Prior to the adoption of the automobile in the US, gasoline was considered a by-product of Kerosene production. They used to dump it out. At that time whale blubber was still a major lighting source, and Kerosene was one of the few alternatives.

Now petroleum products power 90% of the vehicles on our planet. Petroleum derived fuel has done more to shrink the globe and shape the map, than anything that preceded it.

When automobiles were first introduced, they were powered by three different types of engines: internal combustion, steam, and electric. The high availability of cheap petroleum helped the internal combustion engine become the universal choice. Now petroleum powers everything from supersonic jets, to scooters.

Everywhere you go, petroleum takes you there. Everything you eat, petroleum transported to you. Everything you wear was shipped from somewhere. Everything you buy traveled by truck. You can’t escape it. Its influence is woven invisibly into the fabric of our society.

But petroleum is a finite resource. They don’t make it, they drill for it; they pull it out of the earth. There is only so much of it in there to begin with, and demand has never been higher. Developing nations like China and India, have a ravenous appetite for petroleum power. Global demand is escalating.

When demand for a finite resource increases, the cost for that resource increases. Petroleum was cheap when we were the only buyer. Now that there is global demand, the days of cheap fossil fuels are over.

The 20th century saw the world shrink, as petroleum fueled cars, jets, and ships made transportation cheaper and more plentiful than it had ever been. In the petroleum fueled transportation boom of the 20th century it became possible to produce something in one place, and then transport it anywhere in the world. For the first time in history, you could grow food, and house livestock, in large factory farms. You could build cheap goods on one side of the planet, and ship them to buyers on the other. We became increasingly disconnected from the conditions in which the things we buy are produced.

The late 20th century saw the beginning of another boom. The communication boom. Powered by petroleum transportation, we were able to build a communications network that spans the globe. Information was decoupled from its medium, and transmitted within this network. Communication that would have previously taken months to travel physically around the world, could be transmitted instantly. The world shrank again.

We began to see that there were horrible things hiding behind thousand mile long supply chains: child labor, factory farm conditions, environmental catastrophes. We began to see that the cost of petroleum is higher than economics alone can explain. The ugliness that underpins our consumerism, the ugliness that petroleum allowed us to outsource, can no longer be ignored as it screams back at us on our global communication networks.

The cost of gas is higher than it has ever been, and is only rising. It is afterall, a finite resource. As the cost of transportation increases, the supply chains will fall apart. They are only economically viable when transportation is cheap.

This does not mean economic or social collapse. It simply calls for adaptation. Goods from across the globe will become luxury items again. Food will need to be produced locally. Production will become more distributed. We will need to readdress the methodologies we use to feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves. We will become more conscious of those methodologies, when we can no longer hide their impact thousands of miles away.

Petroleum was a booster rocket that helped fuel a technological, industrial, and economic boom that transformed the world. Without it, we would still be living in an agrarian society, depending largely on animal and human labor. We would not enjoy most of the advances, conveniences, and luxuries, that have transformed the human experience in the last century. Petroleum fueled the modern age.

Petroleum however, has outlived its use-fullness, and is rapidly becoming a liability to be jettisoned like a first stage booster rocket. It has helped elevate us to heights that would have been beyond the grandest imaginings of man a few hundred years ago. We look back down the chain of history from a dizzying height, but petroleum cannot keep us here. In order to advance our society, technology, and industry, we must turn our attention to sustainable solutions. We need to ween ourselves from our mothers milk, and build a future that isn’t dependent on a well, rapidly running dry.