The little-known history of the oil industry — VOICES for REASON

I have found learning the history of oil to be invaluable when looking at today’s controversies. For example, when watching Congress haul oil executives to Washington over gasoline prices that are “too high,” and calling for “investigations”—it is instructive to know that this practice has been going on since the 1920s. Or, when reading references to the oil embargo of the 1970s, along with the idea that it proves the necessity of “energy independence,” it is crucial to know what really happened and what America’s real mistake was.

As long as any of us have been alive, oil issues have dominated both domestic policy and foreign policy. Yet Americans have surprisingly little background knowledge about this coveted commodity. In an effort to educate people more about the oil industry and oil policy, ARC has just released my 3-lecture course, “The Triumph and Tragedy of the Oil Industry,” available online for free in MP3 format. The purpose of the course is to explain how today’s state of affairs in oil came to be—both the benefits and the problems associated with oil.

Here are some of the topics covered:

* Why oil has been so dominant for so long.

* The prospects for alternatives to oil, such as biofuels — including Brazilian sugarcane ethanol.

* Should America strive for “energy independence” to reduce our “dependence on foreign oil”?

* How most Americans rely on oil even more than they think they do.

* The story of Mideast oil — and why Mideast dictatorships have no right to their oil wealth.

* How environmentalists destroyed much of domestic oil development.

* What America’s policy should be toward oil’s role in global warming.

Check it out.