OPINION:
Predictions of gloom and doom have been with us since before steam replaced sail on the high seas, putting thousands of galley slaves out of work. Panic has driven modern man, even in our own times, to extreme and unworkable solutions to problems manufactured in the heat of fright and alarm.
In the summer of ’72 several Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, went into a pout over American aid sent to Israel during the Yom Kippur War, when Israel survived a sneak attack and proceeded to rout the combined armies of Arabia. OPEC declared a boycott of American oil markets, and the abundance of oil pumped to the West dissolved to a trickle. Shortages persisted for two years.
Price controls imposed in the United States made everything worse. Soon long lines snaked around the block at gasoline stations across the country. Rationing was imposed. Cars and trucks with license-tag numbers ending in an odd number could buy gasoline only on odd-numbered days; cars with an even number could buy gasoline only on even-numbered days. Millions of gasoline-rationing cards were printed, for the first time since the end of World War II, but never used. A national speed limit of 55 miles an hour was imposed on highways from sea to shining sea. NASCAR reduced its race distances by 10 percent. The “24 Hours at Daytona” was canceled. Detroit quit building cars weighing more than 4,500 pounds.
As unhappy as this made life in America, we were confidently told to get used to it. It would only get worse because the greedy world had used up all the oil the dinosaurs had put down. Soon there would be no more oil.
The fright over the disappearance of petroleum in the 1970s was widespread and skeptics were ridiculed, much like the skeptics today of the global warming panic. Aficionados of doom and gloom are always impatient that cooler heads can’t see the misery and desperation they see, but it was ever thus. Cavemen were told that the world was running out of big rocks to crush an unwary enemy, but then someone invented the slingshot, which enabled men to hurl little rocks at greater distances.
Fast forward 40 years from 1974, and the world is awash in oil. Doom never showed up, but fracking did. So did the oil wildcatters and geologists and adventurers into places they had not thought to go before. Boom towns, reminiscent of boom towns in Texas, and Oklahoma of a century before, sprang up in the Dakotas. The British struck oil in the North Sea, the Americans in Alaska. Last week, the British company U.K. Oil & Gas Investments says it has discovered evidence that up to 100 billion barrels of oil might be waiting under a site in southern England, near London’s Gatwick International Airport.
An ancient philosopher warned man about gloom merchants. “When a public opinion becomes unanimously held, it is nearly always wrong.” Modern man, who likes surprises, prefers to learn this lesson more than once. Or even twice or three times. School is always in session.
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