A letter to Petroleum Resources Protester Groups Dear protesters.
I am writing you this letter, at the risk of a strong backlash from your organizations, to ask you to examine, within yourselves, what are the things that you are willing to sacrifice, in your lives, in order to have a petroleum-free world. Yes, wanting to raise your children in a world of clean water, clean air and pollution-free is truely a noble and honourable undertaking but, such a world at this point in world history, is a Utopian dream that is a long way from acheivable. Modern man, in the developed world has become relient on the technology and lifestyles of the Twenty-First Century and would likely find it difficult to turn back the clock to a time before the beginning of the introduction of petroleum such as petroleum has become so interwoven into the fabric of our existence. Can you live without your smart phone, your lap-top, your TV, you ipod and your WI, Game Boy or X-Box, clothes, your designer shoes, purses and other fashion accessories, the enviromentally friendly mountain bike that you love so much, your designer sun-glasses, water-bottle and your favorite travel mug, the sheets, pillows, bed covers on your bed, the seat cushions on the city-transit bus or subway train that you take to work or school every day, the plane you fly on to your favorite holiday adventure, components in the medical devices that the hospital uses to monitor or treat a medical condition or affliction that you may have and, yes, some of the components that make up the solar-panels that you want your neighbours to put on the roof of their homes. What would you have the world substitute for these things. For those of you that are against the consumption of animals as food and their bi-products; if you remove petroleum based products and components from the world and you are against the use of animal bi-products such as fur and leather that is also used for shoes, clothing and outerwear will you go without shoes or winter outerwear-how much cold can you withstand before you rethink your stand. Yes, you can wear cotton but, again, cotton is mixed with polyester or rayon to make the clothes you wear and cotton, alone, is difficult to maintain with modern detergents and cleaning methods and cotton would have to be grown on a larger scale to keep up with the demand which means the opening up of more land for agriculture, the use of more water to irrigate the cotton crop and the increased use of heavy farm machinery like tractors and trucks to plant and harvest the crop and deliver it for processing and without petroleum none of that can happen. Also, just in case you are not aware, electric vehicles do not do well at -30 degrees Celsius and do not function at -45 degrees Celsius and if they are used miles from any power grid you can't exactly plg the vehicle into a tree.
Perhaps, one day, your dream of a Utopian world will come to pass but that is a long time off and until that time this world is powered by oil, gas and petroleum based man-manipulated bi-products. It is what it is.