27.5.2010
Petroleum and civilisation (or end of?)
I remember visiting Petrosains at KL City Centre a few years ago. I had an uneasy feeling on exiting that visitors to the venue had been hoodwinked into believing (via its exhibits and messages) that petroleum had indeed made Mother Earth a more delightful place to live. Really? Sorry, I cannot buy your story!
Recently one of my friends emailed me an article narrating the potential devastation waiting to happen as a result of BP's misadventure of oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. The damage to the environment is said to be in gargantuan proportions as evidenced by the 22,000 people and 10,000 vessels deployed in rescue plan making it the most massive effort in the history of disaster recovery. That got me thinking.
Actually, petroleum seems to me like a curse or the root of all evil rather than our saviour. Most of the world catastrophes are somehow linked it -e.g. Twin Tower incident, Iraq War etc. etc.
The Second Industrial Revolution, fuelled by the discovery of Colonel Edwin Drake helped to jump-start the modernisation of the world as we see it today. We can build mammoth structures and architectural marvels at a fraction of time used by our ancestors. Anyway, the Incas and the Egyptians built these too, but at the expense of much human (slave) sufferings and lives. We are not much now after so many years - now we have sweatshops! I digress.
I am not a proponent of anti modernisation, and that we should all be moving from point A to point B on a bullock cart or that we should all don cavemen hide and be stoned in Stone Age - anyway, I am too lazy to hunt for my meals!
Revolutionary ways of extracting petroleum deeper into the ground rather than scooping it off Earth's surface made kerosene replace whale oil in lamp fuels in Northern America at the turn of the 19th century. This, with many other innovations, made petrol the most sort after commodity creating strings of obnoxious billionaires especially in the US who worshipped the God of Capitalism. Over time money seem to justify and compensate all our deficiencies and inadequacies. The ferocious appetite of these billionaires seems insatiable that they have ventured beyond their shores, influencing governments and warlords towards this end. The ugly side of Man is revealed by his fixation of expanding his arsenal of nuclear heads to achieve his goal.
Recently one of my friends emailed me an article narrating the potential devastation waiting to happen as a result of BP's misadventure of oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. The damage to the environment is said to be in gargantuan proportions as evidenced by the 22,000 people and 10,000 vessels deployed in rescue plan making it the most massive effort in the history of disaster recovery. That got me thinking.
Actually, petroleum seems to me like a curse or the root of all evil rather than our saviour. Most of the world catastrophes are somehow linked it -e.g. Twin Tower incident, Iraq War etc. etc.
The Second Industrial Revolution, fuelled by the discovery of Colonel Edwin Drake helped to jump-start the modernisation of the world as we see it today. We can build mammoth structures and architectural marvels at a fraction of time used by our ancestors. Anyway, the Incas and the Egyptians built these too, but at the expense of much human (slave) sufferings and lives. We are not much now after so many years - now we have sweatshops! I digress.
I am not a proponent of anti modernisation, and that we should all be moving from point A to point B on a bullock cart or that we should all don cavemen hide and be stoned in Stone Age - anyway, I am too lazy to hunt for my meals!
Revolutionary ways of extracting petroleum deeper into the ground rather than scooping it off Earth's surface made kerosene replace whale oil in lamp fuels in Northern America at the turn of the 19th century. This, with many other innovations, made petrol the most sort after commodity creating strings of obnoxious billionaires especially in the US who worshipped the God of Capitalism. Over time money seem to justify and compensate all our deficiencies and inadequacies. The ferocious appetite of these billionaires seems insatiable that they have ventured beyond their shores, influencing governments and warlords towards this end. The ugly side of Man is revealed by his fixation of expanding his arsenal of nuclear heads to achieve his goal.
In the early 70's, the oil cartels held the world at its throat by fixing the oil prices. It then showed us how vital petroleum was to mankind. It is also quite evident to us by now how George W. Bush and Tony Blair smoke-screened us into believing on the existence of weapons of mass destruction, hence justifying their march into and colonisation of a sovereign nation, all in the name of the completing the missing link between the Siberian-Caspian pipeline! As a result of these, air travel had never been more cumbersome and human being, who had been quite accommodating of each other, (are you sure?) have started staring at each other with suspicion, especially at those who believed that they should cover the religion-sanctioned areas of their bodies (aurat).
Do not even bother talking about the environmental damage caused by oil spillage and the carbon footprints left by this fossil fuel. Marine biologists working in the tropical waters off the coast of US in the 80's actually found extinction of the male gender in a group of marine life some ten years after a massive oil spill. So, petroleum has changed mankind in a big way. Right! Even my toes are not laughing.
Do not even bother talking about the environmental damage caused by oil spillage and the carbon footprints left by this fossil fuel. Marine biologists working in the tropical waters off the coast of US in the 80's actually found extinction of the male gender in a group of marine life some ten years after a massive oil spill. So, petroleum has changed mankind in a big way. Right! Even my toes are not laughing.
@Thanks to Sweeney for the email. Now I am more confused now than ever and have been put on suicide alert! There I see it now, the shadow that had been following me all day....
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