by Annie Biller

Created on: July 27, 2008

I am not a scientist. I'm not a politician. I'm not an expert on the manufacture and use of energy. I also can't claim to know a lot about energy production and I most definitely can't claim to know a lot about alternative energy sources. I am just a concerned person. Every day I hear something about the increased costs per barrel of oil or about the way gasoline and oil prices are soaring and are creating a financial upheaval everywhere for the individual as well as for a multitude of businesses around the world. The rising costs of heat and transportation are a concern everywhere.

We, the population of this earth, are highly dependant on this precious resource.
Millions of barrels of oil are used daily. We rely on it for heat. We rely on it for transportation. We rely on it for the manufacturing processes used in the manufacture and transport of countless items. It even plays a huge part in our recreational lifestyle, not to mention it's use in agriculture in the production of our food.

Along with discussion on the need for alternative energy and the cost to develop alternate energy sources I also hear a lot of talk about increased drilling for oil. I question the wisdom of doing so. I think we all need to stop and think.

It took thousands of years for the oil we are using to form inside the earth. I seriously doubt that it will take that long to deplete what has already formed if we continue to use it at the current rate of consumption. I also question what we are doing to the earth when we pull all of this oil from it's core.

When I try to visualize what is happening to our earth as we pump all of this oil from it's center I picture someone stabbing a straw into an orange and pulling the juice from it. As the orange begins to collapse there are drastic changes occuring in it's surface. It brings to mind the faultlines beneath the surface of the earth, as well as the destruction and carnage we know can be caused by a major earthquake.

Are we in actual fact destroying our earth?

Our very existance depends on the earth we live on. Changing the world's dependency on oil as an energy source is something that won't happen overnight but it's something we definitely need to work toward. We need to find more and better ways to conserve we need to find a way to provide the people of this earth with the energy we need without destroying our earth to do it.

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