Is Oil a Blessing?

The stories told by Peter Maass ("Scenes from the Violent Twilight of Oil," September/October 2009) are, as a collection, illuminating. But the overall theme suffers from a certain lack of context. That areas with oil production suffer pollution is hardly debatable, particularly when discussing decades-old drilling practices, but similar arguments can be made about agriculture, which isn’t thought to be in its "twilight" years. The curse of black gold is a familiar one, but little mention is made of the universities and hospitals built with oil money. Nor are countries without oil somehow free of corruption.

All too often, writers focus on oil to explain existing problems, without thinking about whether those problems would exist without oil, or whether the trade-offs make it worthwhile. Oil has provided humanity with many benefits, including cheap energy to reduce our workloads and improve our mobility, as well as reducing emissions from coal and ending the need for hunting whales.

Because oil is such an important and visible part of our daily lives, and because it is exceptionally prone to political disruptions, it often receives inordinate amounts of attention. This is especially true whenever its price increases sharply and instant experts pop up to diagnose the cause and consequences.

The future of oil is not that much different from its past. Oil production and consumption will become cleaner and more efficient, prices will continue to be volatile, and the industry will continue to be blamed for conflicts, corruption, and pollution. And for all the talk of the end of the oil age, it will probably be as robust as it is now, nearly a century after the first warnings about soaring consumption and limited resources.

Michael C. Lynch

President

Strategic Energy & Economic Research

Amherst, Mass.

Peter Maass replies:

I give Michael C. Lynch high marks for imagination. But how can oil, which in Nigeria and many other countries provides little income and few jobs to the masses of people who live atop it, be compared with agriculture, which yields employment and food for people who till the land?

As Lynch notes, universities and hospitals have been built with oil money, but not, for the most part, in areas from which oil comes. This is the problem I write about: the diversion of oil money to people other than the ones who inhabit the lands and fish the waters where the substance is found. As for corruption existing in countries without oil — well, of course. That doesn’t take away from the fact that oil, in most countries, does contribute to corruption.

Lastly, oil has indeed provided consumers in the developed world with great benefits, though warmer winters would not be in the category of "good things petroleum has done." I’m not so sure the people who supply us with the stuff would agree that the trade-off has been worthwhile for them.