“Oil fields are voluntarily reducing their outputs. Since they say it’s voluntary they must be telling the truth! And since they’re cutting back the supply, of course the price will rise.”
Sure. “Voluntarily.” I have no solid evidence to back up my claims… but I will tell you this: If I was making widgets and I could sell as many as I made, no matter what, I wouldn’t be “voluntarily” making less when they hit $108 a barrel. But I would be calling a drop in my ability to meet the widget demands “voluntarily” if saying, “oh crap! I can’t make enough widgets!” would send the world into a panic. On the other hand, if “voluntarily” lowering my widget production caused the prices to increase enough that I would make a larger profit despite the lower volume sold, I could see myself doing so.
Mostly, I’m just annoyed that people accept this crap without any question whatsoever. Please, for the love of all that is good, when you’re reading or hearing something important take a minute to ask yourself “does this make sense?” and “could these people have a bias?” (by the way, the answer to that is always YES). “Might they be trying to sell something?” is a good one too. “Why would they want me to believe this, what would they gain?” It’s called critical thinking. It’s married to common sense. They’re semi-retired because no one bothers to make them work anymore. They should be immortal, so make them get off their lazy behinds and earn a living!
In ten/twenty/fifty years everything will be powered by wind/solar/geothermal/nuclear/hydro and oil will be a thing of the past.
The problem with this assumption is that wind/solar/geothermal/nuclear/hydro power currently use oil at some point in time in their electricity production. Sometimes in the making of the parts and sometimes just in the transportation of the parts. And these parts only last X years, so even if we do build up our renewable energy sources, what will happen in X years when it all starts breaking down? Sharon explains this much better right here.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m all for some miracle solution that involves lots of windmills and solar panels; I just don’t see how it could happen. Which doesn’t mean a lot… We’ve gone over how I’m just a 22 year old college girl — in Accounting (not Environmental studies) — yes? I’m not an expert!
I’ll talk about various biofuels separately, since I think they deserve their own rant.
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