I was reading an article in the Evansville Courier & Press entitled, "Pipeline blast kills at least 260." The article, by Katharine Houreld of the Associated Press, focuses on the terrible pipeline tragedy in Nigeria. The gasoline pipeline had apparently been illegally tapped for months by thieves, who had been taking away the gasoline and selling it on the black market. According to the article, "[a] single pilfered can of gasoline sold on the black market can earn two weeks of wages for a poor Nigerian." Tapping occurs commonly in Nigeria, a country where the oil wealth is reserved for a small group, leaving most of the 130 million residents in poverty.

This article caused me to think a bit more about our gasoline consumption and our continued reliance on turbulent nations. I don't know whether we obtain oil from Nigeria. However, regardless of which countries we obtain oil from, our addiction to this commodity means that we cannot be too selective as to from where we obtain it or what the politics are in those nations. Do we totally blame the thieves for this awful explosion that killed many innocent people or do we partly blame the Nigerian government for encouraging corrupt practices due to its refusal to share the oil wealth with the masses? Why are these people so poor that they need to resort to desperate measures to sell gasoline and further jeopardize the welfare of innocent people? After all, Nigeria is a major oil exporting nation. It is easy to try to isolate our oil consumption in our minds from what goes on in the rest of the world. Yet, in reality, our demands for oil do affect the complexion of the world by allowing volatile nations to sell their goods despite their practices towards their own people. It seems to me time that we reduce this oil demand by developing our own alternative fuels, whether they be from soybeans, corn or some other source. We just need to make sure we don't burn more oil trying to manufacture the alternative fuel. Once we improve the alternative fuel market, perhaps we will be able to move away from our reliance on tumultuous nations across the world. It is unclear whether this will cure these nations' treatment of their own people, yet perhaps we will not be supporting these bad practices. If we reduce our oil demand, we will still buy some oil from across the world. The difference will be that we can insist on buying it from countries that treat their people well, as opposed to buying it from wherever we can get it due to our current oil addiction.