[peeker01]

I have always wondered who coined this phrase. Also wondered why it is used, since my life
and livelihood are contingent on surface transportation. Well here you go, the answer to those
questions.

http://www.globalwarming.org/2011/09/01 ... addiction/

[eXpat]

What about the myth of cornucopia or the myth of BAU Shorty? You seem to be very well versed on those...

[Satori]

"dependence is not addiction"

yeah
I can stop smoking or shooting up any time I want

that article was a couple minutes of my life
I will never get back

[peeker01]

Am I addicted to natural gas, because my home is heated with it? Am I addicted to electricity
because I read by electric light? Am I addicted to clean water because I bathe with it?

[dbruning]

"Yes, we depend on oil to fuel most of our cars, marine vessels, and aircraft. But dependence is not addiction. We also depend on electricity to power our lap tops, iPods, and cell phones, and we depend on food and water to sustain life. No sane person would say we are addicted to those things."

I suppose at a very fundamental level we're not addicted to oil. But when the article compares our dependence on it at the same level as food and water, it does kind of suggest we really do need it to survive.

That article also focuses on oil for transportation, there is a lot of other things we need oil for. Hell, it takes oil to BUILD those lap tops and ipods and cell phones. And without fertilizer we'd have a lot less food available.

We may not be physically addicted to oil, yet I don't feel re-assured that having less of it is going to be anything other than painful. Painful like addiction withdrawal? We'll find out sooner or later.

[The Practician]

ooooh, we're "dependent", not "addicted". This isn't an exercise in semantics at all.

[peeker01]

If I can convert my car to propane or natural gas, then I contend I am not dependent or addicted
to oil.

[Satori]

and I'm going to stop snorting coke

and switch to meth

[peeker01]

Ahhh, I see the problem!

[ColossalContrarian]

Am I addicted to natural gas, because my home is heated with it? Am I addicted to electricity
because I read by electric light? Am I addicted to clean water because I bathe with it?

To know if you're addicted to something, simply ask yourself "what type of withdrawal symptoms would I go through if I lost this aid/drug", whatever it is. If you experience no pain or withdrawal symptoms, I would say you aren't addicted.

That's CC's definition from life learned, not Webster.

[Satori]

everything is fine
REALLY
it is

http://www.alternet.org/environment/152 ... ica?page=1

[MD]

"Oil Addiction" is just an euphemism for an energy density bubble being burned off. Slow motion explosion, in other words. It's nothing. Move along.

[basil_hayden]

As others have noted, oil addiction refers primarily to western society.

And if you choose to heat your house with propane or natural gas versus oil, you still have not, individually, broken the addiction as both of those products were drilled by petroleum-fueled equipment, and brought to you via petroleum-fueled trucks or pipellines built by petroleum-fueled equipment.

It's akin to nuclear energy and nuclear reactors - brought to you by petroleum-fueled equipment and maintained by coal-fired electrical equipment, backed up by diesel generators.

Of course, I typed this for the new folks who don't realize your shilliness, peeker.

[peeker01]

So when I walk to the grocery store, I really haven't escaped my addiction to oil because my sneekers have plastic in them and that's made from oil......right Basil?

[basil_hayden]

So when I walk to the grocery store, I really haven't escaped my addiction to oil because my sneekers have plastic in them and that's made from oil......right Basil?

Your plastic sneakers might be made from natural gas for all I know but my synthetic rubber ones are made from petroleum, but the road you're walking on is made of asphalt, which comes from petroleum, and alll the stuff at the store got there via petroleum, and is packaged in petroleum, and was produced from petroleum-derived products like fertilizer and pesticides.

You're so addicted you don't even know it. By walking you've cut back, but someone else in society bought your allotment. But don't worry, it's just a myth, like Jeavons Paradox, the Export Land Model, Hubbert's Curve, and finite non-renewable natural resources.

Your trick question simply demonstrates that you know the right answer but have made a choice not to face the truth.
It's called the bargaining phase.

[peeker01]

No, I make it a point to only walk on concrete, and only buy paper or cardboard packaging. I want
to make sure the Indians and Chinese have all the oil they need.

[The Practician]

No, I make it a point to only walk on concrete, and only buy paper or cardboard packaging. I want
to make sure the Indians and Chinese have all the oil they need.

Peeky, its called a "race to the bottom", and contrary to what you seem to believe, this isn't the kind of race you can win.

[AgentR11]

ooooh, we're "dependent", not "addicted". This isn't an exercise in semantics at all.

Its not semantic at all. The two are quite distinct. eg, I am most certainly dependent upon caffeine, my fault of course, but as things stand at the moment, failure to keep a reasonably smooth amount of caffeine in my system results in massive headaches, going cold turkey for some length of time breaks the first problem, but introduces a sensitivity to caffeine such that even the tiny amount in a bit of chocolate is enough to trigger a headache the next day of epic proportion. Solution... I just drink 6-8 cups of delicious gourmet coffee from a french press each day and don't worry about it.

OTOH, I have no addiction response to it, no craving for it, and it doesn't even wake me up or keep me from falling asleep.

Addiction and dependence are very different. (not that one is good or the other evil, btw...)

Oil dependency, same deal, we may, or may not WANT the stuff, or desire the stuff, but try to remove it or even significantly reduce its presence in our economy, and the pain will be epic. Just recall the response to the miniscule change in price that occurred a few years back, that's shifted us to the 3.50'ish zone for gas, instead of two bucks. Everyone was bailing on their SUV's, abandoning trucks, thinking they would save money or something, instead of simply losing asset value off their personal balance sheets for no good reason. It was like an armageddon response to getting scratched by a rose thorn. Just like my massive headache from a tiny change, its a disproportionate response typical of a dependent situation. The response is very real, its not a psychological foolishness. The entire transportation infrastructure of the country is built around driving personal cars and trucks from place to place. The roads do serve buses, and semi's, and bicycles fairly well; but they are built for me and you to hop in a car/truck and drive from city to city in just a few hours.

[Pretorian]

No, I make it a point to only walk on concrete, and only buy paper or cardboard packaging. I want
to make sure the Indians and Chinese have all the oil they need.

Peeky, its called a "race to the bottom", and contrary to what you seem to believe, this isn't the kind of race you can win.

He got no grandkids, that's EXACTLY the kind of race he can win. By the way Peeker1, what's up with that?

[The Practician]

Agent, I agree that dependency and addiction are not the same thing, and also that if you want to be a fucking pedant, "oil dependence" is a more accurate description of our predicament than "oil addiction". It's semantics because the terms are commonly used interchangeably, and ranting about how we're "dependent" not "addicted" to oil doesn't make our dependence any less serious an issue, because dependency isn't any less serious a problem than addiction.

To paraphrase peeker, I may not be addicted to clean water because that's what I like to drink, but I am dependent on it because without it I could die.