Bubbling Crude.    Hat's off to the quintessential oil millionaires.    If you are old enough, you may recall that Jed Clampett made his oil strike with his rifle, just like the 2004 oilmen are doing.    Some things never change.  All in all, I come to the conclusion that the Clampetts were a pretty honest, civilized, genteel bunch compared to our current crop of petroleum oiligarchs at Halliburton, Enron, Shell et. al.  Even Clampett Oil is not entirely in the clear however.

I am sorry to have to tell you we have a bigger problem than just the ethical and civility deficits of the current oiligarchs.  Current consumption levels of oil are not sustainable not matter how well armed we might be.   I can think of two reasons right off the top of my head:   peak oil and global warming (more correctly identified as global climate change).     Global climate stuff is on the How's the Weather? page. 

Want to know something about peak oil?   Try these websites:  Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas     or the presentation by C.J. Campbell at Technical University of Clausthall in December 2000. Here's another fairly comprehensive site on fossil fuels:  The Coming Energy Crisis. 

Life After the Oil Crash is pretty comprehensive.  This can be discouraging material.   Take a breather from time to time and look at sustainable sites like William McDonough's site so you don't get too depressed.    More good news, I suppose, if you are either a pig farmer or believe that you will figure out how to do well in the climate change:  Some creative folks at the University of Illinois have come up with a way to turn pig manure into crude oil.   No BS,  just pig manure.   Some of this stuff you just can't make up.   

Die Off - not exactly a cheery name for a domain, but this an interesting page with a lot of great links. 

Read on?