Photo courtesy of “Michael P. Whelan” on Flickr website.

WorldPublicOpinion.org took a recent international poll of attitudes toward oil reserves in several nations around the world. Closer to home, the organization found that a majority of Americans think that their government is failing to prepare for the ultimate depletion of oil reserves.

The government should assume, as indicated by more than three out of four Americans (76%), that “oil is running out and it is necessary to make a major effort to replace oil as a primary source of energy.”

However 57 percent believe that the American government is acting as if “enough new oil will be found so that it can remain a primary source of energy for the foreseeable future.” The United States is the world’s largest consumer of oil.

“Americans think their government is not facing the reality that oil is running out and needs to be replaced,” comments Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org. He added, “The enormous support for replacing oil may also be prompted by concern about climate change.”

An overwhelming 88 percent say that the price of oil will continue to go higher, with 63 percent saying that 10 years from now it will be much higher.

Democrats are somewhat more likely to believe that oil is running out and that prices will go much higher, but Republicans are just as likely to believe that the government is acting as if oil is not running out. Those with less education are more likely to assume that the government is adapting.

The poll of 1,309 Americans was fielded Jan 18-27, 2008 by Knowledge Networks using its nationwide panel, which was randomly selected from the entire adult population.

This poll of Americans is part of a larger international poll conducted in 16 countries around the world. The poll of 14,896 respondents was conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org, a collaborative research project involving research centers from around the world and managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland.

Interestingly, the United States is the only country out of 16 polled where majorities perceive that both oil is running out and that their government fails to recognize this. In all other countries polled most think that their government should assume that oil is running out. On average 70 percent take this position.

Today, a statement on their website says, “Only in Nigeria does a majority (53%) endorse the view that governments can rely on oil in the long term.”

For more detailed and international results from the entire report and graphs of how people from each polled nation indicated, please visit their website: http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/

(Ed.: The concept of oil reserves being depleted is not a recent conclusion. About 30 years ago, a college textbook of mine contained a graph that forecasted peak oil production for the year 2000. Well, it was a forecast and with the rise in the price of oil, methods for oil exploration that were uneconomical years ago have extended the world’s oil reserves. In any event, there is not a limitless amount of oil, as oil is not a renewable/sustainable energy source.

Speaking specifically of the American scene, since we have been the largest consumer of oil and, probably, the largest producer of the GreenHouse Gas (GHG) carbon dioxide, the will of our political leaders should…no…must be united to combat Global Climate Change (GCC). It is this generation throughout the world that must aggressively and comprehensively take a stand for life on our planet. We have already lost many species due to GCC and will lose more, even if we stop producing GHG today.

As indicated in many places, we need to adopt an energy saving attitude and implement it at home and away, recycle, use our resources wisely, speak out for renewable/sustainable energy sources, and not fall victim to believing the propaganda spoken by a handful of non-believers, especially the handful of “experts,” whose testimony was outlined and paid for by Big Oil, Big Money, etc. interests. Please join the We Campaign to get our leaders to combat GCC by going to their website: http://www.wecansolveit.org

Yes, it is a free country, but when the media’s objectivity has been distorted to confuse the masses about the truth and for the sake of those that will come after us, all of us need to strongly refute the non-believers comments or we will have condemned our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren to extreme hardships and possible extinction.

There are several things that can destroy life on our planet for which we have little or no control. Wouldn’t it be tragic if mankind’s lack of action caused the abrupt and unstoppable escalation toward a global catastrophe, when we could have removed mankind’s hand from the accelerating race toward making earth an inhabitable planet.

Even though most of our readers are aware of the following examples, they have been presented as a small indication of our grave situation for those that are either undecided or unaware. Recently, I learned, that with the warming planet, methane when released into the atmosphere tends to cause our planet to retain about 26 times more heat than carbon dioxide. The increase in ocean temperature is causing the methane that is locked on the ocean floor to melt and be released into the atmosphere. On land, the Alaskan tundra’s perma-frost is melting causing the methane, from decaying plant material, to be released into the atmosphere. In addition, the reduction of ice masses, due to melting, in Greenland and the polar regions can no longer reflect as much heat back into space. With these few examples, our possible peril must be obvious.

Remember: if the earth is allowed to go past the earth’s environmental tipping point, there won’t be any do-overs.)

Source for this post: Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland

Website: http://www.worldpublicopinion.org
http://www.wecansolveit.org/