Car Culture and Global Energy Conflict

[nxylas]

From the Bangor Daily News:

Michael Klare, author of “Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet,” remarks that plentiful oil spurred the development of an auto culture, which is one of the defining characteristics of U.S. society and an example to other nations. We feel we are entitled to cheap oil and gas-guzzlers.

The risk of violent energy conflicts, however, is growing as more nations compete for diminishing reserves. Nationalism is intensified, making energy conflicts even more intractable.

David Campbell, author of “The Biopolitics of Security,” agrees that Americans regard cheap oil as a birthright, but suggests that oil’s iconic status cannot be explained merely by its historic abundance. Oil became one of the ways by which we have sought to define ourselves as a people and to validate that definition. Oil is crucial to one of the central values of this culture, mobility. Mobility is a consequence of and contributor to another key U.S. value, technological prowess.

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/136957.html