Petroleum Quotes - Page 2

• I wrote an article about the marine landing [in Haiti] right away, but barely mentioned the oil, because my article would come out two months later and I assumed by then, "of course, everybody knows." Nobody knew. There was a news report in the Wall Street Journal, in the petroleum journals, and in some small newspapers, but not in the mainstream press.

  Noam Chomsky

  Wall, Marine, Two

  Source: thehumanist.com

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm not guaranteeing what we come up with will be better for the planet. There is ethanol, for instance, which actually nets out with more pollution at greater expense, and more harm to the environment than petroleum, but we'll come up with something.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Environment, Pollution, Planets

  Source: www.avclub.com

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Under the rule of the "free market" ideology, we have gone through two decades of an energy crisis without an effective energy policy. Because of an easy and thoughtless reliance on imported oil, we have no adequate policy for the conservation of gasoline and other petroleum products. We have no adequate policy for the development or use of other, less harmful forms of energy. We have no adequate system of public transportation.

  Wendell Berry

  Two, Oil, Energy

  Wendell Berry (1993). “Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays”, Pantheon

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• In my opinion, if there is one extremely legitimate use for petroleum besides running wood chippers and front-end loaders to handle compost, it's making plastic for season extension. It parks many of the trucks [for cross-country produce transportation]. With the trucks parked, greenhouses, tall tunnels, and more seasonal, localized eating, can we feed ourselves? We still have to answer that burning question.

  Joel Salatin

  Running, Country, Tunnels

  6 Copy quote

• That we should have an agriculture based as much on petroleum as the soil-that we need petroleum exactly as much as we need food and must have it before we can eat-may seem absurd. It is absurd. It is nevertheless true.

  Wendell Berry

  Should Have, Land, Agriculture

  Wendell Berry (2015). “The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture”, p.37, Counterpoint

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• You're going to see new processes that utilize waste as the source of energy, so there's no petroleum consumed in the process - that makes the energy balance uniformly positive.

  Al Gore

  Balance, Energy, Waste

  4 Copy quote

• A significant number of petroleum geologists believe that we will reach the global maximum of petroleum extraction within this decade or that we have already reached it. Peak Oil happened in 1970 in America, when over half of our oil that we gained from the soil was exhausted ... This is very disturbing, regardless of global warming.

  William J. Clinton

  Believe, America, Oil

  4 Copy quote

• We are mortgaging ourselves to foreigners on a scale that would make George Washington cry. Every day - every single day - we borrow a billion dollars from foreigners to buy petroleum from abroad, often from countries that hate us. We are the beggars of the world, financing our lavish lifestyle by selling our family heirlooms and by enslaving our progeny with the need to service the debt.

  Ben Stein

  Country, Hate, Dollars

  Ben Stein (2010). “The Real Stars: In Today's America, Who Are the True Heroes?”, p.103, ReadHowYouWant.com

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The world petroleum story is one of the most inhuman known to man: in it, elementary moral and social principles are jeered at. If powerful oil trusts no longer despoil and humiliate our country it is not because these predators have become human, but because we have won a hard-fought battle which has been going on since the beginning of the century.

  Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

  Country, Powerful, Men

  "The Shah's Story". Book by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, p. 59, 1980.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I can't give a formula for how to spread joy, but I know that the source of the joy is one's own joy, and that that is not distinct from pleasure and fulfillment of desires. So I ask: What makes me feel alive? What is the expression of my inner wild? What would really feel good? What if what makes me feel alive leads me toward the deeper joys, which are found in generosity and service, in creating things that are beautiful to me? Maybe the world needs more of that. How many petroleum company executives are doing their work because it's beautiful to them? Not very many, I bet.

  Charles Eisenstein

  Beautiful, Generosity, Giving

  Source: www.mindfulnessbell.org

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The debate about climate change in many ways is tied to the petroleum industry. If the value of petroleum was considerably less than it is, and the value of coal was considerably less than it is, there would be much less debate about this.

  Chuck Klosterman

  Coal, Way, Climate

  "Chuck Klosterman: The future will be worse than you think". Interview with Chris Weller, www.businessinsider.com. June 6, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The suggestion that petroleum might have arisen from some transformation of squashed fish or biological detritus is surely the silliest notion to have been entertained by substantial numbers of persons over an extended period of time.

  Fred Hoyle

  Numbers, Suggestions, Might

  17 Copy quote

• CO2 from air can replace petroleum: it can produce plastics and acetate, it can produce carbon fibers that replace metals and clean hydrocarbons, such as synthetic gasoline. We can use CO2 to desalinate water, enhance the production of vegetables and fruit in greenhouses, carbonate our beverages and produce biofertilizers that enhance the productivity of the soil without poisoning it. Carbon negative technology is absolutely needed now.

  Graciela Chichilnisky

  Technology, Vegetables, Air

  "Global Warming and the Future of Humanity: An Interview With Noam Chomsky and Graciela Chichilnisky". Interview with C.J. Polychroniou, truthout.org. September 17, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• To cause the face to appear in a mass of flame make use of the following: mix together thoroughly petroleum, lard, mutton tallow and quick lime. Distill this over a charcoal fire, and the liquid which results can be burned on the face without harm.

  Harry Houdini

  Fire, Flames, Together

  Harry Houdini (2015). “Miracle Mongers and Their Methods: Human Understanding”, p.41, 谷月社

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• The reality is that our economy now consists of driving 250 million vehicles around the suburbs and malls and eating fried chicken. We don't manufacture much. We just burn up ever scarcer petroleum in the ever-expanding suburbs built with mortgage money lent to people who haven't a clue.

  Joe Bageant

  Reality, People, Driving

  Joe Bageant (2008). “Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War”, p.76, Broadway Books

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• We must proceed with our own energy development. Exploitation of domestic petroleum and natural gas potentialities, along with nuclear, solar, geothermal, and non-fossil fuels is vital. We will never again permit any foreign nation to have Uncle Sam over a barrel of oil.

  Gerald R. Ford

  Uncles, Oil, Energy

  Gerald R. Ford's speech as Vice President to the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith in West Palm Beach, Florida, January 26, 1974.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• People are kind of upset with British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward. Over the weekend, he was out on his yacht. And when President Obama found out that Tony Hayward was on his yacht, he was so angry, he missed a putt.

  David Letterman

  Weekend, People, Upset

  4 Copy quote

• You folks been following the big British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? I'm telling you, British Petroleum has put more birds in oil than Colonel Sanders.

  David Letterman

  Oil, Bird, Mexico

  4 Copy quote

• The modern spectacle of vanished forests and eroded lands, wasted petroleum and ruthless mining, national debts recklessly increased until they are repudiated, and continual revision of positive law, is evidence of what an age without veneration does to itself and its successors.

  Russell Kirk

  Law, Land, Age

  Russell Kirk (2001). “The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot”, p.44, Regnery Publishing

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...the era of cheap oil and natural gas is coming to a crashing end, with global oil production projected to peak in 2010 and North American natural gas extraction rates already in decline. These events will have enormous implications for America's petroleum-dependent food system

  Richard Heinberg

  Oil, America, Events

  Richard Heinberg (2010). “Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines”, p.48, New Society Publishers

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A key impact of recent events was a very persistent, if not permanent shock in the oil supply. This was caused as the oil industry hit geological boundaries, which meant that it could no longer maintain the historic growth rates in petroleum extraction.

  Michael Kumhof

  Impact, Keys, Oil

  4 Copy quote

• Renewable biofuels are meanwhile making inroads in the transportation fuels market and are beginning to have a measurable impact on demand for petroleum fuels, contributing to a decline in oil consumption in the United States in particular starting in 2006... The 93 billion liters of biofuels produced worldwide in 2009 displaced the equivalent of an estimated 68 billion liters of gasoline, equal to about 5 percent of world gasoline production.

  Christopher Flavin

  Oil, Impact, Fuel

  10 Copy quote

• It is sunlight in modified form which turns all the windmills and water wheels and the machinery which they drive. It is the energy derived from coal and petroleum (fossil sunlight) which propels our steam and gas engines, our locomotives and automobiles. ... Food is simply sunlight in cold storage.

  John Harvey Kellogg

  Food, Science, Water

  John Harvey Kellogg “The New Dietetics, What to Eat and How”, Рипол Классик

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• To me the bicycle is in many ways a more satisfactory invention than the automobile. It is consonant with the independence of man because it works under his own power entirely. There is no combustion of some petroleum product..to set the pedals going. Purely mechanical instruments like watches and bicycles are to be preferred to engines that depend on the purchase of power from foreign sources....The price of power is enslavement.

  Louis J. Halle

  Men, Cycling, Independence

  11 Copy quote

• William James describes a man who got the experience from laughing-gas; whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. At last, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. When completely recovered, he rushed to see what he had written. It was 'A smell of petroleum prevails throughout'.

  Bertrand Russell

  Laughter, Men, Smell

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.109, Routledge

  14 Copy quote

  Show source