The US of A - Instigator of the Oil Crisis.......and more.

I've been doing some research online. The USA has a population of approximately 304,000,000 (304 million) people, representing 4.5% of the total population of the world, which is approx 6,706,000,000 (6.7 billion). It's a very small percentage really. China has a current population of 1,300,000,000 (or 1.3 billion) people. Effectively, 1 in 5 inhabitants of our planet is Chinese.

Anyway, I next researched motor gasoline consumption. In case you are under the impression that my statistics are fictitious, you can check them out for yourselves at http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/energy-resources/variables.html

In 2003, the world's motor gasoline consumption was 1,101,279,000,000 (1.1 trillion) litres. That's a lot of fuel. However, America, or to be more precise, 4.5% of the world's inhabitants, consumed 516,554,000,000 (just over half a trillion) litres. In other words, America consumes 46.9% of the world's gasoline. This is not only terrifying, but completely absurd. I had to check these statistics numerous times, as I was certain they couldn't be correct.

Now, Europe, it seems, only consumes 200,000,000,000 litres of gasoline per annum - less than half of that of America, yet Europe has a population of some 728 million, more than TWICE that of the USA. These statistics are truly terrifying.

How can a developed nation like the USA waste so much oil? Well, if you look closely, they achieve this very easily. Ignore that last sentence, you don't have to look closely at all to realise how much America abuses oil.

The motor car was conceived by Henry Ford, and ALL Americans drive. They drive everywhere. Americans drive big engined cars, unlike Europeans. Most Europeans drive cars with a engine size of between 1 and 2 litre capacity, while our counterparts in America drive huge engined cars. These gas guzzling monsters are completely impractical and unecessary, except for people who drive vast amounts for work purposes. They're completely inefficient, over powered and more importantly, leave a huge carbon footprint in their trail.

I have no issues with the motor car. Let's face it, most of us drive. But Americans drive everywhere. They NEVER walk. I was in Newport, Rhode Island some years ago, and was looking for a nearby village. I knew it was a mile or so away. I stopped a police officer to ask for directions - this is basically the converstion we had:

"Excuse me officer, is this the way to Whereverthefuck?"
"Ah, yes indeed it is.....but....how do you plan to get there?"
"Well, I'm going to walk"
"You sure you want to walk...it's like.....a long way away"
"Oh, how far away is it, officer?"
"It's nearly a mile" (He wished me 'good luck' as if I was initiating a trip up Mount Everest).

Admittedly, I stopped PC Plod as he was walking out of a shop, with a large sack of donuts, and he was at least 300 pounds in weight. It took me 10 minutes to get to Whreverthefuck. I did notice, however, that there were no footpaths (or sidewalks, as they're known over there) along the way. Obviously, there is no need to build them.

On the same trip, I stopped off at a shopping mall to buy something in a Radio Shack. This particular shopping mall was divided between both sides of a road. It transpired that the Radio Shack was on the opposite side of the road, however, there was no way of crossing the road. No underpass, no footbridge. The medium in the centre of the road had a railing, making it impossible to cross the road. I asked someone was there a way to get to the other side of the road, apart from driving. No, I was told. This wasn't a highway, by the way.

People were driving into the car park of this shopping mall, parking outside a store, leaving their engines running, whilst they popped inside. Minutes later, they would reurn to their idling vehicle, and drive 20 yards to their next chosen shop, park outside, leave the engine running, and go inside. I witnessed at least 10 people doing this. So, not only are Americans wasting fuel in this manner, but they are also completely lazy. This shit does not happen anywhere else in the world.

Now, to cap it all, every drop of oil sold in petrol stations (gas stations) in America, comes from the Middle East. America stockpile all of their own oil. At the end of the day, the Arabs don't care who buys their oil, so long as they can shift it as quickly as they drill for it. Gas/petrol, is less than HALF the price it is in Europe, to the consumer. The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the largest stockpile of government-owned emergency crude oil in the world. Currently, this balance is 705 million barrels of oil, (source, Stategic Petroleum Reserve website: http://www.spr.doe.gov/dir/dir.html ). George W Bush wants to double this figure to 1.5 billion barrels of oil by 2027, and yet he has the fucking audacity to claim that high oil prices are not affected by stockpiling. He's a total nutjob.

It would be a very different story altogether if the USA had no choice but to sell ONLY their own oil to consumers. Joe Blow American would buy smaller vehicles, drive less, and ultimately, would become healthier people.

If the Iraq war had never been initiated by Nutjob Bush, the world would not be suffering the current oil crisis. So, America, please, please do me a favour. Get rid of Bush, now. Don't wait until the General Election. He is singlehandedly destroying the world.