Oil we love, oil we hate - plus the devil and the Diggers

You could hardly hope for a better illustration of our mixed feelings about oil.

Just a few days ago, on Earth Day, we ran a survey asking which industry sector you'd like to vanish off the planet - for the sake of the planet. By a very long way, oil came first.

But then drivers in Scotland started to fill up on petrol in expectation of a fuel shortage, and my colleague Robin Pagnamenta noted that without ample oil supplies we would starve.

So do we hate oil, or crave it? Or, like addicts who recognise the harm done to them by heroin or alcohol, do we both love and hate oil all at once?

The ecologist and writer Alastair McIntosh has written in his stunning book Soil and Soul that some things that seem harmless in themselves can, at a certain remove or huge scale, become terrifyingly harmful. Quoting John Steinbeck, he observes that the banks that foreclosed loans and caused such suffering in the Great Depression were staffed with people who, almost without exception, hated what the bank was doing. But they did it anyway, because the "emergent properties" of the banking system called on them to do so. McIntosh suggests that these emergent properties are fundamentally unavoidable in any human system, and that they might possibly be what previous generations had in mind when they talked of "the devil" - an anthropomorphic embodiment of what today we choose to regard as mere abstracts.

Certainly, it's possibly to see the "devil" in oil. It's undoubtedly useful and pleasure-giving stuff - as indeed are heroin, so I understand, and alcohol - but we allow these things to take over our lives at great peril.

Whether we're "possessed" by devils or merely addicted, we must all take a share of the responsibility. Which is not to say that we should feel guilty - which does nobody any good - but we should think hard about the implications of what we do and try to change, little by little. After all, people have lived for all but the tiniest part of human history without any oil at all.

Which brings me back to the idea that we are all going to starve. Well, it's true that current agricultural practice relies on fossil fuels to a vast degree (ten calories from oil for each calorie on the plate!). But it's also true that we can all grow foods in window boxes, on local scrubland, and in our gardens without using any of those artificial aids. If you aren't doing so already, why not? Even one lettuce makes a (small) difference.

Nor do you need even to buy plastic (eg, oil based) pots for the seedlings. These ones, in an improvised cold-frame in my garden, are made of newspaper and slowly rot in the ground.

My friend Richard Reynolds, of the Guerilla Gardeners, has a book coming out about the great tradition of growing things where there was nothing before. I'm looking forward to reading it - and only hope that Richard has added to his previous writing, about decorative planting, something substantial about how we can grow food on common land, as did Richard's 17th century forebears, the Diggers.

Comments

[Lionel Harland]

Regarding your Q&A. Times 30.04.08

It was stated that Hedge funds and Investment Banks have taken out huge bets on the future of the oil price.
One step that Central Govenments could take is to impose a moratorium on futures trading to all parties other than registered producers or major users. The futures market in commodities was set up in the first place to allow the industry to hedge their positions to protect their future profits and iron out fluctuations in the commodity.
If speculators wish to take a a position in a commodity during the period of the moratorium then let them deal at the spot price and take delivery.

This may seem somewhat draconian but at times like this drastic action is needed.
After all what use will profits be if by creating them, one has created hypa-inflation

[127]

Oil the great demon? Starbucks coffee per litre is an order of magnitude more expensive and bottled water in your local garage? - Well I don't think you'd like to run your car on it! Just bear in mind that you eat oil, it takes approx 14kcals of hydro carbon energy to produce 1kcal of food not taking account of cooking and distribution. To feed our burgeoining population it is necessary to pump oil-based sprays and nutrients on our depleted farmlands, particularly in the US. Next time you go down to the chemist cast an eye at the rows of pharmaceuticals and try to envisage the barrels of oil that produced them. We are not 'addicted' to oil we are riding a Titanic and its our only lifeboat. The green lobby must wake up t the fact that technical revolutions and alternatives to replace hydrocarbon energy in themselves consume oil and require parasitical, non-sensical economic 'strategies' to accomplish. Thirty years ago with serious intent we could seriously developed alternatives but the time now is short, very short. Every endeavour on this planet requires energy - if you use it here it will be depleted there, this is how finite uncheateable systems work. The largest and most hideous use of energy on this planet is producing transactional tokens ie 'money' as limitless representatives of wealth - they are bloated, worthless illusions. Change the way money works and you change everything - change the way you view energy and your perspective changes.
Energy is the only currency, everything else is a cheateable illusion.

[Ken]

The newspaper(?) cold-frame that slowly rots puts its CO2 back into the atmosphere. The plastic ones do not rot (at least over our lifetimes) and therefore do not add their CO2 back into the atmosphere. It remains buried. Recycle? Yes. But, biodegradable? No... not if you think that CO2 is "bad" for the environment. Can't have it both ways.

[Andrew T]

You can make enough petrol to fill 4 cars with 1 barrel of oil at $100 (£50).

There is over 70% TAX ON PETROL, that is problem!!! The likes of "shell" only make a few pence per every liter, the goverment make at least 75p per liter.

Price of oil is going up because it's mainly traded in dollar and dollar is about to collasp, also the companies push the idea that the oil is running out.

Wake up people, we're adicted to oil because the isn't any other viable alternitive fuel source, there's nothing we can do about that as of yet. Put all the money off of fuel tax into finding and alternitive.

It's like the double speak of "we're putting the price up so you use less".... hmmm cos that makes sence doesn't it!!! :o(