On Oil, a book and a movie...

It's almost coincidental that we're gripping with world events that move oil prices in big swings, both ups and downs, in the past year or so, with a recent movie There Will Be Blood that goes with it, and I came across this tiny book called Oil, A Groundwork Guide by James Laxer last weekend at the public library. Since my increased attention to oil related events, I've decided to read the little book and see the movie too.

Sure enough, the book has the feel of a lecture series by a professor who takes me through some brief historical background, landmark events in the oil industry, and where it's headed. While some might say the book is left-leaning, it's quite even-keeled. There could have been more quantitative data to backup some of its claim. But then, the book has not attempted to be an encyclopaedia of all things that are oil, but a time capsule of major events that are leading until now (2008) when it's published.

Surely most adults would know of world events like the Six Day War in 1967, the oil embargo and the resulting oil crisis in 1973, the geopolitical struggles between Iran, Iraq, the Middle East, the struggles in Latin America (notably oil in Mexico and Venezuela), and the like. But the book succeeded in putting the events into perspective for me, in relating events and struggles in the Middle East, Latin America, Russia, United States, Europe, even Canada. There is the stark contrast between the partial nationalization of BP and PetroCanada, and the private nature of US oil enterprises (yet impacting public policy tremendously), illustrating the plain hypocrisy of US government in mixing and masking for-profit oil outfits with national security interests. And while I know about the anti-trust case and the eventual break-up of Standard Oil, I had not realized the importance and the amount of oil that Texas had produced in the bygone days that had once dominated the world market, hence I had not come to the appreciation of why Americans have still been so fond of talking about onshore (even offshore) drilling on its soil. No wonder both John McCain (GOP) and Barack Obama (Dem) have been open to the idea of drilling in Alaska, both having almost exact same position in this presidential campaign.

As to the movie, I was moved by its grittiness and mean-spiritedness, which is pretty much how the image of the oil industry has been. I don't doubt the hard-ball that oil executives play in coercing more out of the oil field owners, be it small farm owners or third world countries. Sure, one can argue that since the movie was adapted from Upton Sinclair, it must be about some power struggle that put down the lower class. But the movie surprised me in many ways, including the focus of the movie as a character study of Daniel Plainview (name of the main character is, ironically, anything but "plain view"), and the hypocrisy of some of the people around him, including the young church pastor (the "Sunday" folks, who sport the same last name too) who use the church to line his own pocket.

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For so many reasons, mankind is long overdue in sucking up resources from the land (now that it's inarguable that oil, among other resources, is but a finite natural resource that would run out some day), and starts stepping up to being better steward of this planet earth. Surely, transition to alternative energy source(s) is going to be painful. But the longer we postpone it, the more painful it's going to get. I would not want to see my children, grandchildren, and beyond to bear the blunt to have to live with the last barrel of oil.