The Dependency of Oil

The Dependency of Oil

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Axia College of University of Phoenix

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." (Greek Proverbs) An old Greek proverb may have predicted the future of society. What does this proverb really mean, can we as a society be the old men who plant trees, the people who save our society from what we are doing to it for our future generations and for their securities in life? The modern human lifestyle, especially the American lifestyle is almost addicted to oil. American society relies so heavily on oil consumption that we need to import it from foreign countries. What this does to America is put our society in a situation where it is dependent on an unhinged variety of trade partners for this valuable resource. A resource that is so highly valuable because it runs our gas and powers our automobiles. It is used in machines that power equipment that produce, manufacture, and provide many commodities such as the resources we eat and drink to live by. Constantly using oil, without a thought of its depleting resources which is the real issue at hand. This issue is important for obvious financial and economical reasons but also for sociological issues as well. America, as a country, consumes twenty-five percent of the world's reserves for oil. To put that into terms that might sound statistically frightening: America, one country, America itself uses one quarter of the world's oil consumption. These lifestyle habits need to change in order to secure America's future, a future where we are not so dependent on oil. Countries such as China and India are becoming more westernized on an almost daily basis and it could be just a matter of time before they too start to consume as much oil as we do in America. This can create world problems with shortages of the resource we hold so precious. Oil dependency is a serious issue and the social effects of it could be drastic. Understanding and examining oil and where it, as a fossil fuel, comes from, the possible alternative resources, and the environmental effects in has on our society is pinnacle to solving an issue on this scale.

When discussing oil we are referring to what is known as a fossil fuel. Fossil fuels come in three common and popular forms: coal, natural gas, and oil. These three fuels are known as fossil fuels because they come from hundreds of millions of years ago formed by ancient dead plants, animals, and rocks. As discussed earlier most of the fossil fuel consumption, with a heavy reliability on oil, comes from the United States. The United States has to import its oil from the Middle East countries such as Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia. America does have oil reserves in states such as Alaska and Texas, but this is