the future would be pretty bleak. The reality is that humanity’s survival is probably reliant on us using less oil, and continuing to use oil at the rate we are now is what’s truly not realistic.
Charlie Bucket on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 12:37 pm
I have news for the author, Mother Nature is coming around to show us “how things really work”. What a moron! This absolute fantasy, blip in time anomaly, artificial life we all lead is coming to an abrupt end, whether I use a tooth brush made from oil or not!
orbit7er on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 1:21 pm
Major wastes of oil are for the endless Wars (6%) and Auto Addiction in the US which uses 70% of our oil. Endless Wars are definitely bad and hard to justify by any measure. Auto Addiction in the US is also hard to justify when Europeans per capita mileage is 4500 miles per year vs 15,000 for Americans.
Autos take 10 times the land, kill 30,000 people per year, injure hundreds of thousands, have been strongly correlated with obesity, asthma in high traffic areas etc etc. Why not stop the Wars and stop wasting all our resources on Auto Addiction in favor of Green Transit and walkable communities?
Americans need to realize that they also are forced to spend almost 3 times the rate of Europe due to Auto Addiction as the only transit option. According to the Auto promoting AAA, it costs on average $9300 per year to own a car. On top of that is the 40% of our corn for running our cars instead of feeding people. We need to REDUCE period.
J.R. on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 4:34 pm
What a stupid article. Basically, an “educator” no less, despises the very thought that he might have to encourage his students on the merits of environmentalism. He shudders!
This asswipe should be fired. Petroleum may have “touched our lives”, but it’s done far more damage then this.
“they neglect to consider is just how many petroleum products touch our lives.”
Or maybe they don’t CARE about how many “petroleum products touch our lives” anymore. But this dunderhead is too stupid to give his students any credit for thinking outside the box like he refuses to do.
This “educator” has compromised the principles of education – teaching other to THINK and to respect their perpsectives and points of view.
I reiterate – this dung pile should be FIRED for incompetence.
J.R. on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 4:37 pm
We do not “need” oil – or ANY of the products (profits) produced.
This the basic assumption and it falls flat on its face.
The “price” for this demand (addiction) is destruction. There is no other description that fits better.
Oil extraction and oil use is incompatible with a habitable planet. End of story.
The children are the smart ones. This “educator” is a fool.
green_achers on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 6:45 pm
I’m imagining how this so-called educator would approach a smallpox victim: “Ha! You say you want to get over the smallpox, but here you are, running a fever, with sores all over you!”
Makati1 on Mon, 3rd Nov 2014 7:12 pm
green, thanks for the chuckle. You are so right. There are not many real educators left in our American system. From Kindergarten to the PHds in Universities, they. the teachers/professors) are mostly incompetents who like to think they are intelligent because they can repeat the same crap they were taught.
There are fields that require intelligent instructors, like medicine, engineering, physics, etc. because they have to obey real laws and rules to work. Too bad so many of the other disciplines have their thoughts on the wrong track and refuse to see the dead end coming.
A tooth brush may cost $50 in 20 years. So what? You will be saving money by not having all of the I-toys and other distractions to take your income. You will be spending it on necessities instead. Or, if the crash is total, you will likely not live long enough to have tooth worries. Certainly your sugar intake will be sharply curtailed.