Zoe, believe it or not, I agree. But unfortunately, it has to be a very slow process. Weaning ourselves off oil immediately would send the world economy (WAG here, folks, not a secret “in” with the Illuminati) into a freefall…and how many thousands or millions of lives might that cost?
What happens in the meantime? We still need a stable world oil supply. So does the rest of the world.
Plus, I don’t understand how you can possibly equate air and water (each largely ubiquitous and unlimited, and where water isn’t ubiquitous, it most certainly is a source of conflict…see Israel’s conflict with Jordan over water rights, or for that matter, Alabama’s conflict with Georgia and Florida) to petroleum. Petroleum exists in a few places in the world, not everywhere.
Finally, I’m not advocating slaughter for the sake of waste. I’m advocating stabilizing the world’s largest supply of oil for the sake of being able to relatively cheaply transport cargo by ship, plane, and truck, to run farm equipment, to transport food to market, etc.
I’m not even a Republican.