arkirk
Veteran Member
Perhaps, but the petrodollar has nothing to do with that. The dollar was once backed by gold. Now essentially, it is backed by petroleum because dollars are needed to buy the petroleum. If dollars are no longer needed, the petroleum will still get bought. The petrodollar has nothing to do with oil company profits or the desires and need for petroleum world-wide. That is a completely different issue.
The shift from weak density carbon to high density carbon has been a great boon to the world economically. Without it the world's population would be much smaller and still much poorer. The advantages for humanity have been immense, and there is no alternative any where near as economical or nearly as abundant as oil and gas. This condition isn't going to go away any time soon, and if it did, the alternative would be grinding poverty and back-breaking human manual labor.
The type of economy you are talking about creates unsustainable growth. You too just see only one way to escape "back breaking human manual labor." The petrodollar has EVERYTHING TO DO WITH WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT. Much of the food you eat is raised using petroleum based fertilizers. The crops are planted, irrigated and harvested by petroleum powered machinery. Your computer is probably running on petroleum power. The manufacture of your computer undoubtedly used lots of petroleum power. So did its delivery to you. The economy is completely powered by this behemoth. Our environment is heavily impacted by all this. We need to get away from petrochemical pollution of our atmosphere and waters and foods.
Now in the midst of all this, there are alternatives that are heartily scoffed at by the likes of you. Something is only economical to you if it costs less petrodollars, echoing the Koch Brothers with another of their tautologies. Petroleum power made the "value" those dollars represent. It is now in a new business...pushing its profits to ever higher levels whether or not billions will have to pay for it with misery or perhaps their lives. The "wealth" of the world is far greater in the aggregate, but there are two points you are missing. 1. That "wealth" is very temporal and unsustainable. 2. If it all were equitably distributed, we would all be dismally poor. These have always been the problem with empires of all kinds based on resources of all kinds.