Palmer Events Center
It's Not Just Gas, We Use a Lot of Oil Elsewhere
RECEIVED Fri., July 25, 2008
Dear Editor,
Nearly every week there are letters to the editor in the Chronicle about the need to drive fuel-efficient automobiles. Obviously, less gas equals saved money. Cutting down on our need for oil will improve our world security. Burning less oil is better for the environment. I get all of that. However, I feel that most people don't realize that the gas in your car is not your only use of oil. An alarming amount of products use oil in their production: shoes, Coke bottles, chewing gum, the packaging from your frozen dinner, paint, dye, ink. How about your guitar pick, your kids' crayons, your jar of Vaseline? The dashboard in your car, your car seats. The tires your car rides on, the road on which those tires travel. Your TV, radio, printer, fax, monitor, iPod, and cell phone all probably use oil in production. The bumper on your Toyota Prius. All these poorly worded, fragmented sentences probably contain oil in some way.
I'm not saying that driving a fuel-efficient auto doesn't help all our oil problems, just that people need to realize that saving 10 gallons of gas a week isn't going to magically fix our oil dependency.
Lastly, I find it interesting (and somewhat related) that Osama bin Laden said that the evil Americans will be punished when oil reaches $144 a barrel. It did last week. When he made that statement, a barrel of oil cost around $7-$10. You know, less than a decade ago.
Nearly every week there are letters to the editor in the Chronicle about the need to drive fuel-efficient automobiles. Obviously, less gas equals saved money. Cutting down on our need for oil will improve our world security. Burning less oil is better for the environment. I get all of that. However, I feel that most people don't realize that the gas in your car is not your only use of oil. An alarming amount of products use oil in their production: shoes, Coke bottles, chewing gum, the packaging from your frozen dinner, paint, dye, ink. How about your guitar pick, your kids' crayons, your jar of Vaseline? The dashboard in your car, your car seats. The tires your car rides on, the road on which those tires travel. Your TV, radio, printer, fax, monitor, iPod, and cell phone all probably use oil in production. The bumper on your Toyota Prius. All these poorly worded, fragmented sentences probably contain oil in some way.
I'm not saying that driving a fuel-efficient auto doesn't help all our oil problems, just that people need to realize that saving 10 gallons of gas a week isn't going to magically fix our oil dependency.
Lastly, I find it interesting (and somewhat related) that Osama bin Laden said that the evil Americans will be punished when oil reaches $144 a barrel. It did last week. When he made that statement, a barrel of oil cost around $7-$10. You know, less than a decade ago.
Steven McCloud