Oil, risk and technology: the choices we need to make This
opinion article by Dr. William Jackson, IUCN Deputy Director
General, is published in the BBC's Green Room at this address
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8689201.stm The world
changed one summer’s day in 1858. In a field in Pennsylvania, in
the United States, the world’s first specially constructed deep
well struck oil. The trickle of oil from the Earth, long
extracted by humans in small amounts, became a torrent.
Relatively easy to find, extract, process, store and transport,
and above all cheap, liquid oil quickly became our most
important energy source to cook, heat, cool and transport
things. From plastics to supermarkets, and from globalized
industry supply chains to the layout of our towns and cities,
almost every aspect of human life has been radically altered
over the past 150 years by oil. The price already has been high.
Although cheap and plentiful oil has given many people choices
and freedoms that never existed before, our addi