There should be little doubt in anybody's mind that humanity's remarkable accomplishments over the last forty years would have been impossible without oil. Today, human society is excessively dependent on oil. Oil acccounts for some 40% of global power supplies. Because of the ease with which it can be extracted, refined, stored, transported, distributed, and used, oil has become virtually indispensable.
Most of the developed world, with the exception of Canada and Australia, is energy-poor. Japan consumes about nine times more energy than it creates. The situations of the United States and Western Europe, the other two industrial giants, though less severe, are similar.
In 1973, some of the Western countries experienced a taste of what it would mean to be without oil. After that, the price of oil skyrocketed to unimagined heights. Currently, an oil glut has developed, with the expected impact on price. Though most people are celebrating the fall of the OPEC cartel, others remain extremely wary.
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