Abundant oil abundant CO2 low oxygen is test of responsibility

The news of fracking making huge amounts of oil available here in the Americas in the near future, is exciting news. I think that is where the fine couple living next door who had been working in the local wind turbine industry that has unfortunately been laying off people, suddenly vanished and went; since they had been oil workers before. Boom town in N Dakota.

Not being dependent on oil from the Middle East is great news. Us sending 80 billion dollars over there each year just for stuff we burn up over here, can now start to cease; and then those desert countries now can use their oil and selected microbes to make their land into desert paradises, with plentiful edible hydrocarbons for livestock. And, well-fed folks tend to not want to go raid their neighbors on this planet.

But. People do not seem to notice that burning oil for energy, consumes the oxygen of our atmosphere. People do seem to dimly realize that it does produce rising CO2 levels.

I have long thought that Nature had used the power of sunlight gathered over millions of years, to sequester carbon out of the atmosphere into the form of coal and oil underground, so as life could exist on this planet. We now enjoy that oxygen abundance and low CO2 in the air.

Maybe it is the deep memory of asthma in my very early years, of gasping for tiny bits of oxygen so as to continue to live, that makes me sensitive to the issue of us losing our oxygen in the quest for cheap energy for our civilization.

In the recent few years, we have had a brief look at solar power use for directly powering our robustly growing civilization. We seem to think that cheap hydrocarbons ace out solar energy.

I will watch to see if we have learned anything about responsibility for the environment upon which we base our lives.

Right now I have little confidence we will use much wisdom. Profit rules; nevermind the costs to our lives. Our medical system is a plentiful example of our wisdom, since it is not guided by efficacy, but instead too often guided by a system of egos and reputations and maximizing business profits, instead of focusing on maximizing our healthy lives at low cost. Most likely this attitude will extend into the energy vs loss of breathable air arena, too, along with ocean acidification etc.

I could say something about an educational system that promotes this sense of irresponsibility; but I won't here. Also an informational system involved in it too.

Anyway, the local neighbors driving their huge SUV's here sneering at my bicycling with a backpack to buy groceries so as to save oil for other uses, are now vindicated. Or so it seems.